Polishing D - suggestions and comments

[Lars Ivar Igesund]

Jesse Phillips wrote:

> On Fri, 25 Jan 2008 18:57:17 +0100, Lars Ivar Igesund wrote:
> 
>> Dan wrote:
>> 
>>> Jarrod Wrote:
>>> 
>>>> On Wed, 23 Jan 2008 21:52:19 -0500, Daniel wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> > Walter is, and ought to be, focusing his efforts on the language
>>>> > more than the libraries.
>>>> > 
>>>> > Oddly, I would argue that all libraries are simply stop-gap fixes
>>>> > for missing or poorly implemented language features; indeed most
>>>> > programming code tends to be.
>>>> > 
>>>> > However, D has phobos, there was mango, now tango, and work has been
>>>> > done on a tangobos.  The fact that the library keeps changing shows
>>>> > that D's language features actually have an impact, as they
>>>> > frequently replace or integrate library features.
>>>> > 
>>>> > Regards,
>>>> > Dan
>>>> 
>>>> To claim Phobos is not a part of D is to claim the C stdlib is not a
>>>> part of C.
>>>> Phobos is a part of D, and it's a very important part of D too (hell
>>>> we can't even have classes without Object.d). Walter is the father of
>>>> Phobos and although he allows others to contribute to it, he is the
>>>> one who decides what to add to Phobos and how to add it. Yes, Walter
>>>> should focus on developing the language of course, but he also has to
>>>> decide what the *standard* library is going to be since he is after
>>>> all the head project manager of both Phobos and D.
>>>> I emphasize the word *standard* because right now, we don't have a
>>>> standard. Unless you include a bunch of versioning/mixin hacks, we
>>>> currently have code that won't even compile on different workstations
>>>> because of two very different core libraries that are totally
>>>> incompatible. So now we're stuck with an annoying rift. Tangobos is a
>>>> step in the right direction to get compatibility back, but at the
>>>> moment it's just a band-aid solution.
>>>> 
>>>> All I want to see is a standard, be it Phobos with all the cool stuff
>>>> Tango adds, or a Tango with all the nice things Phobos has. But this
>>>> isn't going to happen unless one of the dev teams concedes already :|
>>> 
>>> Fair assessment.  I think Tango is more open source and takes the load
>>> off Walter.  It's just simply too heavyweight for me to dare use it; so
>>> library developers go to Tango and library users still go to Phobos.  :
>>> p
>> 
>> I am just curious, what do you consider to be too heavyweight about
>> Tango? Or why do you think it is too heavyweight?
> 
> I still have yet to develop in Tango (My book should be here within the
> week), but I think I know what Dan is trying to say by heavyweight.
> 
> It is not related to the size or speed of the code, as Sean was
> questioning, but in the use. The best comparison I can think of is that
> it is like going from C to Java. (I'm not saying Tango is like java) The
> phobos library is very procedural, you you import your module and call
> your functions. Tango is Object based, import, create object/call object
> to do something for you. There is a sense of simplicity when you don't
> use objects. That is frankly one of the reasons I have not moved to Tango
> yet.

I know there are a few places in Tango where an additional line may be
needed (and many where you'll need quite a few less), but without exact
examples of what people think is a problem, it is hard to make qualified
decisions on where to make improvements.

-- 
Lars Ivar Igesund
blog at http://larsivi.net
DSource, #d.tango & #D: larsivi
Dancing the Tango