Dear D community

The first public release of Tango is now ready for download.

Tango is a D library that provides a runtime for the D programming language, plus many additional library features for the D programmer. Further growth and sharpening of quality is expected for coming releases.

A feature list can be found on http://www.dsource.org/projects/tango/wiki/Features

Extensive work has been put into documenting the basic features, and in trying to make usage and installation easy for as many as possible. Platform support will be provided with the help of the users. Win32, Posix x86 and PPC have currently received most testing.

Tango is not yet fully polished, but the last few weeks have seen efforts to solve toolchain problems, cleaning operations, documentation production, an improved website and more. Hopefully you will find it a useful addition to the D world, and feedback will gladly be accepted.

The Tango homepage can be found at http://www.dsource.org/projects/tango

Downloads:

Graphical installer for Windows - http://63.99.9.206/tango/downloads/setup-tango-0.95-beta1.exe

Zip file - http://63.99.9.206/tango/downloads/tango-0.95-beta1-src.zip

tar.gz file - http://63.99.9.206/tango/downloads/tango-0.95-beta1-src.tar.gz

See http://www.dsource.org/projects/tango/wiki/Download for other alternatives like access to SVN repositories.

See http://www.dsource.org/projects/tango/wiki/TopicInstallTango for more detailed installation instructions for your system.

Contact
http://www.dsource.org/projects/tango/wiki/Contact

Signed,
The Tango Team
http://www.dsource.org/projects/tango/wiki/Contributors

Lars Ivar Igesund wrote:
> Dear D community
> 
> The first public release of Tango is now ready for download.
...
> A feature list can be found on
> http://www.dsource.org/projects/tango/wiki/Features
> 

Wow. Very impressive set of features. I was waiting for this, thanks.

Lars Ivar Igesund wrote:
> Dear D community
> 
> The first public release of Tango is now ready for download.

W00t!  Looks fabulous, and right on schedule, too.  The future is looking bright indeed.

One thing I couldn't find browsing thought the docs: what's the situation with the GC?  Have Walter's type-aware additions made it in? Or is it still necessary to add manual "no_pointers_here" calls in the Tango GC to avoid scans non-pointer memory blocks?


One more question -- is there some kind of compile-time version check that can be used in code to determine if Tango is being used or not?
I suspect there's going to be a transition period here where people would like to support both Phobos and Tango for those who haven't bit the Tango bullet yet.

--bb

Bill Baxter wrote:
> Lars Ivar Igesund wrote:
> 
>> Dear D community
>>
>> The first public release of Tango is now ready for download.
> 
> 
> W00t!  Looks fabulous, and right on schedule, too.  The future is looking bright indeed.
> 
> One thing I couldn't find browsing thought the docs: what's the situation with the GC?  Have Walter's type-aware additions made it in? Or is it still necessary to add manual "no_pointers_here" calls in the Tango GC to avoid scans non-pointer memory blocks?
> 
> 
> One more question -- is there some kind of compile-time version check that can be used in code to determine if Tango is being used or not?
> I suspect there's going to be a transition period here where people would like to support both Phobos and Tango for those who haven't bit the Tango bullet yet.
> 
> --bb

Yes, the "Tango" flag should be added to sc.ini (or equivalent) when Tango is installed. A Tango install which does not define the "Tango" version flag should be considered a broken install.

-- 
Kirk McDonald
Pyd: Wrapping Python with D
http://pyd.dsource.org

I hope this is not a wrong question to ask, is there any possibility for any gui lib to make it to Tango ? I would really like to see a gui lib with some great support.

:o)
SK

Bill Baxter wrote:
> Lars Ivar Igesund wrote:
>> Dear D community
>>
>> The first public release of Tango is now ready for download.
> 
> W00t!  Looks fabulous, and right on schedule, too.  The future is looking bright indeed.
> 
> One thing I couldn't find browsing thought the docs: what's the situation with the GC?  Have Walter's type-aware additions made it in? 

Yes.  Type-awareness was added as soon as the DMD bugs were sorted out.

> Or is it still necessary to add manual "no_pointers_here" calls in the Tango GC to avoid scans non-pointer memory blocks?

Previously, Tango keyed on element size so the "no pointers here" calls still really weren't necessary as a default measure.  But with type awareness things are still obviously much improved :-)

> One more question -- is there some kind of compile-time version check that can be used in code to determine if Tango is being used or not?
> I suspect there's going to be a transition period here where people would like to support both Phobos and Tango for those who haven't bit the Tango bullet yet.

The manual install guide suggests adding a "-version=Tango" to DFLAGS for DMD, and the equivalent for GDC.  And I believe the installers will take care of this for you as well.


Sean

ns wrote:
> I hope this is not a wrong question to ask, is there any possibility for any gui lib to make it to Tango ? I would really like to see a gui lib with some great support.
> 
> :o)
> SK

GUI is something that's being actively pursued.

There will be at least one Tango gui lib but it won't be in the core lib per se, since we intend to keep that 'tight' and 'agnostic'

- Kris

Sean Kelly wrote:
> Bill Baxter wrote:
>> Lars Ivar Igesund wrote:
>>> Dear D community
>>>
>>> The first public release of Tango is now ready for download.
>>
>> W00t!  Looks fabulous, and right on schedule, too.  The future is looking bright indeed.
>>
>> One thing I couldn't find browsing thought the docs: what's the situation with the GC?  Have Walter's type-aware additions made it in? 
> 
> Yes.  Type-awareness was added as soon as the DMD bugs were sorted out.
> 
>> Or is it still necessary to add manual "no_pointers_here" calls in the Tango GC to avoid scans non-pointer memory blocks?

Great.

> Previously, Tango keyed on element size so the "no pointers here" calls still really weren't necessary as a default measure.  But with type awareness things are still obviously much improved :-)

Well, I'm concerned primarily with large blocks of floats and doubles, so I don't think the element size optimization would have benefited me much.

>> One more question -- is there some kind of compile-time version check that can be used in code to determine if Tango is being used or not?
>> I suspect there's going to be a transition period here where people would like to support both Phobos and Tango for those who haven't bit the Tango bullet yet.
> 
> The manual install guide suggests adding a "-version=Tango" to DFLAGS for DMD, and the equivalent for GDC.  And I believe the installers will take care of this for you as well.

Great.  I see it now.

To Kirk -- if no -version=Tango flag means a broken Tango, then the wording on the Windows install page should probably be made a little stronger:
   http://www.dsource.org/projects/tango/wiki/WindowsInstall
It currently describes the flag as "optional".

--bb

Bill Baxter wrote:
> To Kirk -- if no -version=Tango flag means a broken Tango, then the wording on the Windows install page should probably be made a little stronger:
>    http://www.dsource.org/projects/tango/wiki/WindowsInstall
> It currently describes the flag as "optional".
> 

In my view, if the flag is not mandatory, it is useless. (I want to be able to write code that relies on it.)

-- 
Kirk McDonald
Pyd: Wrapping Python with D
http://pyd.dsource.org

Lars Ivar Igesund wrote:
> Dear D community
> 
> The first public release of Tango is now ready for download.

Can you folks comment on what you see as the the transition plan?  The migration document does a decent job explaining how to convert from Phobos over to Tango whole hog, but realistically not everyone can make this transition overnight.  So anyone writing libraries intended for consumption by 3rd parties is faced with the options of
A) Port whole hog -- abandoning any users who are stuck with Phobos
B) Don't port at all -- annoying any users hoping to move to Tango
C) Port while maintaining compatibility -- annoying the poor me who has to deal with incompatibilities in the most basic functions (e.g. toString, writefln)


Option C) seems like the most logical.  And given that, it seems like a compatibility library would be helpful.  Some way to make it easier to write code that looks mostly like Tango code with a minimum of version statements, but which actually calls on Phobos at the bottom layers.

Or maybe I've misunderstood the options.  Given the new GC and new Object class it seems like any use of Tango with Phobos is radioactive and fraught with peril, but maybe its not so bad?  For example, can one use the io framework from Tango while still using Phobos as the std lib?

Anyway, I think a page on how to migrate from Phobos to Tango while mainintaining backwards compatibility would be of great use to library writers.

--bb