std.getopt suggestion

[Regan Heath]

On Wed, 05 Oct 2011 16:03:11 +0100, Andrei Alexandrescu  
<SeeWebsiteForEmail at erdani.org> wrote:

> On 10/5/11 6:53 AM, Regan Heath wrote:
>> On Tue, 04 Oct 2011 20:39:42 +0100, Andrei Alexandrescu
>> <SeeWebsiteForEmail at erdani.org> wrote:
>>> Did it ever prevent you from getting anything done with it?
>>
>> That's not the question we should be asking. The question we should be
>> asking is, will anyone ever want to re-use getopts parser for something
>> other than a once off command line parse for a command line application.
>
> I don't think yours is the right question either. This thread has become  
> illustrative of a trend that would be great to change course a bit. I  
> sustained my position in this thread longer than necessary in an attempt  
> to explain this to me and others.

I understand the issue, and the point you're making below, and I agree  
completely.  At the same time, this particular change being as simple as  
it is, and as obviously beneficial as I hope I have managed to show, would  
have taken less time to simply change than it has taken to argue about.  I  
agree we should not spend too long worrying about the smaller details, nor  
should we simply make change for the sake of change without spending the  
requisite time considering those changes, but that should not stop us  
making small beneficial changes alongside the larger more important ones.

<quote left for context..>
> Let me give a little context. This summer there was serious talk about  
> using D at Facebook for a project that would last three months in  
> development. D fulfilled all requirements, but had problems with library  
> availability. For example, I was asked about D's connectivity to OpenSSL  
> and MySQL. I told them they can translate the appropriate C headers  
> manually or semi-automatically. They looked into it but they gave up  
> because they saw this effort as a foreshadow of several other missing  
> libraries. The barrier of entry for using OpenSSL or MySQL in Python is  
> very low. The project was written in Python.
>
> A friend of mine, startup owner, read TDPL cover to cover and loved it.  
> Then he did some more research and spent $7000 on a top-of-the-line  
> machine to run his service-based application, written in Python. This is  
> because he figured he has a lot of libraries already available for  
> Python that will accelerate his productivity, and estimated that for his  
> projected load he can compensate the speed difference. "Not everybody is  
> Google, Facebook, or Yahoo", he said.
>
> There are other similar stories; these are the most recent I remember.  
> We now have the GNU integration to get busy with, and we need a host of  
> other APIs that connect us to the world. The right question is, can we  
> afford to discuss packing three globals into one struct in std.getopt at  
> this time?
>
> Making working code a tad better could go on forever, and might seem  
> like progress. But it's not - it's asymptotic progress towards a local  
> optimum, while we're looking at a hill of potential ahead.
>
> I kindly suggest anyone with an interest in D's future to focus on  
> moving the big rocks. We can worry about the gravel and the sand later.
</quote left for context>

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