Announcing a new library

[kris]

Frits van Bommel wrote:
> I'm curious :) :
> 
> 
> When did this project start?

It originated from discussions on April 8th 2006

> 
> 
> Was it deliberately kept secret? (I never heard of it before today, and 
> I can't find any mention of it on the DSource forums)
> If so, why? Was it meant as a "D 1.0 release" present to Walter and/or 
> the D community?

We wanted to ensure functionality was sufficiently cohesive before 
release, and the documentation effort has been larger than anticipated ;)

The timing is somewhat coincidental. We wanted to release last year, but 
all have day jobs. For us, removing code from the library is as 
important as adding it, so we've been working hard on finding that 
balance. Part of the release delay is due to moving non-core code into 
what are called compatible libraries (which slot right into the folder 
structure on your disk, if you like it that way)

> 
> 
>> A selection of contributors include:
> 
> [snip]
> 
> Were all of those people "in on it"? Or does that list include people 
> who wrote code that has been incorporated into Tango, but who were not 
> necessarily aware of its existence? (before the announcement, obviously)

All those people were involved directly in the project to one degree or 
another, along with others who names slipped off by accident (Trevor 
Parscal, for example).

> 
> 
>  > * A networking model that is growing to encompass some of the most
>  > common IO designs and network protocols.
> 
> Which network protocols?
> TCP/IP and UDP?
> HTTP and FTP? SSH? Others?

TCP/IP, UDP, HTTP, FTP. Other to follow. One of the IO extensions is a 
Selectors package for fully asynchronous IO -- very powerful and fully 
cross-platform too (courtesy of Juan)

Another important element is I18N support (courtesy of J Chapman), fully 
integerated into Tango.

> 
> 
> I didn't see compression mentioned in the feature list. Phobos has 
> ext.c.zlib IIRC, does Tango have something similar? (not necessarily 
> zip, but some well-known compression format would be nice)
> If it doesn't, are there any plans to add it?

It'll be added, and be integrated into the http protocol also. Will 
likely use a zlib wrapper, to keep up with ongoing releases.


> 
> 
> How different is it from a mere combination of what can be found on 
> DSource (and other D sites)?
> 

Quite different -- cohesive is the keyword for us. Of course, the devil 
is in the details :)


> 
> Final questions:
> Where will it be hosted? DSource I presume?
> Is there a preview available? Or documentation?

It's is hosted at dsource, and we owe Brad a huge debt of gratitude for 
that (and probably some contributions too :)

Beta will be released before the end of the month. Until then we'd like 
to keep focused on QA and, of course, the huge documentation effort. 
Writers are welcome to help out -- seriously.

> 
> 
> All in all this looks pretty interesting, from the information currently 
> available.


We hope you'll like it -- there's a lot of D enthuisiasts involved who do :)

- Kris