Rename std.string.toStringz?

[Jonathan M Davis]

On 2011-06-25 18:50, Daniel Gibson wrote:
> Am 26.06.2011 03:29, schrieb Walter Bright:
> > On 6/25/2011 5:31 PM, Jonathan M Davis wrote:
> >> So, while the majority have indicated in the past renaming functions
> >> in Phobos
> >> to be properly camelcased is worth breaking code in the general case,
> >> there is
> >> no such consensus in this particular case, so toStringz is sticking
> >> around.
> > 
> > There's a large community using D that doesn't necessarily participate
> > in ng discussions. I'd like to see more than a simple majority in order
> > to rename existing functions (especially ones that have been around a
> > while).
> > 
> > Breaking existing code really, really annoys people. It drives people
> > away from using D as "unstable" - and they'd be right.
> > 
> > I don't think we can create a viable D community if we break existing
> > code every month without really, really good reasons to.
> 
> In the future the D community may be even larger - much larger hopefully.
> IMHO inconsistent naming in the standard lib makes D look
> unprofessional. If someone take a first look at the languages and it's
> standard lib and it looks like it's just cobbled together it may scare
> him off.
> 
> I agree that there shouldn't be breaking changes /all the time/, but I'd
> really like to see *one* big breaking update that fixes all naming
> inconsistencies within Phobos. (Keeping deprecated aliases for the old
> names for some releases should make the transition easier.)

The current plan at the moment when it comes to deprecation is that things 
which are deprecated will generally be labeled as scheduled for deprecation 
for 6 months, deprecated for 6 months, and then fully removed - though the 
exact length may vary depending on release dates and what exactly is being 
deprecated (e.g. stuff that's been around longer is more likely to take longer 
to remove than stuff that's changed after a single release - which hopefully 
happens very rarely). So, code shouldn't be breaking out from under people, 
and they'll have some time to make the necessary changes as best fits what 
they're doing.

As for fixing all of Phobos to be be consistent in its naming, I don't know 
how long that that will take, but hopefully it doesn't take very long. We 
really do need to get the changes done quickly so that we're not forcing 
people to change their code often. Fortunately, most of Phobos follows its own 
naming conventions. std.string and std.ctype are the primary offenders at this 
point, I believe. So, it probably won't take very long.

- Jonathan M Davis