$750 Bounty: Issue 16416 - Phobos std.uni out of date (should be updated to latest Unicode standard)

[Dmitry Olshansky]

On Tuesday, 5 May 2020 at 20:11:44 UTC, Robert M. Münch wrote:
> On 2020-05-05 15:39:12 +0000, Dmitry Olshansky said:
>
>> On Monday, 4 May 2020 at 17:01:01 UTC, Robert M. Münch wrote:
>>> Following my "Is it time for a Unicode update of std.uni?" 
>>> post in D group, I would like to try out to sponsor this 
>>> effort for "Issue 16416 - Phobos std.uni out of date (should 
>>> be updated to latest Unicode standard)" [1]
>>> 
>>> For me, this, too, is an experiment to find out if it's 
>>> possible to move specific issues/topics forward. And maybe 
>>> even find people that are open to contact work too. For me, 
>>> all these things are pretty related.
>>> 
>>> So, not knowing how much work it is, nor knowing what a good 
>>> amount would be, I took the other route and asked me, what is 
>>> it worth for me to get it done? Note: Getting #16416 done is 
>>> not critical for me; most likely, I could even live with the 
>>> current state of std.uni. On the other hand, std.uni is a 
>>> very fundamental building block, and having it up to date and 
>>> maybe even extended should be much value to D.
>>> 
>>> So, I'm offering $750 to get it done.
>> 
>> 
>> I'm guess I'm not eligible for the bounty ;)
>
> Why not?
>

Felt a bit like cheating. Russian traditions preclude taking 
money for things
you (think you) wanted to do anyway.

>> Anyhow if anyone wants easy money - shoot me an email, or 
>> reply in this thread.
>
> Well, as I wrote, since I don't have a real good understanding 
> about the necessary effort I started from "what is it worth for 
> me in $ to get it done?". So, if it's a simple script-change 
> and a re-run and you are the only one knowing this and keeping 
> it for yourself... yes, it's easy money.
>
> On the other hand, if you can help someone to get started and 
> it's a couple of hours, I would expect people to be fair enough 
> and state: Hey, $400 (or whatever) is OK, let's take the rest 
> to sponsor something else. That's what I would do.

I started on it, and it turned out a bit more then I hope for + 
I'm doing it
on simple Windows workstation without much of my usual power 
tools. LDC for Windows works like a charm though.

It seems Unicode 13.0.0 pulled a plug on a couple of "derived" 
tables, that is data files that can be reconsturcted from other 
primary ones. Took at least half an hour to figure that out and 
rebuild the missing bits.

If you don't mind I'll go with 100$ per hour estimate which is 
basically my usual contract rate. It took me about 2 hours for 
now, and I think I'd be done in a one or two more.

Merging this into Phobos though is the otehr 90% of the legwork, 
I hope somebody will help me with that and maybe we'll just split 
your generous bounty this way.

>
>> Spoiler is - the whole thing is code generated and there is 
>> only one table that I forgot about (i.e. I have no idea what 
>> is the source table for it in Unicode standard).
>
> With "forgot" you mean, you can't remember, or it's missing at 
> all in your prior work?

I mean I know what this table does by its usage but the codegen 
part is missing,
likely a classic missing commit problem of being a single 
maintainer of the codegen tool (and the fact that it's not in the 
main dlang repos).

>
>> P.S. I'm kind of back, but very busy and my health is mostly 
>> great despite the COVID outrage out there.
>
> That's great to hear... and maybe std.uni support/coaching for 
> someone stepping up is possible. That would be great too. If, 
> maybe even I can try to do it...


Absolutely. I mean I'm in no shape to do the heavy lifting of day 
in day out
maintanance of std.* stuff but I'd love to coach somebody to 
learn how
std.regex and std.uni work. I can also share my vision for 
improvement, and
will gladly help with refactoring. Both of modules predate many 
of the good things in DLang and std.allocator in particular.

Boy, I'd love to have allocators back in the day.

--
Dmitry Olshansky