----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Achilleas Margaritis" <axilmar@in.gr>
Newsgroups: D
Sent: Wednesday, September 10, 2003 4:48 AM
Subject: Re: The importance of component programming (properties, signals
and slots, etc)


> "Daniel Yokomiso" <daniel_yokomiso@yahoo.com.br> wrote in message news:bjlr65$4fg$1@digitaldaemon.com...
> > "Achilleas Margaritis" <axilmar@in.gr> escreveu na mensagem news:bjkrm2$1og0$1@digitaldaemon.com...

[snip]

> > > 1) when ?
> >
> > Real Soon Now ;)
>
> One year ? two years ? already late!!!



So, what's your point? We're doomed, destined to failure ;)


> > >     C# and Java are ready now. D is light years behind. We all know
how
> > > difficult is to get rid of a legacy language, with millions of lines
of
> > > source code behind them.
> >
> > When Java started people said that about C++. Java won.
>
> But C++ did not have standard libraries like Swing that work in any platform.


It's true, but there were "millions of lines of source code behind them" written in C++. People moved on no matter what. Also C++ has several GUI libraries, so I don't bite this "holy grail of Swing".

[snip]

> > >     Will the open source community have the resources to pull this off
?
> > is
> > > the open source community a match for the big workforce of companies
> like
> > > Microsoft or Sun ? especially in a limited time period from one
release
> to
> > > another ?
> >
> >
> > People said the same about GNU/Linux, *BSD, etc. Time proved that the community can beat companies. Also Sun and Microsoft have very large
> release
> > schedules, usually more than one year, while the Open Source is release early, release often.
>
> But OSS people have a motive to code for Linux and BSD. And it took 11
years
> for Linux to reach the current status. And it lacks several things Windows has, especially on the usability front.



Again, what's your point?


> > > 3) will they be cross platform ?
> > >
> > >     Most companies would like their apps to run both in the Windows
and
> > > Linux environment. Java is preferrable for this reason by a large percentage.
> >
> > That will depend on three things: conforming compilers, reliance on
> embedded
> > asm and linked libraries. I would bet that the portability problems will
> be
> > few, specially when we can create contract layers around plataform dependent, so a new release will be tested in the available plataforms
and
> > most bugs will appear on the test builds.
>
> The important compatibility is at source code level, not at binary level.



I don't understand what are you trying to say here. What is "source code level"? Conforming compilers? Platform dependent APIs?


> > <rant>
> > People should stop posting about lack of libraries in D and start coding
> > them. It's been almost a year since I released DTL 0.0.1, and I know
> there's
> > no excuse for my lack of work in the library, but since then nobody come with another such library, just discussed about how they should look. </rant>
>
> Most definitely they should. I am available. We need to form a group, a coordinator...we need a virtual meeting room where we can discuss ideas...there is a lot of things to be done on the organizational front
that
> I don't know anything about (and I am not willing to do).


The open source developement model has lots of projects with maintainers and contributors. Period. We don't need no "coordinator", nor "a virtual meeting room". We have IRC and CVS (or whatever). Now we need people interested in writing code in D. People code, publish the CVS tree, contributors submit patches and maintainers either accept or reject. Someday we'll need to integrate two projects and then people will talk (IRC, email, usenet). Everything else is crap. Code matters. Working, tested, reliable code. And documentation. Note that I'm not in rant mode.

If Walter waited to form this newsgroup then listened to everyone talking and discussing on how D should be then formed working groups to come with proposals then waited for voting then published a spec then started implementing, I (and most of the people here, if not all, including Walter) would be elsewhere, doing something else. Instead he banged out a compiler, released it, formed a newsgroup, listened to people (ignored most of them ;), modified and patched, and rinse and recycle. It works, people are happy with D. But it is still an infant (pre 1.0 yet, thank god for Walter not rushing it), so we won't have a large user base. What we need is to test it, try it, complain about something (templates anyone? ;) and see the changes. We need code and binaries to make it happen (or else we couldn't test), the same thing with libraries. We need working libraries to see what is good and what is crap, else we'll over-engineer it. Java libraries are over-engineered, they wrote all of them before someone used it in projects, and we don't need to follow that model.


    Best regards,
    Daniel Yokomiso.

"If you want to be happy be."


---
Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free.
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> We need code and binaries to make it happen (or else we couldn't test),
the
> same thing with libraries. We need working libraries to see what is good
and
> what is crap, else we'll over-engineer it. Java libraries are over-engineered, they wrote all of them before someone used it in
projects,
> and we don't need to follow that model.

Heartily agreed

I disagree with you. Read on:

"Daniel Yokomiso" <daniel_yokomiso@yahoo.com.br> wrote in message news:bjpjs7$2bsh$1@digitaldaemon.com...
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Achilleas Margaritis" <axilmar@in.gr>
> Newsgroups: D
> Sent: Wednesday, September 10, 2003 4:48 AM
> Subject: Re: The importance of component programming (properties, signals
> and slots, etc)
>
>
> > "Daniel Yokomiso" <daniel_yokomiso@yahoo.com.br> wrote in message news:bjlr65$4fg$1@digitaldaemon.com...
> > > "Achilleas Margaritis" <axilmar@in.gr> escreveu na mensagem news:bjkrm2$1og0$1@digitaldaemon.com...
>
> [snip]
>
> > > > 1) when ?
> > >
> > > Real Soon Now ;)
> >
> > One year ? two years ? already late!!!
>
>
>
> So, what's your point? We're doomed, destined to failure ;)

Basically, yes. Except if libraries are available real soon. (that's my opinion, please respect it. I don't want a flame war).

>
>
> > > >     C# and Java are ready now. D is light years behind. We all know
> how
> > > > difficult is to get rid of a legacy language, with millions of lines
> of
> > > > source code behind them.
> > >
> > > When Java started people said that about C++. Java won.
> >
> > But C++ did not have standard libraries like Swing that work in any platform.
>
>
> It's true, but there were "millions of lines of source code behind them" written in C++. People moved on no matter what. Also C++ has several GUI libraries, so I don't bite this "holy grail of Swing".

C++ does not have any open source cross platform GUI library. The only cross platform library that I know of is Qt. WxWindows is not a trustworthy solution yet.

>
> [snip]
>
> > > >     Will the open source community have the resources to pull this
off
> ?
> > > is
> > > > the open source community a match for the big workforce of companies
> > like
> > > > Microsoft or Sun ? especially in a limited time period from one
> release
> > to
> > > > another ?
> > >
> > >
> > > People said the same about GNU/Linux, *BSD, etc. Time proved that the community can beat companies. Also Sun and Microsoft have very large
> > release
> > > schedules, usually more than one year, while the Open Source is
release
> > > early, release often.
> >
> > But OSS people have a motive to code for Linux and BSD. And it took 11
> years
> > for Linux to reach the current status. And it lacks several things
Windows
> > has, especially on the usability front.
>
>
>
> Again, what's your point?

My point is that if there are no cross-platform standard libraries for GUI and other stuff, D won't succeed.

>
>
> > > > 3) will they be cross platform ?
> > > >
> > > >     Most companies would like their apps to run both in the Windows
> and
> > > > Linux environment. Java is preferrable for this reason by a large percentage.
> > >
> > > That will depend on three things: conforming compilers, reliance on
> > embedded
> > > asm and linked libraries. I would bet that the portability problems
will
> > be
> > > few, specially when we can create contract layers around plataform dependent, so a new release will be tested in the available plataforms
> and
> > > most bugs will appear on the test builds.
> >
> > The important compatibility is at source code level, not at binary
level.
>
>
>
> I don't understand what are you trying to say here. What is "source code level"? Conforming compilers? Platform dependent APIs?

Source code-level compatibility is when I take the source code from one O/S, then compile it under another O/S and it runs the same without modification. The underlying implementation may be totally different though.

>
>
> > > <rant>
> > > People should stop posting about lack of libraries in D and start
coding
> > > them. It's been almost a year since I released DTL 0.0.1, and I know
> > there's
> > > no excuse for my lack of work in the library, but since then nobody
come
> > > with another such library, just discussed about how they should look. </rant>
> >
> > Most definitely they should. I am available. We need to form a group, a coordinator...we need a virtual meeting room where we can discuss ideas...there is a lot of things to be done on the organizational front
> that
> > I don't know anything about (and I am not willing to do).
>
>
> The open source developement model has lots of projects with maintainers
and
> contributors. Period. We don't need no "coordinator", nor "a virtual
meeting
> room". We have IRC and CVS (or whatever). Now we need people interested in writing code in D. People code, publish the CVS tree, contributors submit patches and maintainers either accept or reject. Someday we'll need to integrate two projects and then people will talk (IRC, email, usenet). Everything else is crap. Code matters. Working, tested, reliable code. And documentation. Note that I'm not in rant mode.

Don't be so absolute. We don't just need code. We need a plan. For example, if I start to write a GUI, and you start to write to right your own GUI, a dichotomy will be created...much like KDE vs GNOME. This should be avoided. Of course, I am talking about D being really successful, not just endorsed by open source. Mostly about adopted by corporate environments.

>
> If Walter waited to form this newsgroup then listened to everyone talking and discussing on how D should be then formed working groups to come with proposals then waited for voting then published a spec then started implementing, I (and most of the people here, if not all, including
Walter)
> would be elsewhere, doing something else. Instead he banged out a
compiler,
> released it, formed a newsgroup, listened to people (ignored most of them ;), modified and patched, and rinse and recycle. It works, people are
happy
> with D. But it is still an infant (pre 1.0 yet, thank god for Walter not rushing it), so we won't have a large user base. What we need is to test
it,
> try it, complain about something (templates anyone? ;) and see the
changes.
> We need code and binaries to make it happen (or else we couldn't test),
the
> same thing with libraries. We need working libraries to see what is good
and
> what is crap, else we'll over-engineer it. Java libraries are over-engineered, they wrote all of them before someone used it in
projects,
> and we don't need to follow that model.

But D is the base of our trials. Writing a compiler may be hard to do, but that amounts of %1 of work needed for a modern app to develop. If you ever tried to code a GUI library, you will see that to do it properly you would have to code hundends of thousands of lines of code. A GUI, properly written, is no small task. And then, there are other things that matter: databases, networking, math, etc. GUI is the most important though. Without a GUI, a language goes nowhere. Especially nowadays that C# and Java have a GUI. And when I say it goes nowhere, I am talking about adoption by software development companies (and the big corporations that dish out the contracts).

Let me give you an example: I work for a company that makes apps for THALES (ex Thomson). Our apps are defense applications, i.e. military stuff like radar consoles, message interfaces, radar kernels, etc. Up until recently, C++ and ADA was the preferred language. But they had a problem with GUI, because either language lacks a decent cross-platform GUI. So now they are using Java instead. The result is that applications run everywhere (so I can take, let's say, the tactical system main MMI and test it on a PC), but in expense of processing power. It needs a twice as fast PowerPC processor to run the Java-based MMI. C++ has many other deficiencies as a language, which D nicely fixes. If D had all the libraries, it would be preferred over Java and Ada, especially since it supports 'programming-by-contract' (because military apps are strictly tested with every kind of test imaginable, including unit testing). D has a chance of combining speed, programmability and speed of development. All it needs is some decent cross platform libraries.

>
>
>     Best regards,
>     Daniel Yokomiso.
>
> "If you want to be happy be."
>
>
> ---
> Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free.
> Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).
> Version: 6.0.514 / Virus Database: 312 - Release Date: 28/8/2003
>
>

"Achilleas Margaritis" <axilmar@in.gr> escreveu na mensagem news:bjq2js$2vn1$1@digitaldaemon.com...
> I disagree with you. Read on:
>
> "Daniel Yokomiso" <daniel_yokomiso@yahoo.com.br> wrote in message news:bjpjs7$2bsh$1@digitaldaemon.com...

[snip]

> > So, what's your point? We're doomed, destined to failure ;)
>
> Basically, yes. Except if libraries are available real soon. (that's my opinion, please respect it. I don't want a flame war).


So, what are you doing here? You believe D is destined to failure, because libraries will take time to be written, and offer no solutions. There's nothing for you here. Seriously.


[snip]


> > Again, what's your point?
>
> My point is that if there are no cross-platform standard libraries for GUI and other stuff, D won't succeed.


So what, we're supposed to stop working and move on with Java and C#? GUI isn't everything in the world.


[snip]


> > The open source developement model has lots of projects with maintainers
> and
> > contributors. Period. We don't need no "coordinator", nor "a virtual
> meeting
> > room". We have IRC and CVS (or whatever). Now we need people interested
in
> > writing code in D. People code, publish the CVS tree, contributors
submit
> > patches and maintainers either accept or reject. Someday we'll need to integrate two projects and then people will talk (IRC, email, usenet). Everything else is crap. Code matters. Working, tested, reliable code.
And
> > documentation. Note that I'm not in rant mode.
>
> Don't be so absolute. We don't just need code. We need a plan. For
example,
> if I start to write a GUI, and you start to write to right your own GUI, a dichotomy will be created...much like KDE vs GNOME. This should be
avoided.
> Of course, I am talking about D being really successful, not just endorsed by open source. Mostly about adopted by corporate environments.


So what, we'll have two, three, ten different gui libraries. Today we have thousands of different languages, the mainstream has at least five, GUIs are written using different libraries (MFC, GTK, QT, Swing, SWT, Fox, WxWindows). Competition is good. If we spend all our time trying to reach a consensus on what is the best way to write a library we'll become a comitee and spend months to decide if a widget should be named ListBox or ListControl. Even if people decide to form a D library group someone will write a different independent GUI library (I have some ideas) and some people may like it better. Like Java with Swing and SWT.


[snip]


    Best regards,
    Daniel Yokomiso.

"In emptiness there is good but no evil. Wisdom exists, logic exists, the
Way exists, mind is empty."
 - Miyamoto Musashi


---
Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free.
Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).
Version: 6.0.514 / Virus Database: 312 - Release Date: 28/8/2003

"Daniel Yokomiso" <daniel_yokomiso@yahoo.com.br> wrote in message news:bjpjs7$2bsh$1@digitaldaemon.com...
> If Walter waited to form this newsgroup then listened to everyone talking and discussing on how D should be then formed working groups to come with proposals then waited for voting then published a spec then started implementing, I (and most of the people here, if not all, including
Walter)
> would be elsewhere, doing something else. Instead he banged out a
compiler,
> released it, formed a newsgroup, listened to people (ignored most of them ;), modified and patched, and rinse and recycle. It works, people are
happy
> with D. But it is still an infant (pre 1.0 yet, thank god for Walter not rushing it), so we won't have a large user base. What we need is to test
it,
> try it, complain about something (templates anyone? ;) and see the
changes.
> We need code and binaries to make it happen (or else we couldn't test),
the
> same thing with libraries. We need working libraries to see what is good
and
> what is crap, else we'll over-engineer it. Java libraries are over-engineered, they wrote all of them before someone used it in
projects,
> and we don't need to follow that model.

One amusing thing about D is about everyone tells me I'm going to fail with it. Of course, I've been told that about every single successful project I've worked on. The irony is that the projects people have told me were sure things have been the failures <g>.

Anyhow, D has already been a dramatic success. That's easy to see given the activity in the D newsgroup and the high quality of discussion here and the high quality of code apparent on www.digitalmars.com/d/dlinks.html. Even a rubber axe can chop down an oak tree if you keep on swinging, and that is certainly what I intend to do. The language is steadilly improving, it's just received a foreach, I'm working on fleshing out the operator overloading, and I have several ideas and suggestions from you guys for improving templates percolating around. We'll keep plugging away, and things will only get better.

For those concerned about the libraries - sure, D's libraries are woefully inadequate right now. But don't worry about writing library code that is less than perfect, just write it. Evolve it over time into perfection. Look at how C++ libraries changed over time. How many times has iostream been re-engineered from scratch? <g>

"Daniel Yokomiso" <daniel_yokomiso@yahoo.com.br> wrote in message news:bjv01i$pqt$1@digitaldaemon.com...
> So what, we'll have two, three, ten different gui libraries. Today we have thousands of different languages, the mainstream has at least five, GUIs
are
> written using different libraries (MFC, GTK, QT, Swing, SWT, Fox, WxWindows). Competition is good. If we spend all our time trying to reach
a
> consensus on what is the best way to write a library we'll become a
comitee
> and spend months to decide if a widget should be named ListBox or ListControl. Even if people decide to form a D library group someone will write a different independent GUI library (I have some ideas) and some people may like it better. Like Java with Swing and SWT.

Frankly, the best way I believe to do a GUI library for D is to take the best C++ one and simply translate it to D. (Assuming of course the license to it allows that.) It won't achieve perfection that way, but it should get closer to it than starting over from 0.

> For those concerned about the libraries - sure, D's libraries are woefully inadequate right now. But don't worry about writing library code that is less than perfect, just write it. Evolve it over time into perfection.
Look
> at how C++ libraries changed over time. How many times has iostream been re-engineered from scratch? <g>

There should only ever have been one reworking of the iostreams, and I think you know what that would have been ...

In article <bkac7h$6c$2@digitaldaemon.com>, Walter says...
>
>
>"Daniel Yokomiso" <daniel_yokomiso@yahoo.com.br> wrote in message news:bjv01i$pqt$1@digitaldaemon.com...
>> So what, we'll have two, three, ten different gui libraries. Today we have thousands of different languages, the mainstream has at least five, GUIs
>are
>> written using different libraries (MFC, GTK, QT, Swing, SWT, Fox, WxWindows). Competition is good. If we spend all our time trying to reach
>a
>> consensus on what is the best way to write a library we'll become a
>comitee
>> and spend months to decide if a widget should be named ListBox or ListControl. Even if people decide to form a D library group someone will write a different independent GUI library (I have some ideas) and some people may like it better. Like Java with Swing and SWT.
>
>Frankly, the best way I believe to do a GUI library for D is to take the best C++ one and simply translate it to D.
Do you mean a cross platform GUI?  Why not a Java based one like SWT (which has an open license).  I think it is a mistake to create a Windows only GUI.

"Mark T" <Mark_member@pathlink.com> wrote in message news:bkaji9$b7s$1@digitaldaemon.com...
> In article <bkac7h$6c$2@digitaldaemon.com>, Walter says...
> >"Daniel Yokomiso" <daniel_yokomiso@yahoo.com.br> wrote in message news:bjv01i$pqt$1@digitaldaemon.com...
> >> So what, we'll have two, three, ten different gui libraries. Today we
have
> >> thousands of different languages, the mainstream has at least five,
GUIs
> >are
> >> written using different libraries (MFC, GTK, QT, Swing, SWT, Fox, WxWindows). Competition is good. If we spend all our time trying to
reach
> >a
> >> consensus on what is the best way to write a library we'll become a
> >comitee
> >> and spend months to decide if a widget should be named ListBox or ListControl. Even if people decide to form a D library group someone
will
> >> write a different independent GUI library (I have some ideas) and some people may like it better. Like Java with Swing and SWT.
> >
> >Frankly, the best way I believe to do a GUI library for D is to take the best C++ one and simply translate it to D.
> Do you mean a cross platform GUI?  Why not a Java based one like SWT
(which has
> an open license).  I think it is a mistake to create a Windows only GUI.

Yes, of course, a cross platform one. I haven't used the various ones, though, so I am not in a position to judge their relative merits.

> Anyhow, D has already been a dramatic success. That's easy to see given
the
> activity in the D newsgroup and the high quality of discussion here and
the
> high quality of code apparent on www.digitalmars.com/d/dlinks.html. Even a rubber axe can chop down an oak tree if you keep on swinging, and that is certainly what I intend to do. The language is steadilly improving, it's just received a foreach, I'm working on fleshing out the operator overloading, and I have several ideas and suggestions from you guys for improving templates percolating around. We'll keep plugging away, and
things
> will only get better.

Any chance of you updating the SynSoft link to mention the Performance, String Tokenisation and Registry libraries? :)

Also, have you had a look at the reg stuff yet? I started work on some reg-writing code (porting a set of C++ utility fns of my own, that have served almost all my needs over the last 5 yrs) last night - when I should be writing my article; deadline today!! - and that all went really easily. I plan to implement a synsoft.win32.regutil module, on which the synsoft.win32.reg will be implemented. That way, if the class-based registry stuff falls short in some esoteric way, the user can get whatever they want from the free function API, rather than trying to write the catch-all API.