The name "Phobos" in user-facing docs
John Gabriele
jgabriele at fastmail.fm
Fri Jan 12 23:15:41 UTC 2018
On Friday, 12 January 2018 at 22:24:16 UTC, Dukc wrote:
> On Friday, 12 January 2018 at 21:24:40 UTC, John Gabriele wrote:
>> 1. It has its own name. Phobos. This is unusual. I don't know
>> of any other language who's std lib has any name other than
>> "the {lang} standard library". Why does it have its own
>> distinct name, and why do I (as a user) need to know it?
>
> Because Walter Bright's company is named Digital Mars, D was
> initially named "Mars programming language". I am fairly
> certain that's the original reason for the name of the library.
> After all, why change it now when it's in common use? Where I
> live we have a saying: "A dear child has many names".
I don't think it should be changed, just removed from a few
user-facing spots to increase clarity and remove any doubt about
what's the D standard library.
Links and titles should just say "D Standard Library" or "Library
Reference", and not mention "Phobos". It's a distraction to new
users or possibly-returning-users who were around during the
D1->D2 std lib transition.
On <https://dlang.org/phobos/index.html>, it appears to me that
it shouldn't say "phobos" anywhere (it's only in the top
paragraphs as it is). Though maybe Walter or others like Phobos
mentioned there for nostalgic reasons.
Anyhow, my comments aren't intended as complaints, but rather
what I see as low-hanging easy marketing improvements for D.
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