The role of Tango

[Kris]

"renoX" <renosky at free.fr> wrote

> when contributors add new code in a project, reusing the same style as the 
> other code is a sign of professional/mature programmers (ok, amateurish 
> was too strong sorry)

Sure, RenoX. I agree completely. But the thing is, Tango was never intended 
to be a contribution to any other library. It is not a part of phobos. In 
fact, phobos is currently being reworked to have parts of Tango instead. So 
your point simply doesn't apply. You see the distinction? The outcome is 
that you're calling people "amateurish" and so on for no valid reason 
whatsoever.

So what is Tango? Why does it exist? This is my perspective only, so take it 
for what it is:

Tango is designed to be a complete, robust, cohesive, mature and rational 
library of quality comparable to C# or Java. Better in a number of cases, 
perhaps currently weaker in others. The goal of Tango has always been to 
help D get in the door of the commercial sector and, as such, it is surely a 
blessing for D? I mean, there's a /lot/ of work in there. And, regardless of 
your stylistic preferences over module names, it is a damn fine example of 
both solid D code and what this community is capable of when focused. It is 
a community effort after all. If you consider yourself to be a D enthusiast, 
then you perhaps ought to be thanking all those Tango folks for all their 
hard work instead of pissing on the communal kitchen floor :p

I mean, there's no kickback for the Tango folks on this. It's not like the 
Tango folks will somehow retire off it (lol). Instead, there's a lot of 
altruism involved (you'd perhaps be shocked at the number of man-hours 
involved in Tango - I think it was calculated as ten man-years recently). 
Think about it. Yet, here we are bitching about minor stylistic issues 
instead. It's refreshing to hear an honest opinion from Alix (apparently a 
Tango detractor), about the coherency, clarity and quality of the code in 
Tango, because that is actually what /should/ be important. The library 
stands as much as an example of how to use D as anything else. It's free, 
it's innovative, and it includes some exemplary code from many of the best 
minds involved in this community. Look at the list of folks in the Tango 
contributor page, and you'll see what I mean.

Basically, if you don't like Tango because it doesn't jive with your notion 
of style, that's fine.You really don't have to use it. If you don't like 
Tango because of some reason that we can remedy, then please hook up on IRC, 
or write a ticket or whatever. You'll find that the Tango folks are usually 
incredibly responsive ... even when their spouses would much rather  the 
damn computer was switched off.  If you're one of the many, many people who 
use already Tango, thanks for all the tickets you've been writing :)

- Kris