The Death of D. (Was Tango vs Phobos)

[superdan]

Sean Kelly Wrote:

> Brian Price wrote:
> > My take on the Tango vs Phobos situation is:
> > 
> > For production use the only real choice is D1 (D2 being alpha) and it looks like
> > there are going to be so many changes in the language that going from a D1 app to
> > a D2 app is going to require more than a bit of work and thought.
> 
> It's also worth mentioning that whatever is decided, no changes are 
> likely to occur with D1 / Phobos1 because that version of D is frozen. 
> So from a practical standpoint I think Tango and Tangobos will continue 
> to be the preferred approach for development under D1.
> 
> > So, restricting the answer to D1, Tango seems to be a more full featured , robust,
> > and maintained library than Phobos.  I'd expect that to change in D2 and expect
> > the natural choice there will be Phobos (barring a ton of work by the Tango crew).
> 
> Pretty much.  Though having some sort of shared runtime /may/ affect how 
> some of the features in tango.core are exposed.  I would obviously 
> prefer if Phobos just built on top of Tango as with the Tango / Tangobos 
> solution for D1, but that doesn't seem likely to happen.

glad to hear that. there's quite a few of us who aren't quite fans of tango. i'd rather wait for bartosh walt & andrei to put their weight behind phobos2. 

> > Regardless of the choice of library for use with D1, moving to D2 with either
> > library looks like a chore since Phobos seems to be undergoing some (much needed)
> > significant changes from D1 to D2 versions.
> 
> Yup.
> 
> > As to the larger topic, D is potentially caught on the horns of a dilemma: D1 is
> > not a significant enough advance on current languages to justify a move even if
> > there were no library concerns; D2 may well be enough of a step forward to justify
> > a move but there is the issue of timing.  My take is that if the upcoming C++
> > standard makes it into compilers used in common production before D2 is ready for
> > prime time that D may never gain a real foothold in mainstream use.  I'm hoping
> > that the D2 team sets a deadline and leaves some things for a future D3 rather
> > than miss the window of opportunity.
> 
> In my opinion, the benefits of D1 over comparable mainstream languages 
> are quite substantial but difficult to quantify.  The elegance of the 
> language tends to produce vastly more maintainable code than C++, for 
> example, which is a huge win for team development.
> 
> As far as D2 is concerned, I think it's really too early to say.  My 
> current opinion is that the feature additions in D2 impact the syntax in 
> such a way that they eliminate much of the advantage of D1--stemming 
> from elegance and simplicity--in exchange for largely theoretical 
> benefits.  But D2 is still in development so who knows.

u realize if u don't want that to look like fud u better back that up. i mean we could be sittin' on our ass and muse on them theoretical & practical issues. or we could write d2 and bring real arguments to the table. so how much d2 code have you written. i know i switched to d2 as soon as it was out. i have nuff freedom @ work to write at least part of my code in whatever. the more versions arrive with new stuff the more d1 looks to me like an ass-backwards neanderthal tool made of sticks bear claws and silex. could even go as far as sayin' d1 ain't ever gonna make it to prime time. it's just a cute lil language that has a few merits marred by its issues. all languages are like that. d2... d2 feels different because it is different. larger ambitions to address real problems in innovative ways. and leave no shit behind like most languages do in pursuit of the mother of all features. and the new team has much more knowledge than walt alone. (sorry walt. but i guess u'd agree.)

so sean. how much d2 did you write. hope you agree it's hard to claim it has no practical advantages if you haven't practically used it. the irony, eh.