On Sun, 15 Oct 2006 20:58:10 -0500, clayasaurus wrote:

> Knud Sørensen wrote:
>> What about the library contest I suggested long ago ??
>> Is that a useful idea?
>> I did never get much feedback on that idea.
>> 
>> http://all-technology.com/eigenpolls/dwishlist/index.php?it=59
>> 
> 
> This is a great idea. I think Walter just needs to encourage library competition while giving good libraries recognition.
> 
> How about a "Top 10 D libraries" page on digitalmars D where the D community votes for the top 10 libraries each month on the newsgroups and then they get a very special recognition on the digitalmars site?

Yes, a monthly competition like this is also a good idea.

We have several authors on the list maybe we can get them to donate a copy of one of there books for a first prize.

Don Clugston wrote:
> Georg Wrede wrote:
>> Walter Bright wrote:
>>> What I'm mindful of is I endorsed DWT as the official D gui library, which promptly killed it.
>>
>> IMHO, more important than having an official GUI library, would be to actually have _something_ right inside dmd.zip!
>>
>> It doesn't have to be the world and the kitchen sink, but anybody downloading dmd.zip should be able to write a GUI hello world simply and easily.
> 
> At the very least, include the full set of Windows .lib files from the latest SDK, so that at least it's possible to do SDK programming.

Don't forget the implementation of WinMain that has to be copied in each win32 D project :(

I wish dmd would include a higher-level entry point for win32 GUI apps. Perhaps just "int main(char[][])" but with a flag to make it a GUI app (like bud/build has, but actually including the GC init/deinit, etc).

L.

I am using "int main(char[][])" as the entry point of my win32 GUI applications. This makes the console window always open at the startup, but I think this can be avoided somehow ( I just didnt feel the need so far to find that out )

Jari-Matti Mäkelä wrote:

> I've been here since 2003. What bugs me the most is that D (the language) still does not have an up-to-date roadmap anywhere. Ok, many of us know what features are postponed to 2.0, but for a newcomer things look pretty confusing.
yes, it is confusing.
ad) many of us know what features are postponed to 2.0...
please be so kind and tell me i don't know :)

personaly what I miss from higher level languages is only reflection. But i am interested in what is cooking for next release.

generally I agree with fact that better roadmap should be available, maybe it would be suficient to sit and write down changes that happend (but these are already mapped with changelog) or are going to happen.

Derek Parnell wrote:
> On Mon, 16 Oct 2006 19:02:41 +1000, Anders F Björklund <afb@algonet.se> wrote:
> 
>> Derek Parnell wrote:
>>
>>> Are you saying that, for example, you would have no problems with Phobos  being taken from DigitalMars and moved to DSource so that everyone who  needed to could get to submit changes to the library that would actually  be applied.
>>
>> I'm confused, wasn't this what the Ares project was all about ?
> 
> My understanding is that Ares is a replacement for Phobos. An alternative to Phobos.
> 
> Walter seems to be giving the explicit green-light to take the primary responsibility for doing all the coding to Phobos from himself. The way I read it now is that Brad could set up a new DSource project called 'phobos', open it up for read-access for everyone, and svn-commit access to 'registered developers', and a small group to be responsible for creating downloadable library releases. The documentation could also be DSource'd too if Walter doesn't mind submitting the DDOC files he currently uses.
> 
> I'm sure this community can come up with a workable collabaration on the 'official' phobos library.
> 
> --Derek Parnell

If properly managed, I think it would be an excellent idea. One of the greatest problems I see with D development nowadays is the Walter-Bottleneck, and although I admire his vigorous and persistent work, I think eventually we will have to open up the D development process more. Most successful other languages and projects have teams of developers working on them (either corporate funded, or open-source communities), and as D matures I think we too will have to bring more manpower into the core tools to become competitive. The idea of a one-man army is inspirational, but I don't think it's very realistic.


-- 
Bruno Medeiros - MSc in CS/E student
http://www.prowiki.org/wiki4d/wiki.cgi?BrunoMedeiros#D

"freeagle" <dalibor.free@gmail.com> wrote in message news:egvstb$3t4$1@digitaldaemon.com...
>I am using "int main(char[][])" as the entry point of my win32 GUI applications.
> This makes the console window always open at the startup, but I think this
> can be
> avoided somehow ( I just didnt feel the need so far to find that out )

On Windows, just add this to your command line:

-L/SU:WINDOWS:5.1

Replace 5.1 with your operating system version. 5.1 = Windows XP, 5.0 = Windows 2000.

On Sun, 15 Oct 2006 23:55:55 -0700, Walter Bright <newshound@digitalmars.com> wrote:

> John Reimer wrote:
>> Shame on you, Walter.  You should know better than to think you
>> have that much influence. ;D
>
> If I'm not going to actively manage something, it's best not to get involved with it, as such tends to discourage others from taking the lead on it. They assume I will.
>


Understood.


>> The momentum died for strictly different reasons (most notable
>> being the lack of contributors).
>
> Lack of contributors is why most things wither. The more interesting question is why the lack of contributors. I had (incorrectly) thought that endorsing DWT would lead to more contributors and a more concentrated effort to get it done. The opposite seemed to happen.
>


Good question.  I never quite figured that one out either.  I guess, like others have said, SWT, as powerful as it is, just isn't that popular.


>> Your choice and timing just
>> happened to be off on the matter. Okay, I admit that there was one
>> other significant issue that was a personal annoyance: you failed
>> to contact or discuss /anything/ with the people considering the
>> ports of DWT (myself, Carlos ). You just announced the ports and
>> that we were doing them (even though you had no idea what are
>> personal feelings on the matter were or how serious we were about
>> it).  I recall being quite shocked at your announcement. I think
>> Carlos was too.
>
> I'm sorry about that. I had incorrectly just assumed you'd be pleased by it. I wanted to support you guys' efforts.
>


Ah, I forgive you.  I thank you for trying to support our efforts even if it didn't work out quite right.


>> Regardless, we all know that GUI Frameworks are particularly
>> troublesome to endorse since the area is so subjective.  It's
>> probably a lost cause trying to support one over the other.  Best
>> to encourage any GUI that people are willing to develop for D
>> because I don't think any one framework will be acceptable as a
>> standard.
>
> That's where we're at now. There are several D gui's, too many for this community to really support properly.
>


I'm not so sure there are too many GUI's to support properly.  I think it doesn't matter how many or few there are.  If there's a couple out of the bunch that are popular enough, they will be supported... if the community wants it enough.


>> As for standard libraries, I think you should be ready to endorse
>> an organized effort that presents itself with these traits:
>>  1. Is well documented
>> 2. Meets the general approval of the community
>> 3. Continues to be developed for multiple compilers in tandem (dmd
>> and gdc)
>> 4. Is actively developed for multiple platforms (linux, win32, Mac
>> OS X)
>> 5. Has a strategy layed out for future direction
>> 6. Has a dedicated core group of developers that have shown
>> dedication to the D language.
>> 7. Is maintained under a version control system
>>  Such traits by far surpass what Phobos can offer.  From my
>> perspective, the act of endorsing such an effort hardly constitutes
>> a risk.
>
> I encourage, and have encouraged, anyone who wants to do this. Any or all parts of Phobos can be used as a starting point. The compiler is my central focus, to enable great libraries to be written.


Thank you for stating that here.  It's very much appreciated, as is all of your work.  I know you've stated it in so many words before, but sometimes repitition seems to be the only way to get things across in a newsgroup where posts quickly get lost in the pile.

-JJR

Peter Šiška wrote:
> Jari-Matti Mäkelä wrote:
> 
>> I've been here since 2003. What bugs me the most is that D (the language) still does not have an up-to-date roadmap anywhere. Ok, many of us know what features are postponed to 2.0, but for a newcomer things look pretty confusing.
> yes, it is confusing.
> ad) many of us know what features are postponed to 2.0...
> please be so kind and tell me i don't know :)

Well, it's a bit early to talk about 2.0 now. There is a truckload of stuff scattered around. Some ideas can be found from the D poll, some other things are on the D wiki, and a lot of things have been discussed or ignored in these newsgroups.

Walter has promised to implement some things in 2.0, but suddenly they are fully implemented (sans possible bugs) in the next release. It's a bit hard to keep track of things unless one regularly reads the NG. The worst thing is that whenever something "big" happens, something like 5-10 threads with 1000+ messages pops out of nowhere. It takes a week to realize what's going on :-I

Brad Roberts wrote:
> Great to hear you agree.  Before going nuts, can we discuss your feelings towards actually using an externally hosted phobos (or other libraries for that matter) in future dmd release tarballs?  What sort of coordination would you envision?  Would you take select patches and merge with your internal tree?  Abandon your internal tree?  Today you release at your whim.  External development of pieces changes that model.
> 
> Assuming a community develops around an externally hosted (be it a fork or the primary) version of phobos, a slightly more mature release process probably ought to develop.  Maybe even introduce the concept of beta versions (which might help with the paper-hat bugs like left in debugging code :)  I'm willing to bet that people like Thomas would be willing to give beta releases a spin.  In his case giving it a whirl through dstress to find regressions before they hit the street.

I'm happy to merge things in, but am reluctant to do so without reviewing the diffs line by line.

Derek Parnell wrote:
> The documentation could also be DSource'd too if Walter doesn't mind submitting the DDOC files he currently uses.

The ddoc files for Phobos are already in and part of the Phobos source code.