The Death of D. (Was Tango vs Phobos)

[Sean Kelly]

superdan wrote:
> Sean Kelly Wrote:
> 
>> Brian Price wrote:
>>> My take on the Tango vs Phobos situation is:
>>>
>>> For production use the only real choice is D1 (D2 being alpha) and it looks like
>>> there are going to be so many changes in the language that going from a D1 app to
>>> a D2 app is going to require more than a bit of work and thought.
>> It's also worth mentioning that whatever is decided, no changes are 
>> likely to occur with D1 / Phobos1 because that version of D is frozen. 
>> So from a practical standpoint I think Tango and Tangobos will continue 
>> to be the preferred approach for development under D1.
>>
>>> So, restricting the answer to D1, Tango seems to be a more full featured , robust,
>>> and maintained library than Phobos.  I'd expect that to change in D2 and expect
>>> the natural choice there will be Phobos (barring a ton of work by the Tango crew).
>> Pretty much.  Though having some sort of shared runtime /may/ affect how 
>> some of the features in tango.core are exposed.  I would obviously 
>> prefer if Phobos just built on top of Tango as with the Tango / Tangobos 
>> solution for D1, but that doesn't seem likely to happen.
> 
> glad to hear that. there's quite a few of us who aren't quite fans of tango. i'd rather wait for bartosh walt & andrei to put their weight behind phobos2. 
> 
>>> Regardless of the choice of library for use with D1, moving to D2 with either
>>> library looks like a chore since Phobos seems to be undergoing some (much needed)
>>> significant changes from D1 to D2 versions.
>> Yup.
>>
>>> As to the larger topic, D is potentially caught on the horns of a dilemma: D1 is
>>> not a significant enough advance on current languages to justify a move even if
>>> there were no library concerns; D2 may well be enough of a step forward to justify
>>> a move but there is the issue of timing.  My take is that if the upcoming C++
>>> standard makes it into compilers used in common production before D2 is ready for
>>> prime time that D may never gain a real foothold in mainstream use.  I'm hoping
>>> that the D2 team sets a deadline and leaves some things for a future D3 rather
>>> than miss the window of opportunity.
>> In my opinion, the benefits of D1 over comparable mainstream languages 
>> are quite substantial but difficult to quantify.  The elegance of the 
>> language tends to produce vastly more maintainable code than C++, for 
>> example, which is a huge win for team development.
>>
>> As far as D2 is concerned, I think it's really too early to say.  My 
>> current opinion is that the feature additions in D2 impact the syntax in 
>> such a way that they eliminate much of the advantage of D1--stemming 
>> from elegance and simplicity--in exchange for largely theoretical 
>> benefits.  But D2 is still in development so who knows.
> 
> u realize if u don't want that to look like fud u better back that up. i mean we could be sittin' on our ass and muse on them theoretical & practical issues. or we could write d2 and bring real arguments to the table. so how much d2 code have you written.

A bit.  I ported the Tango runtime to D2 once.  The rest comes from 
parallels with C++.  For example, one of my major issues with D2 is the 
syntax of the const design.  It's theoretically pretty slick, but I'm 
not at all happy with the prospect of maintaining duplicate function 
implementations simply to overload on const.  This is one of the things 
that drove me crazy about C++, and D2 is even worse in this regard 
because it has not only 'const' but 'invariant' as well.  And don't say 
"don't like const, don't use it," because that isn't an option for me as 
a library developer.

Another issue is more to do with code portability than with D2 itself. 
That is, the meaning of 'const' has changed between D1 and D2, with 
'invariant' effectively replacing what 'const' was used for in D1.  This 
makes it impossible to create code that has the same meaning in both 
versions of the language.  Eventually, D1 will be forgotten and no one 
will care about this any more, but for Tango right now this is a 
significant issue in my opinion.

Much of the rest is cosmetic--the sort of thing Walter likes to call 
"barn door" issues.  I hate that we're stuck with 'enum' to signify 
manifest constants, for example.  Heck, I hate that D supports anonymous 
enums at all, but making this an official feature in D2 is just crazy 
IMO.  Maybe not a big deal to you, but what drew me to D in the first 
place were largely what I'd consider cosmetic improvements over C++.

 > i know i switched to d2 as soon as it was out. i have nuff freedom @
 > work to write at least part of my code in whatever. the more versions
 > arrive with new stuff the more d1 looks to me like an ass-backwards
 > neanderthal tool made of sticks bear claws and silex. could even go as
 > far as sayin' d1 ain't ever gonna make it to prime time. it's just a
 > cute lil language that has a few merits marred by its issues. all
> languages  are like that. d2... d2 feels different because it is
 > different. larger ambitions to address real problems in innovative
> ways.  and leave no shit behind like most languages do
 > in pursuit of the mother of all features.
 > and the new team has much more knowledge than walt alone. (sorry
 > walt. but i guess u'd agree.)

Yeah, D1 is a cute little language, but it's eminently usable.  All D2 
really has going for it at the moment is the const stuff, and I quite 
honestly don't care about that.  This isn't because I don't work on 
projects large enough to require it--my last project was a few million 
lines of C++ maintained by a decent sized team--but rather because I 
feel that inelegant syntax is a greater issue for maintenance than 
language support for data mutability.  I'd simply rather have nothing 
than something that I think will produce unmaintainable code.

> so sean. how much d2 did you write. hope you agree it's hard to claim it has no practical advantages if you haven't practically used it. the irony, eh.

Not enough to speak with experience, quite honestly.  Perhaps that will 
chance with this shared runtime business.


Sean