Why Phobos is cool

[Yatheendra]

I am a long-time lurker still debating how to dip my toes in 
BetterC, but I have read these forums, watched DConf videos and 
perused library code.

Phobos is great because the parts I looked at are the first time 
I have grokked library code, it is so well-written. Part of it is 
down to the language offering "developability", the rest is down 
to good taste I guess :-) I could understand at a high-level 
whatever was going on, before ever writing a single line of D.

The complaints cropping up all the time make the forum so bloody 
unproductive (sorry for using strong words. is it just regular 
free-riding ingrates? or some other types? why this overdose just 
on D forums!). Anyway, let me pontificate too.

Leadership, past and present: please ignore all non-contributors' 
complaints, just expect them to write up a technical bug 
report/enhancement proposal (unless you enjoy riling them up). 
You have continued to make your bleeding edge ideas openly 
available, and don't really need to respond to second-guessing by 
non-language designers. I don't know any other project of this 
size with the founders remaining involved this deeply, you have a 
lot of stamina to be replying to less-knowledgeable strangers too.

Contributor-driven forum threads have been so much more 
substantive, but their open availability is what gives a newcomer 
pause. I think it is legitimate to do that in a less discoverable 
place than the forums. Because right now, between auto-decode 
default and the complaints of contributors about process as well 
as direction, I don't know how newcomers can shake the feeling 
that this is Walter's and Andrei's long-term lab!

Contributors: you must have left C++ too far behind, you wouldn't 
deign to suggest changes in that morass. Just because this is a 
more open place with a direct line to leadership, you seem to 
want equal footing for your approaches. I don't think it is too 
much to expect that you defer to Walter's choices because he does 
have a fuller view. Contributing to his considered vision can't 
be of no ongoing benefit.

Users: please try to derate your negativity by acknowledging the 
possibility that language and library design is hard, and other 
language communities likely have all of these debates but not 
overtly publicly. By all means, look for stability but do not 
look for perfection. D is likely better than most any 
natively-compiled language, it is just that you won't hear false 
assurances of no breakage across releases - it is software made 
by few minds, and there will be the odd regression.