That experimental package idea that was discussed months ago
comes to my mind again. Add that thing as exp.rational and
have people report bugs or shortcomings to the original
author. When it seems to be usable by everyone interested it
can move into Phobos proper after the formal review (that
includes code style checks, unit tests etc. that mere users
don't take as seriously).
As long as there is nothing even semi-official, it is tempting
to write such a module from scratch in a quick&dirty fashion
and ignore existing work.
The experimental package makes it clear that this code is
eventually going to the the official way and home brewed stuff
wont have a future. Something in the standard library is much
less likely to be reinvented. On the other hand, once a module
is in Phobos proper, it is close to impossible to change the
API to accommodate for a new use case. That's why I think the
most focused library testing and development can happen in the
experimental phase of a module. The longer it is, the more
people will have tried it in their projects before formal
review, which would greatly improve informed decisions.
The original std.rationale proposal could have been in active
use now for months!
+1
The same idea came to my mind yesterday too (that signalize that
isn't void idea).
And GNU/Linux community has proof that such model works. I mean
Archlinux as example (but as I think other example exists). There
are core, extra, community repositories and AUR (arch user
repository). Today AUR contains 48489 packages and 11814 of which
are orphan. But even orphanity isn't a sign of useless.
Possibility to write PKGBUILD and place it in AUR has everybody
and it is not such difficult. Only small part of these package
goes to official repository, but this part EXISTS. And in my
opinion this is the most rapid way for evolution. For example
archlinux has the best support of D language through abundance of
linux distributives (http://pastebin.com/tPKWS4ga and this is
official repositories not in AUR). Oh, I've forgotten to mention
all sorts of testing repositories.
And D community have all means for evolute such way. We have dub
and http://code.dlang.org/. It rests to do a little: create
package (in D sense) which will contain packages that installed
through dub; and some UI to vote, orphan and adopt package.
There are example as how that I see:
On http://code.dlang.org/ we can found package "rationals" (for
example) with mark expstd. Than we install package with dub to
some environment (it may be fakeroot, peruser import path or even
perproject directory (the last likes me the least)) and address
this package as "import expstd.rationals;" in our D projects.
It's were good when dub or code.dlang.org counts installation.
When some package counts enough installation and enough history
(includes bug tracking), it become candidate to include in
phobos. All trusted users (in therm of Archlinux) receive strong
signal about and one of them review such package and become its
auxiliary comaintainer. No one package can exist in official
repository without maintainer.
And some words about why "expstd". I think that with such package
model comes time to add not only phobos in "namespace". There are
many useful libraries which may not become part of phobos (linear
algebra for example, or even GUI bindings), but should have some
standardization and highway to distribution. I suggest package
"extra" (in D sense) and "bind" (for deimos and perhaps not only
deimos packages). Naturally they start their life as "expextra"
and "expbind". In the future we will need some other package (in
D sense), but for start that three are enough.
As Andrei said "acta non verba". I promise that I make all,
considering my life environment, to help and start this project.
P.S. This theme will become independent. And this is yet another
one argue, that forum forms not ideal to represent news and
current state of community. Important things sink often in other
topics.
P.P.S. My apologies for my poor English.
