D : Not for me anymore

[John Reimer]

On Mon, 16 Oct 2006 14:04:02 -0700, Derek Parnell <derek at psyc.ward> wrote:

> On Mon, 16 Oct 2006 11:03:14 -0700, Walter Bright wrote:
>
>> I'm happy to merge things in, but am reluctant to do so without
>> reviewing the diffs line by line.
>
> Actually, when I wrote "take Phobos", I really meant "take Phobos". You
> would no longer have *the* sole controlling vote on what goes in or goes
> out of phobos, nor would you have sole control over when new libraries  
> were
> released for general consumptuion. They would in fact be released
> asynchonously from DMD. There would be 'beta' versions around for trying
> our stuff and official releases for people who just needed a standard
> library. Are you willing to give up control of Phobos?
>


I have to agree with this.  Walter can maintain his own Phobos version as  
necessary to continue his own compiler development and testing, but I  
really think we're looking for a more "publicly" maintained standard  
library that is not under strict control by the compiler writer (who has  
frankly admitted that his emphasis is on the compiler development).

The importance of relinquishing this control is more significant as more  
compilers are developed for the D language.  I think it's useful and  
important that all compilers get tested on a non-vendor specific standard  
library, rather than one that is tightly controlled by a single compiler  
vendor.  That, I believe, is a huge indicator to the openness of a  
language.

Note that when I say "public", I don't mean "free for all" standard  
library submissions.  I think we have to keep the maintenance limited to a  
few trusted individuals.  But I still think it must be much more open than  
it is now.  Dsource.org is a good spot for this.  While all this has been  
discussed to some extent before, I belive that a good groundwork of  
principles are already set to make this work with a minimum of  
deliberation and conflict.

Further, each compiler update, whether gdc or dmd, should be able to  
compile with agreed upon revision of the library before shipping.

-JJR