It bothers me that Phobos and Tango seem to be completely divergent.  One of the things that makes a language successful is that it has a good standard library.  It seems that with D, you have to be a betting man - which standard library will prevail.

It seemes to me that given Walter's definition of the language - a system programming language - that Phobos is closer to the mark.  If users want a more object oriented standard library, that's all well and good, but it should be a shoe-in, then if you want to use the OO stuff you can, but code that's been written to work with Phobos should work unmodified with other libraries.  (Note the recent discussion on C++ security). Any other approach seems to me to reek of vanity.

I am not saying that Phobos is perfect.  It has lots of omissions, but I have a feeling that it is about at the right level to enable authors to write the more OO stuff on top of it.

I'm sure that this is a sensitive subject, but there you go!  I think we all agree that Walter has done a damn good job on D, so why should we reject his thinking on Phobos?  I've been watching Walter for a long time now, and in my book, he knows as much about his subject as anyone does, especially considering the coverage that's expected of him.

If D is to succeed, I think we should work together rather than compete.  I'd like to see a much more formal system for contributors to take responsibility for areas of Phobos.  Maybe it exists, but if it does, it's hardly in your face.  I'd also like to see people back off on trying to replace it.  Let's improve it and augment it.

Dude, you are totally off base.  Vanity!?  Are you kidding me?  The people behind Tango are not looking for glory.  They simply want a better standard library and so are taking the necessary steps to achieve that goal.  We could "improve and augment" Phobos if Walter had the time to coordinate and organize contributions.  The Tango project is way more organized than Phobos and encourages multiple contributors.  I think it was created out of frustration with Phobos.  If Walter had been more proactive about coordinating and integrating outisde contributions, I don't think that Tango would have ever been started.

I'm not disrespecting Walter in any way.  Walter has indeed done a great job on the D language, but Phobos as a standard library is somewhat lacking. It's quite understandable that he just doesn't have enough time to maintain it properly.  Maintaining the D compiler is a full-time position. Maintaining the standard library is another full time position, and is more appropriately delegated to someone else.

-Craig

"Steve Teale" <steve.teale@britseyeview.com> wrote in message news:f789hk$o0m$1@digitalmars.com...
> It bothers me that Phobos and Tango seem to be completely divergent.  One of the things that makes a language successful is that it has a good standard library.  It seems that with D, you have to be a betting man - which standard library will prevail.
>
> It seemes to me that given Walter's definition of the language - a system programming language - that Phobos is closer to the mark.  If users want a more object oriented standard library, that's all well and good, but it should be a shoe-in, then if you want to use the OO stuff you can, but code that's been written to work with Phobos should work unmodified with other libraries.  (Note the recent discussion on C++ security). Any other approach seems to me to reek of vanity.
>
> I am not saying that Phobos is perfect.  It has lots of omissions, but I have a feeling that it is about at the right level to enable authors to write the more OO stuff on top of it.
>
> I'm sure that this is a sensitive subject, but there you go!  I think we all agree that Walter has done a damn good job on D, so why should we reject his thinking on Phobos?  I've been watching Walter for a long time now, and in my book, he knows as much about his subject as anyone does, especially considering the coverage that's expected of him.
>
> If D is to succeed, I think we should work together rather than compete. I'd like to see a much more formal system for contributors to take responsibility for areas of Phobos.  Maybe it exists, but if it does, it's hardly in your face.  I'd also like to see people back off on trying to replace it.  Let's improve it and augment it.
>
> 

I can only confirm what Craig said; Tango is an approach of the
community to provide a standard library - for the community. Apart from
that, it's not about competition, actually, but about improvement. The
goal is to make D more applicable and scalable for projects with
more complex designs.

Honestly, the fact that people seem to think "Walter done a great job with D/DMD, lets believe his libraries are best, too!", or similar, makes me a bit scared. I really appreciate and respect Walter, of course, but sacrificing his work, even though it (Phobos) is not his essential competence, is just ridiculous. No offense intended, but there are some better *library* designers out there than Walter will ever be, while being the only developer of DMD.

Kind regards,
Alex

On Fri, 13 Jul 2007 12:17:15 -0500
"Craig Black" <cblack@ara.com> wrote:

> Dude, you are totally off base.  Vanity!?  Are you kidding me?  The people behind Tango are not looking for glory.  They simply want a better standard library and so are taking the necessary steps to achieve that goal.  We could "improve and augment" Phobos if Walter had the time to coordinate and organize contributions.  The Tango project is way more organized than Phobos and encourages multiple contributors.  I think it was created out of frustration with Phobos.  If Walter had been more proactive about coordinating and integrating outisde contributions, I don't think that Tango would have ever been started.
> 
> I'm not disrespecting Walter in any way.  Walter has indeed done a great job on the D language, but Phobos as a standard library is somewhat lacking. It's quite understandable that he just doesn't have enough time to maintain it properly.  Maintaining the D compiler is a full-time position. Maintaining the standard library is another full time position, and is more appropriately delegated to someone else.
> 
> -Craig
> 
> "Steve Teale" <steve.teale@britseyeview.com> wrote in message news:f789hk$o0m$1@digitalmars.com...
> > It bothers me that Phobos and Tango seem to be completely divergent.  One of the things that makes a language successful is that it has a good standard library.  It seems that with D, you have to be a betting man - which standard library will prevail.
> >
> > It seemes to me that given Walter's definition of the language - a system programming language - that Phobos is closer to the mark. If users want a more object oriented standard library, that's all well and good, but it should be a shoe-in, then if you want to use the OO stuff you can, but code that's been written to work with Phobos should work unmodified with other libraries.  (Note the recent discussion on C++ security). Any other approach seems to me to reek of vanity.
> >
> > I am not saying that Phobos is perfect.  It has lots of omissions, but I have a feeling that it is about at the right level to enable authors to write the more OO stuff on top of it.
> >
> > I'm sure that this is a sensitive subject, but there you go!  I think we all agree that Walter has done a damn good job on D, so why should we reject his thinking on Phobos?  I've been watching Walter for a long time now, and in my book, he knows as much about his subject as anyone does, especially considering the coverage that's expected of him.
> >
> > If D is to succeed, I think we should work together rather than compete. I'd like to see a much more formal system for contributors to take responsibility for areas of Phobos.  Maybe it exists, but if it does, it's hardly in your face.  I'd also like to see people back off on trying to replace it.  Let's improve it and augment it.
> >
> > 
> 
> 

What's so wrong with having two standard libraries and letting users choose the one they feel more comfortable with? Having come from a Java background, I find Tango much easier to work with and powerful than Phobos, but to each his own. I just wish it was easier to link against one or the other (compiler switch...) instead of having to switch between them all the time.

Steve Teale Wrote:

> It bothers me that Phobos and Tango seem to be completely divergent.  One of the things that makes a language successful is that it has a good standard library.  It seems that with D, you have to be a betting man - which standard library will prevail.
> 
> It seemes to me that given Walter's definition of the language - a system programming language - that Phobos is closer to the mark.  If users want a more object oriented standard library, that's all well and good, but it should be a shoe-in, then if you want to use the OO stuff you can, but code that's been written to work with Phobos should work unmodified with other libraries.  (Note the recent discussion on C++ security). Any other approach seems to me to reek of vanity.
> 
> I am not saying that Phobos is perfect.  It has lots of omissions, but I have a feeling that it is about at the right level to enable authors to write the more OO stuff on top of it.
> 
> I'm sure that this is a sensitive subject, but there you go!  I think we all agree that Walter has done a damn good job on D, so why should we reject his thinking on Phobos?  I've been watching Walter for a long time now, and in my book, he knows as much about his subject as anyone does, especially considering the coverage that's expected of him.
> 
> If D is to succeed, I think we should work together rather than compete.  I'd like to see a much more formal system for contributors to take responsibility for areas of Phobos.  Maybe it exists, but if it does, it's hardly in your face.  I'd also like to see people back off on trying to replace it.  Let's improve it and augment it.
> 
> 

Steve Teale wrote:
> 
> It seemes to me that given Walter's definition of the language - a system programming language - that Phobos is closer to the mark.  If users want a more object oriented standard library, that's all well and good, but it should be a shoe-in, then if you want to use the OO stuff you can, but code that's been written to work with Phobos should work unmodified with other libraries.  (Note the recent discussion on C++ security).

While one might argue that it is easier to wrap a strictly procedural library with an OO layer than vice-versa, I think the ease with which any library may be encapsulated in a wrapper is more dependent on its design (the assumptions it makes, how features are exposed, etc) than on whether the interface uses functions or objects.  That said, I don't personally consider Tango to be an object-oriented library because it does not require the user to define his own objects in order to use it.


Sean

The problem is that I (as a user) want to use one library. And if one 3rd party library I want to use depends on Phobos, and another on Tango, they either have to be entirely interoperable - correct me if I am wrong, but this doesn't seem to be the case - or I end up rolling my own, because neither one does what I want.

I quite frankly don't like Tango's Pythonesque 'batteries included' approach, but that is of course entirely a matter of personal opinion. I am not fond of Phobos either, mostly because of a complete lack of templated containers.

What I would like to see is an approach which combines a small, lean 'core' library (just the basics like IO and containers), and then have the 'batteries' implemented as distinct small libraries on top of the core. This allows one to choose exactly what functionality one needs, with out the extra 'fluff'.

Robert Fraser Wrote:

> What's so wrong with having two standard libraries and letting users choose the one they feel more comfortable with? Having come from a Java background, I find Tango much easier to work with and powerful than Phobos, but to each his own. I just wish it was easier to link against one or the other (compiler switch...) instead of having to switch between them all the time.
> 
> Steve Teale Wrote:
> 
> > It bothers me that Phobos and Tango seem to be completely divergent.  One of the things that makes a language successful is that it has a good standard library.  It seems that with D, you have to be a betting man - which standard library will prevail.
> > 
> > It seemes to me that given Walter's definition of the language - a system programming language - that Phobos is closer to the mark.  If users want a more object oriented standard library, that's all well and good, but it should be a shoe-in, then if you want to use the OO stuff you can, but code that's been written to work with Phobos should work unmodified with other libraries.  (Note the recent discussion on C++ security). Any other approach seems to me to reek of vanity.
> > 
> > I am not saying that Phobos is perfect.  It has lots of omissions, but I have a feeling that it is about at the right level to enable authors to write the more OO stuff on top of it.
> > 
> > I'm sure that this is a sensitive subject, but there you go!  I think we all agree that Walter has done a damn good job on D, so why should we reject his thinking on Phobos?  I've been watching Walter for a long time now, and in my book, he knows as much about his subject as anyone does, especially considering the coverage that's expected of him.
> > 
> > If D is to succeed, I think we should work together rather than compete.  I'd like to see a much more formal system for contributors to take responsibility for areas of Phobos.  Maybe it exists, but if it does, it's hardly in your face.  I'd also like to see people back off on trying to replace it.  Let's improve it and augment it.
> > 
> > 
> 

Tristam MacDonald wrote:
> 
> What I would like to see is an approach which combines a small, lean 'core' library (just the basics like IO and containers), and then have the 'batteries' implemented as distinct small libraries on top of the core. This allows one to choose exactly what functionality one needs, with out the extra 'fluff'.

Tango is actually designed to work this way, but in practice most people don't want to bother with the extra installation steps that such an approach requires.  Still, I expect that at some point, there will be 2-3 different Tango distributions.  One which includes everything, and the others being more minimal.  Using a build tool like Bud or Rebuild tends to make the most sense with such an approach, because dealing with separate libraries for each package can be cumbersome.


Sean

Steve Teale wrote:
> It bothers me that Phobos and Tango seem to be completely divergent.
> One of the things that makes a language successful is that it has a
> good standard library.  It seems that with D, you have to be a
> betting man - which standard library will prevail.

I think the only issue is the fact that they're incompatible.  Maybe that's what you meant by 'divergent', but to me 'divergent' just means going in different directions, as in creating diversity.  The existence of a big Java-style library like Tango can only be seen as a plus for D, except for that darn incompatibility issue.

Tango could have been made compatible with phobos.  The reasons for making it a replacement for phobos rather than a regular library are (as I understand it):
1) They wanted to be in charge of their own garbage collector
2) Phobos' exception hierarchy makes no sense and they wanted to fix that.

And there were a few other minor things that annoyed them about Phobos, but by themselves I suspect wouldn't have been enough to warrant creating a schism.  (printf declared in object.d, toString actually returning utf-8 not just any old string).

It would be great if at the D conference the Tango folks could sit down and have a serious face-to-face with Walter about what it would take to make Tango D-compatible once again -- or perhaps that should be upgrading D to be Tango-compatible.  I'm thinking things like getting Walter to fix the exception hierarchy in Phobos, and maybe doing whatever it takes to make the garbage collector pluggable to allow experimentation in that area without creating a schism.

--bb

Bill Baxter wrote:
> It would be great if at the D conference the Tango folks could sit down and have a serious face-to-face with Walter about what it would take to make Tango D-compatible once again -- or perhaps that should be upgrading D to be Tango-compatible.  I'm thinking things like getting Walter to fix the exception hierarchy in Phobos, and maybe doing whatever it takes to make the garbage collector pluggable to allow experimentation in that area without creating a schism.

I'm up for such a discussion.

On Fri, 13 Jul 2007, Walter Bright wrote:

> Bill Baxter wrote:
> > It would be great if at the D conference the Tango folks could sit down and have a serious face-to-face with Walter about what it would take to make Tango D-compatible once again -- or perhaps that should be upgrading D to be Tango-compatible.  I'm thinking things like getting Walter to fix the exception hierarchy in Phobos, and maybe doing whatever it takes to make the garbage collector pluggable to allow experimentation in that area without creating a schism.
> 
> I'm up for such a discussion.

Interestingly enough, this is the specific discussion I wanted to make happen when I started discussing having a D conference with Walter. Things got a little outta hand. :)

Later,
Brad