Hi all,
before I start, let me introduce myself:
I'm Tobias, currently PhD student (Computer Graphics). I did some toy
project in D back in the D1/Tango days. Recently I decided on trying out
whether D2 will work for a new research project once a 64bit compiler is
out (still hoping someone will make ldc2 work... was my favorite
compiler for my last project). So far, so good.
Now let me summarize my impressions when I started to peek in the
newsgroup again a few days ago. Major threads:
1. Bitter fighting about a possible non-nullable type for D3(!).
Discussion style: "Noone will take away my right to write unsafe code !"
vs. "Down with the reckless cowboy coders". Are we discussing guns or
coding here?
That, and purposedly overhearing the other's real point.
2. Tango vs. Phobos. Wow. I really really wished we were over that by
now. It's been like two years since I last looked in here, and still the
same thing.
So, while I like the language and will probably stick around here
anyway, it might me a good thing to avoid this experience for other
people interested in D peeking into the newsgroup. Also, with (2), I
don't really get the point here. Whatever exactly happend between the
tango/phobos fraction -- the best thing to do to get everyone on board
again is probably to just to make phobos2 a library everyone enjoys to
use. And avoid starting discussions on who did what wrong over and over.
And while still lacking a few of the high-level features of Tango
(higher level network, streaming, etc.) it feels like the direction is
right.
With all that been said, I'm looking forward to using D for a while,
after fighting the C++ template code monster for the last years.
Cheers,
Tobias
On 11/09/2010 10:45 PM, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
On 11/9/10 12:33 PM, Jacob Carlborg wrote:
On 2010-11-09 17:43, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
On 11/9/10 1:42 AM, Jacob Carlborg wrote:
On 2010-11-08 20:55, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
It is my perception (though I might be wrong) that the dichotomy has
become to some extent political. D2 offers little political
incentive to
a Tango port. Tango is currently the de facto standard library for
D1 as
the vast majority of D1 users use D1 and Tango in conjunction, which
precludes use of the underpowered Phobos1 (D1's de jure standard
library). Due to Sean's work on making druntime independently
available,
porting to D2 would lower Tango's status from the standard library to
one of the libraries that may be used in conjunction with Phobos2.
Here's the problem with that: since Sean basically forked the Tango
runtime, removed any non DMD specific code and any code for a platform
that DMD doesn't support. And stopped contributing to Tango while
others
improved the Tango runtime we're back at square one with two
incompatiable runtimes and the Tango runtime still seems to be better.
It's not difficult to offer e.g. an incompatible C runtime that is
slightly better than the standard one. People generally don't do that
but instead add libraries on top of that because they understand the
advantages of compatibility.
There was a good "standard" library that you forked and never added back
any changes to it.
This must be some confusion. I didn't fork anything. Besides, it's not
useful to fall into the pattern of finger pointing.
I wouldn't be surprised if Tango chose to turn away from compatibility
for the second time (be it theoretical compatibility for now since there
is no Tango for D2). The technical reasons are dwindling and became
tenuous to argue for, but however weak they are, they could be used to
promote a political motivation: a Tango/D2 offering would come again as
an either-or proposition for a standard library that precludes usage of
Tango2 and Phobos2 together. In my opinion that would be an extremely
dangerous gambit.
Clearly we don't see this in the same way. I see it like this, because
Tango was first it's druntime that chose to turn away from compatibility.
That would be a tenuous point to make in more than one way. Druntime was
a major effort to foster runtime standardization made by its author
himself and with intentions that I consider most transparent. I'd find
it very difficult to concoct a hypothesis in which Sean comes across as
not acting in the best interest of the D community.
That very concern - the best interest of the D community - has
unequivocally been the reason for which Sean and other chose to leave
petty fights to others and join Phobos, which has no political agenda.
That's supposed to tell someone something. You are gladly invited to
attempt to convince me otherwise, but the sheer facts at hand would make
it difficult for you to build a case. I mean it's possible - for any
number of good reasons - to ignore mounting evidence for some time, but
at some point the waking up and smelling of the coffee is inevitable.
For this to work the Tango team and the druntime
contributors/maintainers have collaborate and work together on a
runtime.
That runtime is druntime. If there is no understanding of that at Tango,
that is suicide.
Apparently not, since Sean ripped out all that wasn't necessary for
Phobos but is necessary for Tango. Why are you blaming everything on
Tango all the time?
There's no reason to get up in arms. I didn't blame anything on anyone,
just stated my view of the state of affairs. I'm hardly vested
emotionally in the matter so I'm not interested in dramatic posturing,
assigning blame, or drawing sweeping conclusions. One thing I would be
interested in is improving things going forward. I think that will be
possible once we all let bygones be bygones and see what we can do to
push D forward.
Andrei
