Hello Daniel,
Piotrek wrote:
Lars Ivar Igesund wrote:
Tango will stay Tango (and tango.*). The above naming assumes that
Tango will depend on Phobos, and it will not.
I see.
Cheers
(Note: speaking as merely an infrequent contributor to Tango; my
opinion is my own and does not reflect on those of the Master Dancers,
or the ruling council of glittery-shoed programmers.)
(Warning: semi-rant ahead.)
The problem is that Phobos and Tango are diametrically opposed in
almost every conceivable way. Bringing them together would be like
trying to bring matter and anti-matter together; you're just going to
blow yourself up.
It's best if you think of Phobos as being Python and Tango as being
Java. Phobos implements a relatively flat (if messy) hierarchy of
simple, fat classes. For example, IO is done using the Stream
interfaces, each one implements all the methods you'd probably need to
work with streams.
Tango, on the other hand, implements a very deep (if confusing)
hierarchy of simple, component interfaces that get plugged together.
Unlike Phobos, IO in Tango has many layers and components, each of
which is very narrowly defined, allowing you to plug them together
however you like.
The problem is that neither of these approaches is WRONG. They're
both valid and arguably better in certain circumstances. What's more,
the continued existence of both shows that there are people who
believe in each of them (not necessarily at the same time, but there
you go.)
So let's say we combined them into std.* and stdex.*. Why is Tango
stdex? Why isn't Tango std.* and Phobos stdsimple?
Ok, ignoring egos, the problem is that they wouldn't work together
anyway. An old favourite of mine is (again, sorry about this) IO.
Phobos strives to be compatible with the C IO library; so you can
interleave Phobos and C IO calls and it's all gravy.
Tango takes C out the back and shoots it before burying it upside-down
at a crossroads with a steak through the heart and salting the earth.
You CAN mix Tango and C IO calls, but you really have no idea what
order the output's going to arrive in.
I remember Andrei getting antsy about this a while back; why break
compatibility?! Because Tango's IO was faster this way. Neither one
of them was 'right' because they both had legitimate points of view.
Really, it all boils down to this: there *is no* one right way. Yes,
it's more confusing. But it's a problem with programming in general;
programming is all about looking at your options and making a decision
on the matter.
-- Daniel
That's a very good description of the situation, I think. Thanks.
-JJR
