D Conference Tango Phobos

Janice Caron caron800 at googlemail.com
Sat Sep 15 23:22:14 PDT 2007


On 9/16/07, kris <foo at bar.com> wrote:
> > Janice Caron wrote:
> >> Module names in mixed case!? Did the Tango folk not read the D style
> >> guide where it says "Module and package names are all lower case, and
> >> only contain the characters [a..z][0..9][_]", or did they just
> >> purposefully decide to avoid it? If the former, that was amateurish;
> >> if the latter, it was petty.
>
> Do you *honestly* think we've spent this formidable effort in creating a
> rich, fully-featured and cost-free library, for people like you to use
> (if you so desire), just because we need to satisfy an urge to be
> "petty" or "amateurish" ?

That was just a first impression. It was my *honest* first impression,
but it was still just a first impression. /Of course/ first
impressions aren't always right, but if I were in your shoes, I'd
definitely like to recieve honest criticism from folk, especially
about first impressions. To make an analogy, let's liken it to a
novel. If you show me an excellent novel with a brilliant storyline
and excellent characterisation, but for which chapter one is lousy,
I'm probably not going to read chapter two. Sure, the author can blame
the reader for not "getting" it, but it's unlikely to help the author
get any readers.

So I apologise if my first impression offended you, but yes, I was
being honest. Perhaps I might have a different opinion if you could
answer the following question: Why did you violate the D style guide?


> >> why not just provide that
> >> as add-ons to Phobos, using the same style and naming conventions?
>
> You assume that we didn't try to do that?

Again, not trying to be offensive, but actually yes, I did assume
that. That could be a failure of imagination on my part, of course,
but the website provides no explanation of (a) why this functionality
could not have been provided in the form of add-ons to Phobos, nor (b)
why the same style and naming conventions as Phobos were not followed.
But I'm happy to be corrected, so tell me: What happened when you
tried?



> So, help us clean up the Documentation?
> The biggest problem for us is a simple one: we need people to help us
> with the doc. Wanna help?

Vicious circle there! :-) I can't document something I don't
understand, and I can't understand something which isn't well
documented.

Above and beyond all that, I can't honestly say I'm interested. In my
first post on this topic, I wrote: "I had not looked at Tango before
this discussion, but now that I have,
I have to say I don't like it either". Given that, why would I want to
help the project? I'm not trying to be awkward or anything, but I do
actually need to like something before I'd be prepared to commit any
of my valuable spare time on it. There are just so many things that I
/do/ like in the world that are also begging for my spare time.

But here's an example of where I started to get turned off. When
reading the Introduction page, I groaned when I read "instead of
merely listing objects and methods in dry sequential fashion,...".
Perhaps this might surprise you, but some of us /like/ comprehensive
lists of objects and methods, and find it the best way to understand
things. (In fact, my preference would be, listing objects and methods
in hyperlinked fashion).




> You can always push to get changes made in the library also.

Perhaps. But your suggestion presupposes that I'm interested. Right
now, I'm just shrugging my shoulders and thinking "not for me". And
honestly, the styistic issues matter very greatly in that appraisal.


> While we do
> get some tricky requests, most active participants tend to find their
> wishes are treated with a sense of urgency. Turnaround time for some of
> those have been measured in seconds ;)

Right, but to attract the public, you need to look at some of wishes
raised by /non/-active participants, because they are never going to
/become/ active participants so long as they perceive that it's "not
for me". So, for example, I request that module names be lowercase, as
per the style guide. It's not much, but it would be a good first step.



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