std.getopt suggestion

[Nick Sabalausky]

"Andrei Alexandrescu" <SeeWebsiteForEmail at erdani.org> wrote in message 
news:j6hrko$ni3$1 at digitalmars.com...
> 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 assume you're referring to the trend of being unsatisfied with unwavering 
single-person vetos on trivial-to-implement issues that have landslide 
support?

> I sustained my position in this thread longer than necessary in an
> attempt to explain this to me and others.
>
> [snip big long story]

In other words, there are many ways in which D's existing libs fail to be 
sufficient for people's uses.

Ummm, like getopt.

Except getopt is easy low-hanging fruit.

> 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?
>

For god's sake, it would have taken less time to implement the fucking 
change (that nobody but you has been opposed to), than to write that little 
story about why we should ignore the matter.

> 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.
>

Not to be an ass, but even *I* don't think reviewing and getting outdent 
whipped into shape was a "big rock" or anything bigger than gravel. (Though 
I am very appreciative of it and I'm very happy with the final result.)