DUB - call to arms

[JN]

On Sunday, 14 April 2019 at 11:21:09 UTC, Andre Pany wrote:
>
> Dub has a working eco system and a lot of developers put effort 
> into it. It will take years to have another solution with the 
> same functionality like Dub and please do not forget we still 
> have to maintain Dub until the new solution can replace Dub.
> Could you please write the details why a correction of Dub 
> isn't possible and a complete rewrite is the only solution?

I think on the ecosystem side, dub is the #1 thing that ever came 
to D. I remember what life was before dub. First of all, there 
was no central repository, so it was hard to find a package 
you're interested in to begin with. Secondly, every package 
required additional steps to download dependencies, usually 
through a bash script. Then you had to roll a dice which build 
tool it expects, will it be bud, dsss, maybe makefiles, maybe 
something else? Oh, and if you were on Windows, you were screwed 
99% of time, because the author loves bash and never tested it on 
non-POSIX platforms.

Right now the situation is soo much better. I can download a 
random project from the internet, type dub build and it just 
works. It will download and build necessary dependencies and then 
build the project, usually without any manual steps involved.

Personally I haven't really encountered these pain points with D, 
so it's hard for me to say if it's a cause I'd donate to, but I 
think anything related to improving Dub is crucial for D 
ecosystem to flourish.