standardization of D

[Ameer Armaly]

"janderson" <askme at me.com> wrote in message 
news:ev1u1d$1q81$1 at digitalmars.com...
> Although you raise some good points I can't agree here.  I think D still 
> has a few more years development until we get to that stage.  People are 
> only just starting to use it for real.  We should have the flexibility to 
> fix their issues as they arise rather then setting it in stone at the 
> moment.  I see 1.0 as kinda like a speedbump to stability.  The more we go 
> over the more set in stone it'll get.  I think this will be a much more 
> valid argument at 2.0 and even more so at 3.0.
>
It seems then that we interpret 1.0 in different ways; my first thought was 
that it was going to be a setup (language, compiler, libs) that people could 
just pick up and run with. But apparently not...
> -Joel
>
> Ameer Armaly wrote:
>> Hi all. There are a few things which have been bothering me as of late, 
>> and I want your opinions on them to know whether or not I'm jumping at 
>> shadows. For starters, we all have a common goal of making D as widely 
>> used as possible since we all love the language, otherwise we probably 
>> wouldn't be here. At the same time, there are a few factors which as I 
>> see it make the adoption of D much more difficult and need to be 
>> addressed if we intend to succeed:
>> 1. 1.0 doesn't appear to be any special sort of marker with regard to the 
>> standard; we have not only CTFE but mixins added post-1.0, along with 
>> numerous changes to the _standard_library. I understand the compiler can 
>> be made to strictly conform to the 1.0 spec, but the fact still remains 
>> it seems very ad hoc. What ought to happen IMO is that we first call a 
>> review of the language spec where everyone sends in any complaints they 
>> have and they must be clearly addressed to everyone's satisfaction, or at 
>> least to the degree that's possible. Then, the spec ought to be frozen 
>> for a while, and we work strictly on the standard library, which I'll 
>> address later. Then, the whole D language, including standard library, 
>> ought to be frozen for several years to let it proliferate throughout the 
>> technical community; an experimental compiler can of course undergo 
>> development, but clearly marked as such and _separate_ from the stable 
>> compiler.
>> 2. We have two competing standard libraries; this is nowhere near good. 
>> Phobos is basically built on C wherever possible and sort of thrown 
>> together, and Tango reminds me of Java with a class for everything and 
>> then some. For the standard's sake (and consequent adoption), D needs one 
>> accepted standard library. The current state makes that difficult because 
>> Walter is forced to hand-manage both the compiler and library. What ought 
>> to happen IMO is that Walter should delegate day to day library 
>> management to a trusted associate who will occasionally inform Walter of 
>> the latest developments; Walter makes the final call, and life goes on.
>> So to conclude, these are issues that have been sort of addressed at 
>> various times in other issues, but never to a point that accomplished the 
>> intended goal. The D community is growing; there are going to be a lot of 
>> new people that look at it now and say "Huh? Say again?" Maybe we ought 
>> to step back and forget the years we've had to become comfortable with D 
>> and analyze it from a potential user's point of view in order to make 
>> adoption easier.
>> Thoughts?