Standard Library Concerns (Phobos / Tango)

[Moritz Warning]

On Thu, 07 Feb 2008 10:30:38 +1100, Derek Parnell wrote:

> On Wed, 06 Feb 2008 10:49:17 -0400, Tim Burrell wrote:
> 
>> Hey all,
>> 
>> It seems that even though Phobos is open source, it's difficult for
>> people to contribute to.  Patch submissions aren't being accepted as
>> readily as they should be, and bugs remain even months after having a
>> fix submitted by users.
> 
> Yes, this has been a long standing issue with Phobos development.
> 

Just some thing I have missed to be mentioned in this discussion.
I hope I can contribute some some interesting/productive perspective.

Due to Phobos simpler size:
- it's easier to maintain and adapt
- it's easier to start with
- it avoids to get in the way of peoples coding philosophies
- people want to have new features (but Phobos feature set is comparable 
to the C++ std)

Due to Tangos bigger size and range of functionally (Logging, FilePath, 
Time classes, Clustering, Http stuff..).
- Tango will have many changes as there were already
- it's hard to design smth. that satisfy most needs if.
   Depending on the subject of the aim, it may be even impossible.
- Tango doesn't offer D2.0 compatibility (despite some early attemps)
- people want to change features, since they don't fit all their special 
needs

Phobos is also an important workground to get first hand experience for 
Walter if a new feature is usefull.
For every new DMD 2.0 version he must also offer a standard library.
Keeping Tango up to date with all D2.0 language experiments would at 
least slow down language development considerable.

Tangobos could be a good start point to solve the issue,
but it would have to be a _true_ subset of Tango that doesn't depend
on the higher level features of Tango.
That issue introduces two hurdles:
- the design of Phobos and Tango must get in some sync on that level
- some basic Tango features that Phobos also does have are probably glued 
together with fancy stuff on class level.

But I think it can be done.

Phobos need to get some more basic OO (Object Orientated) design (console 
output, threads?) and Tango need to unglue some stuff from it's OO that 
doesn't have to be OO style.

Some first attemps have already been made.
(e.g. Phobos with Tango Threads, Tango and Phobos changes to be more 
compatible)

In a nutshell, I think that Tango is not ready yet to be _the_ standard 
lib. It can't move as fast as the D2.0 language evolves.

Java has a big std library, but Sun also have manpower/money.
Still, it takes time for them to improve the language
and yet, they will continue to have oudated parts in theire std library 
on regular basis (e.g. gui stuff). :>

For myself, I'm a satisfied Tango user.
But I try not to use all fancy high level features often since they
sometimes don't fit my needs, code philosophy, intended encapsulation or 
behaviour.