Standard Library Concerns (Phobos / Tango)

[Christopher Wright]

Tim Burrell wrote:
> The problem is really that while, yes, Walter has provided bug fixes, he
> hasn't gone the distance in opening up Phobos to other contributors.
> There are patch submissions that would fix critical bugs that are months
> and months old (there's even a good example on the NG today from Downs).
> 
> Phobos development isn't keeping up with demand.  Many people are
> frustrated at long standing bugs in Phobos.  Now look at the situation,
> we've got two standard libraries, where MOST of the D community is
> opting for a library OTHER THAN the alternative!

Speaking of bugs. If Phobos ceases to be the standard library, then bugs 
in Phobos should be excised from bugzilla, and a separate bug tracker 
should be created for the standard library.

> It's not a healthy state of affairs!
> 
> Phobos will _never_ be able to keep up with Tango in terms of
> reliability, quality, etc, simply because Phobos isn't really open.
> Even just on a pure man hours scale -- Walter can't do it all, nor
> should he have to.  He's designed a really great language, but I think
> it's time to pass the torch on the standard library.

Now Andrei and Brad are working on Phobos, and I think Walter doesn't do 
much with it. But that's two people instead of probably a dozen or so 
who actively work on Tango.

> You can have your cake and eat it too!  Everything's basically already
> in place!  A new standard library that is open, well maintained, and
> that has Phobos compatibility available.

Right. Walter just has to tell Brad and Andrei to use that instead and 
drop it in the zipfile with each release. And probably send a prerelease 
version of the compiler to Sean and Kris a day or two before, which he 
already has to do with Andrei and Brad... So it's pretty much no extra 
work for him.