Pondering. Computer Business. How serious this gets will be dependent on comments.

tsbockman thomas.bockman at gmail.com
Tue May 25 22:01:46 UTC 2021


I am not any kind of decision maker or gatekeeper here, but I 
have been active in the forums here for years, and made some 
small contributions to the compiler, standard library, and 
runtime, so I have some understanding of the process.

On Tuesday, 25 May 2021 at 20:04:46 UTC, btiffin wrote:
> How would the D team feel if someone came by with a module for 
> base 10 decimal arithmetic?

There is definitely interest in this. Many people have asked for 
it on the forums before, and various members of the community 
have created [Dub 
packages](https://code.dlang.org/search?q=decimal). At a glance, 
[Razvan Stefanescu's 
"decimal"](https://code.dlang.org/packages/decimal) appears to be 
the most complete.

If one of those appears suitable to you, you could participate in 
its development and maintenance, or advocate for its inclusion in 
the D standard library.

> How would the D team feel if someone came up with a module for 
> block IO?  Mainframes are block and record IO machines.  Byte 
> streams are usually layered on block IO.  This implies a lot of 
> "fixed length" fields.  Again, a COBOL strength, and auditors 
> seem to appreciate bounded, predictable data.

I believe this can also be done as a Dub package to start. If you 
think someone would like to use it, just go write it. Again, it 
can be added to the standard library later, after the code has 
proven itself, if needed.

> How would the D team feel if someone pressed for EBCDIC 
> support?  Perhaps not internal, but as an option.

This can also be done as a library, and added to Phobos later if 
that seems wise.

> I'd put language counts at 1 to 10 in Computer Business,

Out of curiosity, what else do you consider to be a "Computer 
Business" language? Java?

> Would discussing Computer Business features be welcomed by team 
> D, ignored, or actively railed against as an unwanted 
> distraction?
> ...
> So, would adding features of Computer Business help or hurt D 
> at this point?

Language/compiler changes are very expensive, and D2 has a huge 
backlog of important work to get through there. Quite a few 
compiler pull requests rot on the vine due to insufficient review 
capacity as it is.

Library changes and additions scale much better, and good work 
will generally be welcomed even by people who have no intention 
of every using it, personally. Just don't try to *start* anything 
big inside Phobos - the community has learned not to be in a rush 
to set unproven APIs in stone.


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