Why the Standard Library

[Alex Rønne Petersen]

On 19-01-2012 19:52, Zachary Lund wrote:
> I've been wondering in the back of my mind for awhile now and it really
> hasn't bothered me much but I figured I might as well get it off my mind.
>
> Why is there a need for a default "standard" library? I can understand
> about some of the core stuff, but hell, even threads can be handled via
> a 3rd party library. Why must Phobos or any library be a part of D itself?
>
> I'm unfamiliar with the reason for C++ having a standard library as well
> (which I bring up when people bitch about poor design or something
> similar which I usually get no viable or any answer at all). More of an
> ignorant question probably but oh well...

Without a standard library, interoperation between libraries becomes a 
huge pain, because there's no standard interface/design for various 
things such as threads, containers, bigints, networking, file I/O, etc.

Not to mention, if a standard library didn't exist, you'd have to adapt 
your build system to whatever arbitrary amount of libraries you need to use.

-- 
- Alex