Top 5

[Chris R. Miller]

Benji Smith wrote:
> Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
>> Ok, per Aarti's suggestion: without speaking officially for Walter, 
>> let me ask this - what do you think are the top issues you'd like to 
>> see fixed in D?
> 
> 1. Merge phobos and tango (and solve whatever obstacles are currently 
> preventing a D2 tango branch). I won't use D2 until I can use Tango with 
> it, and I think having two semi-standard libraries is a bad state of 
> affairs for the community.

I get a few emails every month from people using Easy D that either run 
into problems with the whole Tango/Phobos problem or want to know why 
this (obvious) problem exists.  I just try to leave it as "they have 
incompatible licenses" or some other non-partisan euphemism like that, 
explain why I distribute Tango instead of Phobos, and hope they don't go 
nuts and tell everyone in the ng the situation is stupid (it is) and 
that we should just shut up and fix it, licenses aside.  While it's what 
I've wanted to do on several occasions, I don't think it'd really help 
anything to rattle cages.

I feel it's probably hurting D adoption, and it's certainly made it more 
difficult for some people trying to learn D.

> 4. String processing sucks. Writing code that works transparently with 
> all three character types and correctly handles all unicode characters 
> is basically impossible. Or at least it feels impossible. Trying to 
> support both Phobos and Tango in the same string-processing routine is a 
> definite no-go. In an ideal world, string-processing code shouldn't have 
> to be littered with "static if" all over the place.

How would this be "fixed?"  Hint: don't suggest making strings an 
object.  We tried that a while back, and it was more or less shot down.