Right now, what's the most important for the success and adoption of D?

[Don Clugston]

Janice Caron wrote:
> On 9/29/07, Don Clugston <dac at nospam.com.au> wrote:
>> Janice Caron wrote:
>>> On 9/28/07, Don Clugston <dac at nospam.com.au> wrote:
>>>> Walter cannot continue to be responsible for the entire
>>>> standard library as well as the compiler.
>>> Why not?
>> Because he's overworked.
> 
> "Responsible for" does not mean the same thing as "must do all the
> work". "Responsible for" means he is the captain; he gets the final
> say. Legally, Phobos is Walter's copyrighted work. Morally, it's his
> work and he's entitled to control it.
> 
> If Walter wishes to relinquish his control, that's up to him. He is
> entitled to give away power, but you are not entitled to take it. When
> you say "cannot continue to be responsible for", it sounds like you're
> planning some sort of military coup or mutiny!

>> Look through the change log for changes to Phobos. It's hardly changed in the
>> past two years. Walter's got enough work to do with language and compiler
>> development.
> 
> That's not relevant. Walter wrote Phobos. It's his code, period. He
> /is/ responsible for it, and /can/ continue to be responsible for it,
> indefinitely, even if he never changes another line of code.

That is exactly true, and it's unacceptable for a standard library. You've 
missed the point. The original question, was, "what's most important for the 
success of D". And my answer is, a standard library that continues to be developed.

>> I was one of the contributors to Phobos, but I found that typically it took a
>> couple of compiler releases before typos got sorted out. It was horribly
>> inefficient.
> 
> Again, that's not relevant. Walter wrote Phobos, so it's his code, and
> he is responsible for it.
> 
>> I joined the Tango team simply because there was a repository I could access.
>> Not because I was irritated with Walter.
> 
> Good for you. But that has nothing whatsoever to do with whether or
> not Walter has responsibility for Phobos.
Again --- that was not the question! You're assuming that forever,
(1) Walter is the only person who can develop Phobos AND
(2) Phobos is the standard library.
It is crucial to the future of D that one of these two changes.