Hey all,

It seems that even though Phobos is open source, it's difficult for people to contribute to.  Patch submissions aren't being accepted as readily as they should be, and bugs remain even months after having a fix submitted by users.

Not to mention that it's confusing for new users to have to deal with two standard libraries.  I think it would be a really good thing for the language as a whole if there were only one standard library.

My personal opinion is that Walter should let go of Phobos and adopt Tango as the official standard library.  I know there are people out there that prefer the Phobos API over Tango's, but I have a feeling that if Walter asked the Tango people to maintain the Tangobos base as the official standard library for D they would be okay with that.

It would be a win-win situation for everyone, including Walter.  His time would get to be spent more on D itself, as he would likely only need to oversee the standard library in terms of input regarding the API and patchset accepts.

The community would gain a huge win because there would only be one unified standard library.

Phobos users would still be able to use the Phobos API but would gain the benefits of using an API that they feel they can contribute to, and that has a proven track record of being responsive to fixing bugs. They'd also gain the ability to use the odd Tango class when desired.

And Tango users wouldn't have to deal with using a non-standard library as the basis for their app, plus the ability to use the odd bit of the Phobos API would be nice now and again as well.

I really feel strongly that a move toward a single standard library is the right thing to do for D.  There's very few cons to such a move and a great many pros.

Anyone else have any thoughts on the matter?

Tim.

Tim Burrell wrote:
> Hey all,
> 
> It seems that even though Phobos is open source, it's difficult for people to contribute to.  Patch submissions aren't being accepted as readily as they should be, and bugs remain even months after having a fix submitted by users.
> 
> Not to mention that it's confusing for new users to have to deal with two standard libraries.  I think it would be a really good thing for the language as a whole if there were only one standard library.
> 
> My personal opinion is that Walter should let go of Phobos and adopt Tango as the official standard library.

Vote in favor, not that it matters.

I prefer Phobos' structure to Tango, however it remains a simple fact that Tango is technically superior and better maintained. I'm sick of running into Phobos bugs and limitations while trying to make my code work. The only thing holding me back from switching is that Phobos is, for better or worse, the _standard library_. If Walter dropped it for Tango(bos), I'd be a very happy critter indeed.

 --downs, pessimistic

"downs" <default_357-line@yahoo.de> wrote in message news:foci1o$1e9$1@digitalmars.com...
> Vote in favor, not that it matters.
>
> I prefer Phobos' structure to Tango, however it remains a simple fact that Tango is technically superior and better maintained.

You stole my words. I vote in favour too, if that matters.

downs, el  6 de febrero a las 15:57 me escribiste:
> Tim Burrell wrote:
> > Hey all,
> > 
> > It seems that even though Phobos is open source, it's difficult for people to contribute to.  Patch submissions aren't being accepted as readily as they should be, and bugs remain even months after having a fix submitted by users.
> > 
> > Not to mention that it's confusing for new users to have to deal with two standard libraries.  I think it would be a really good thing for the language as a whole if there were only one standard library.
> > 
> > My personal opinion is that Walter should let go of Phobos and adopt Tango as the official standard library.
> 
> Vote in favor, not that it matters.
> 
> I prefer Phobos' structure to Tango, however it remains a simple fact that Tango is technically superior and better maintained. I'm sick of running into Phobos bugs and limitations while trying to make my code work. The only thing holding me back from switching is that Phobos is, for better or worse, the _standard library_. If Walter dropped it for Tango(bos), I'd be a very happy critter indeed.

Exactly the same feeling.

Maybe GDC could make the step and provide tango as the standard library. If successful, I guess DMD will follow that path.

-- 
Leandro Lucarella (luca) | Blog colectivo: http://www.mazziblog.com.ar/blog/
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
GPG Key: 5F5A8D05 (F8CD F9A7 BF00 5431 4145  104C 949E BFB6 5F5A 8D05)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
- i bet microsoft's developers were on diet when they had to do win95 - microsoft has developers?

downs wrote:
> Tim Burrell wrote:
>> Hey all,
>>
>> It seems that even though Phobos is open source, it's difficult for
>> people to contribute to.  Patch submissions aren't being accepted as
>> readily as they should be, and bugs remain even months after having a
>> fix submitted by users.
>>
>> Not to mention that it's confusing for new users to have to deal with
>> two standard libraries.  I think it would be a really good thing for the
>> language as a whole if there were only one standard library.
>>
>> My personal opinion is that Walter should let go of Phobos and adopt
>> Tango as the official standard library.
> 
> Vote in favor, not that it matters.

I vote in favour, too, hoping that it actually does matter.

Maybe this is the type of thing that should be done as some kind of poll... Something that asks d users which standard library setups they're ok with.
phobos
tango
tango+tangobos
tango + phobos (two standards)

With mass participation and some real numbers to support hunches, it may be easier to encourage action by others.  Personally, I'd vote for tango or tango+tangobos.  My port to Tango (last year) was relatively painless except for I/O.

Tim Burrell Wrote:

> Hey all,
> 
> It seems that even though Phobos is open source, it's difficult for people to contribute to.  Patch submissions aren't being accepted as readily as they should be, and bugs remain even months after having a fix submitted by users.
> 
> Not to mention that it's confusing for new users to have to deal with two standard libraries.  I think it would be a really good thing for the language as a whole if there were only one standard library.
> 
> My personal opinion is that Walter should let go of Phobos and adopt Tango as the official standard library.  I know there are people out there that prefer the Phobos API over Tango's, but I have a feeling that if Walter asked the Tango people to maintain the Tangobos base as the official standard library for D they would be okay with that.
> 
> It would be a win-win situation for everyone, including Walter.  His time would get to be spent more on D itself, as he would likely only need to oversee the standard library in terms of input regarding the API and patchset accepts.
> 
> The community would gain a huge win because there would only be one unified standard library.
> 
> Phobos users would still be able to use the Phobos API but would gain the benefits of using an API that they feel they can contribute to, and that has a proven track record of being responsive to fixing bugs. They'd also gain the ability to use the odd Tango class when desired.
> 
> And Tango users wouldn't have to deal with using a non-standard library as the basis for their app, plus the ability to use the odd bit of the Phobos API would be nice now and again as well.
> 
> I really feel strongly that a move toward a single standard library is the right thing to do for D.  There's very few cons to such a move and a great many pros.
> 
> Anyone else have any thoughts on the matter?
> 
> Tim.

Leandro Lucarella wrote:
> Exactly the same feeling.
> 
> Maybe GDC could make the step and provide tango as the standard library. If successful, I guess DMD will follow that path.

Honestly, I'd take this over no action, as it might spur Walter to follow suit, but it could actually end up being another a step backward for the language... then instead of two compilers and two competing standard libraries we've got two competing compilers that ship with different standard libs.  Ie, even more confusion for people new to the language!

I think it would go a long way if there could be some official action on this on Walter's part.

I know it's a bit complicated because Walter is actively developing D2, and thus language changes need to be precipitated by library API changes.

I really believe with a little bit of communication this would hold no problem for replacing the standard library.  It could go a number of ways, not the least of which is for Walter to simply maintain his own branch of the standard lib, and when D2 is ready push the changes down to the rest of the Tango team.

Ideally though this could potentially set up a situation where the users have more direct contact with language changes as well -- which I think would also be a boon.  Ie, how does this language change affect the standard library, and this standard library feature would really be improve by adding language feature X.

Obviously it would depend on Walter, but even if he still wants total control over the language (not necessarily a bad thing, D is pretty sweet!), he can still feel free to give up Phobos in favor of Tango and not have to worry about D2, or playing slave to the standard library.

I can't really think of a compelling reason NOT to do this!

I also want to see the "community driven" AND "standard" lib.

Tango meets my needs.
 - fast fixing of errors
 - More open for feature addition
 - performant design
 - more plattforms
 - contribution feels more welcome

So actually the "community driven" attribute is more important for me than the "standard" tag is.

It would be so cool if all would work together, the tango team AND walter, andrei, and the other phobos contributors.

The existance of both only produces frictional loss. And it feels like a dark shadow over the community.

People who actually run their projects don't have trouble with it. They have their toolchains installed. Its only the newbies and the lib-writers that have to fight the differences. This is bad for the community as a whole.

D1/Phobos1 needs to be taken out of Walters hands. He doesn't care about it, even though it's the version of D with the largest userbase. If he cared he would reply to this thread as well as the countless others before it (on the same topic).

Even though D2 is probably going to be finished by fall this year, I'm pretty sure there are lots of D users who will not migrate. D2 is basically a new language and some of the things it forces down your throat are some of the things I (and probably not just me) really liked not having to worry about. (yes I'm talking about const).

As long as Phobos1 does not receive fixes it might as well be considered dead.
To me there is no doubt on what needs to be done here. Ditch Phobos and start using Tango. The sooner you do it the sooner you will feel comfortable with it.

It's kinda sad, but I don't see a bright future for D when issues as important as this are simply just ignored.

> I really feel strongly that a move toward a single standard library is the right thing to do for D.

+1. Ideally though, the tangobos compatibility layer would be dropped entirely, as I feel that it's existence would still introduce confusion to new users. The current situation would remain nearly the same, except that the standard library would simply include this 'other' standard library layer... (this would make me scratch my head, were I new to D). There would still be a separation in code like there is today, except we'd have tangobos/tango versus phobos/tango.

A separately available tangobos whose intended function is to aid in moving legacy phobos apps to tango would make more sense, imo, than giving that layer persistence in the new standard lib.

At some point you just have to decide that a certain direction is the way to go, and go there. Tango-D is nearly a completely separate language from Phobos-D but I think it's clearly made it's mark and is an obvious direction to move in. D2 might be a good place to do it.