On 9/3/11 10:02 PM, Andrej Mitrovic wrote:
Seems to me like virtually every module in Phobos gets a complete rewrite sooner or later. Yikes! Afaik the upcoming ones are also std.xml, std.variant, maybe std.json too? (can't recall). Was there really so much bad code written in Phobos all along that they all require a rewrite?
It's not that bad. First, it's understandable that now there are considerably more contributors and it's a bit easier tinkering with existing stuff than coming up with all new stuff.
Second, historically we're at an all-time high of talent involved in D. I'm sure it will go up much more, but previously we've had a more accepting attitude to new functionality at the cost of scrutiny (e.g. std.xml and std.json, both written by episodic contributors). (I really regret having had that attitude, it hurt us.) So now that there are so many eyeballs focused on the code, and not just any eyeballs but eyeballs connected to good brains, there is pressure building up.
There are quite a few pieces in Phobos that are withstanding scrutiny quite well: getopt, algorithm, variant (which can be, I think, safely extended to new great functionality), range, conv, random, and more. There are, unfortunately, others that didn't start off the right foot and right now are somewhat of an eyesore. I trust we will figure what to do about each on a by-case basis, though I agree with Walter that we should balance the breakage cost with correspondingly high rewards in terms of functionality improvements.
Andrei
