Any chance to call Tango as Extended Standard Library

[Don]

John Reimer wrote:
> Hello dsimcha,
> 
>> == Quote from Daniel Keep (daniel.keep.lists at gmail.com)'s article
>>
>>> Piotrek wrote:
>>>
>>>> Lars Ivar Igesund wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Tango will stay Tango (and tango.*). The above naming assumes that
>>>>> Tango will depend on Phobos, and it will not.
>>>>>
>>>> I see.
>>>>
>>>> Cheers
>>>>
>>> (Note: speaking as merely an infrequent contributor to Tango; my
>>> opinion
>>> is my own and does not reflect on those of the Master Dancers, or the
>>> ruling council of glittery-shoed programmers.)
>>> (Warning: semi-rant ahead.)
>>> The problem is that Phobos and Tango are diametrically opposed in
>>> almost
>>> every conceivable way.  Bringing them together would be like trying
>>> to
>>> bring matter and anti-matter together; you're just going to blow
>>> yourself up.
>>> It's best if you think of Phobos as being Python and Tango as being
>>> Java.  Phobos implements a relatively flat (if messy) hierarchy of
>>> simple, fat classes.  For example, IO is done using the Stream
>>> interfaces, each one implements all the methods you'd probably need
>>> to
>>> work with streams.
>>> Tango, on the other hand, implements a very deep (if confusing)
>>> hierarchy of simple, component interfaces that get plugged together.
>>> Unlike Phobos, IO in Tango has many layers and components, each of
>>> which
>>> is very narrowly defined, allowing you to plug them together however
>>> you
>>> like.
>>> The problem is that neither of these approaches is WRONG.  They're
>>> both
>>> valid and arguably better in certain circumstances.  What's more, the
>>> continued existence of both shows that there are people who believe
>>> in
>>> each of them (not necessarily at the same time, but there you go.)
>>> So let's say we combined them into std.* and stdex.*.  Why is Tango
>>> stdex?  Why isn't Tango std.* and Phobos stdsimple?
>>> Ok, ignoring egos, the problem is that they wouldn't work together
>>> anyway.  An old favourite of mine is (again, sorry about this) IO.
>>> Phobos strives to be compatible with the C IO library; so you can
>>> interleave Phobos and C IO calls and it's all gravy.
>>> Tango takes C out the back and shoots it before burying it
>>> upside-down
>>> at a crossroads with a steak through the heart and salting the earth.
>>> You CAN mix Tango and C IO calls, but you really have no idea what
>>> order
>>> the output's going to arrive in.
>>> I remember Andrei getting antsy about this a while back; why break
>>> compatibility?!  Because Tango's IO was faster this way.  Neither one
>>> of
>>> them was 'right' because they both had legitimate points of view.
>>> Really, it all boils down to this: there *is no* one right way.  Yes,
>>> it's more confusing.  But it's a problem with programming in general;
>>> programming is all about looking at your options and making a
>>> decision
>>> on the matter.
>>> -- Daniel
>> Wow.  Excellent analysis.  One thing I'd like to add is that Phobos
>> tends to be
>> much more focused on the bleeding edge, with pretty much all
>> development happening
>> on the D2 branch, while Tango is more focused on targeting stable
>> compilers.

>> Also, another way I would summarize the situation is that Phobos
>> focuses on first
>> making simple operations simple first and foremost, and then worries
>> about making
>> complicated operations possible, while Tango does just the opposite.
> 
> I don't know if that is strictly true.  In Tango's defense, I believe it 
> has tried quite hard to move in the direction of making simple things 
> simple even under the restrictions of its own philosophy :).  If you 
> examine the progression of Tango revisions, there has been a significant 
> "cleanup" in progress that appears to be simplifying what was originally 
> verbose.
> 
>> I've said this before, but I think it's not so bad for D to have two
>> standard libraries with different design philosophies, at least in
>> principle, though the inability to use both side by side on D1 is
>> obviously a bad thing.  There are times when I like the Phobos "keep
>> it simple, stupid" approach and times when I want Tango's "everything
>> but the kitchen sink" approach.  There are a few things that I think
>> would help a lot here:
>>
> 
>> 1.  Both Phobos and Tango should adopt these opposite design
>> philosophies, which are true de facto anyhow, officially.  This will
>> prevent excessive feature envy and duplication of effort and allow
>> newcomers to determine which is best for their everyday use.
>>
> Like I said, I believe Tango has worked harder at doing this than you 
> might think.  I don't think Phobos cares to look at the opposite 
> philosophy because it really doesn't merge well with it's intended 
> goals.  Tango can afford some brevity because it started at the verbose 
> end.
> 
> 
>> 2.  The creation of druntime so that Phobos and Tango can be used side
>> by side is a huge step forward.  Once D2 is out of alpha and Tango is
>> ported to D2, people will be able to use their preferred lib most of
>> the time and the other when their preferred lib has some missing
>> functionality.  This will also greatly simplify 3rd party libs.
>>
> 
> 
> This somehow parallels my original thinking too which I've mentioned 
> before. I am all for the druntime, and it certainly will be a net gain 
> if both Tango V2 (if it ever surfaces complete) and Phobos can share it 
> once D2 is stable.  But I'm afraid, it is still a grave difficulty for 
> new users to face two different libraries.  Now that I've waited and 
> think about it longer, I'm not sure what to make of it.  How does one 
> promote this twin package deal for D.  I predict that the first person 
> that finds a clever way to promote D 2.0 and it's shiny new twin-library 
> / pick-your-style feature will be a D hero forever. ;-)  
> 
> No, it's not bad.

<small rant>
I completely disagree. I think the two libraries is a disaster. I can 
see that so many people have been exposed to a lifetime of propaganda 
that "competition is a good thing", but it's just propaganda. 
Competition inevitably means wasted effort, and it's obvious in D.
</small rant>

Note, however that the gulf between Phobos and Tango mostly exists in 
I/O; and C++ also has two I/O packages (the one inherited from C, and 
the awful iostreams). So I don't think this is a big a problem as 
stated. If we work at it, we could move the difference to be entirely a 
I/O difference. But that would require willingless to do it, and I'm not 
sure that it's really there.

<big rant>
In my attempt to bring both libraries together I have experienced 
reactions from both sides which appeared hostile (or at least reluctant) 
to a merger. Apart from Sean and myself, I don't see much evidence that 
people actually want them to merge. They just want the other one to 
disappear.
</big rant>