www.digitalmars.com         C & C++   DMDScript  

digitalmars.D - Give me a break

reply Jarrett Billingsley <jarrett.billingsley gmail.com> writes:
With four or five people having voiced concerns over the future of D
in the past week or so, what's the busiest discussion?

int.nan, of course.

Come on.  Get with the program.  Enough already with the bikeshed
bullshit.  There are far more important issues at hand.
Jun 28 2009
next sibling parent dsimcha <dsimcha yahoo.com> writes:
== Quote from Jarrett Billingsley (jarrett.billingsley gmail.com)'s article

 With four or five people having voiced concerns over the future of D
 in the past week or so, what's the busiest discussion?
 int.nan, of course.
 Come on.  Get with the program.  Enough already with the bikeshed
 bullshit.  There are far more important issues at hand.


Yeah, but a lot of the other discussions have been about toolchain issues,
marketing, installers, etc., not the language per se.  To me, the main
priorities
right now should be to get the language spec finalized and to get a usable (not
necessarily perfect) reference implementation working.

The importance of finishing up the spec is obvious.  The reference
implementation
is important for the following reasons:

1.  Let's face it, it's extremely difficult to identify corner cases in the spec
that need to be clarified until you've actually tried to use the language.
Despite what language lawyers and type A personalities like to think, the
reference implementation of any language serves as a de facto spec and
co-evolves
with the spec at least initially.

2.  Without a decent reference implemenation, D would only exist on paper and
look
like a vaporware castle in the air language.

3.  If a feature isn't implemented in a reasonably bug-free manner (or at all),
it's hard for the community to understand it, use it and give feedback on how it
can be improved.

I feel that miscellaneous toolchain issues (other than implementing changes to
the
spec and fixing bugs that severely affect the usability of language features)
are
an order of magnitude less important because this stuff can always be done after
the fact without breaking code.  In other words, once the spec is finalized and
a
decent reference implementation is out the door, people can confidently use D2
knowing that the situation will only get better.  Until then, it's two steps
forward, one step back when code breaks in non-trivial ways due to a spec change
or a compiler bug makes a seemingly useful feature that you planned on using
absolutely useless.
Jun 28 2009
prev sibling next sibling parent reply superdan <super dan.org> writes:
Jarrett Billingsley Wrote:


 With four or five people having voiced concerns over the future of D
 in the past week or so, what's the busiest discussion?
 
 int.nan, of course.
 
 Come on.  Get with the program.  Enough already with the bikeshed
 bullshit.  There are far more important issues at hand.


yeah he pulled a bearophile. u'd think u'd get used 2 it. shit. i'm bracin' fer
'nother post tellin' how putr is better than writeln.
Jun 28 2009
parent Jarrett Billingsley <jarrett.billingsley gmail.com> writes:
On Mon, Jun 29, 2009 at 12:37 AM, superdan<super dan.org> wrote:

 Jarrett Billingsley Wrote:


 With four or five people having voiced concerns over the future of D
 in the past week or so, what's the busiest discussion?

 int.nan, of course.

 Come on. =A0Get with the program. =A0Enough already with the bikeshed
 bullshit. =A0There are far more important issues at hand.


 yeah he pulled a bearophile. u'd think u'd get used 2 it. shit. i'm braci=


n' fer 'nother post tellin' how putr is better than writeln.


But Dan, putr *is* better than writeln!  It's 3 characters shorter,
and that somehow causes your code to be less buggy.  Or something.  :P



 Jun 28 2009



prev sibling next sibling parent reply "Nick Sabalausky" <a a.a>  writes:


"Jarrett Billingsley" <jarrett.billingsley gmail.com> wrote in message 
news:mailman.316.1246228005.13405.digitalmars-d puremagic.com...

 With four or five people having voiced concerns over the future of D
 in the past week or so, what's the busiest discussion?

 int.nan, of course.

 Come on.  Get with the program.  Enough already with the bikeshed
 bullshit.  There are far more important issues at hand.


Oh, please, if int.nan is a bikeshed discussion, then what would we call 
complaining *about* that discussion? Some of us find it an interesting 
discussion. So we talk about it. Big f&**^ deal. 



 Jun 28 2009



  parent reply "Nick Sabalausky" <a a.a>  writes:


"Nick Sabalausky" <a a.a> wrote in message 
news:h29gil$6u3$1 digitalmars.com...

 "Jarrett Billingsley" <jarrett.billingsley gmail.com> wrote in message 
 news:mailman.316.1246228005.13405.digitalmars-d puremagic.com...

 With four or five people having voiced concerns over the future of D
 in the past week or so, what's the busiest discussion?

 int.nan, of course.

 Come on.  Get with the program.  Enough already with the bikeshed
 bullshit.  There are far more important issues at hand.


 Oh, please, if int.nan is a bikeshed discussion, then what would we call 
 complaining *about* that discussion? Some of us find it an interesting 
 discussion. So we talk about it. Big f&**^ deal.


And if we really need more "future of D" discussion, here's one: How's D 
going to look to newcomers if the forums have topic-of-discussion-police 
that go around complaining "We shouldn't be talking about this!" "This isn't 
a worthy debate!" "But, this'll never actually happen, so why mention it?!" 
I've been down this road before (man, how I've been down it...). Next thing 
that happens is more people come in on each side of this endless rabbit hole 
that is meta-discussion, real debate slows down (both hypothetical and 
practical), tempers flare, people leave, and the whole group degenerates 
into a paralyzed staticy dysfunctional madness. It's a sad, sad thing. Yea, 
sure, that sounds like a classic "slippery slope" fallacy, but damn if I 
haven't seen it happen time and time again. Let's not go there.



 Jun 28 2009



  parent  superdan <super dan.org>  writes:


Nick Sabalausky Wrote:


 "Nick Sabalausky" <a a.a> wrote in message 
 news:h29gil$6u3$1 digitalmars.com...

 "Jarrett Billingsley" <jarrett.billingsley gmail.com> wrote in message 
 news:mailman.316.1246228005.13405.digitalmars-d puremagic.com...

 With four or five people having voiced concerns over the future of D
 in the past week or so, what's the busiest discussion?

 int.nan, of course.

 Come on.  Get with the program.  Enough already with the bikeshed
 bullshit.  There are far more important issues at hand.


 Oh, please, if int.nan is a bikeshed discussion, then what would we call 
 complaining *about* that discussion? Some of us find it an interesting 
 discussion. So we talk about it. Big f&**^ deal.


 
 And if we really need more "future of D" discussion, here's one: How's D 
 going to look to newcomers if the forums have topic-of-discussion-police 
 that go around complaining "We shouldn't be talking about this!" "This isn't 
 a worthy debate!" "But, this'll never actually happen, so why mention it?!" 
 I've been down this road before (man, how I've been down it...). Next thing 
 that happens is more people come in on each side of this endless rabbit hole 
 that is meta-discussion, real debate slows down (both hypothetical and 
 practical), tempers flare, people leave, and the whole group degenerates 
 into a paralyzed staticy dysfunctional madness. It's a sad, sad thing. Yea, 
 sure, that sounds like a classic "slippery slope" fallacy, but damn if I 
 haven't seen it happen time and time again. Let's not go there.


u got me wrong d00d. problem's not topic police. problem's topic bullshit.
making int min int nan iz bullshit. d is systems language. int nan requires
tests inserted all over. otherwise it's useless. some ops would return int nan.
question is: wut does a newcummer think seein' shitty ideaz all over dis group. 



 Jun 29 2009



prev sibling next sibling parent reply Yigal Chripun <yigal100 gmail.com>  writes:


Jarrett Billingsley wrote:

 With four or five people having voiced concerns over the future of D
 in the past week or so, what's the busiest discussion?
 
 int.nan, of course.
 
 Come on.  Get with the program.  Enough already with the bikeshed
 bullshit.  There are far more important issues at hand.


if you do not want to discuss a particular topic than by all means do 
not participate in it.
do not tell other people what to think and what to write. this is not 
china and you are not the great firewall.
grow up.

if you want a moderated NG than ask Walter to create one. This is *not* 
such a NG and people *will* discuss whatever they want, whether you like 
it or not.



 Jun 28 2009



 next sibling parent reply MIURA Masahiro <echochamber gmail.com>  writes:


Yigal Chripun wrote:

 do not tell other people what to think and what to write. this is not 
 china and you are not the great firewall.
 grow up.


Apparently you don't share Jarrett's consciousness of the problem
that more important issues are left undiscussed.
Freedom may be paramount, but I'm not sure if D's situation would
improve just by letting people write what they want to.

I don't have a clearcut answer.  Perhaps there should be some kind
of soft leadership or orientation?

(Reminds me of Guido van Rossum jokingly calling himself a kind of
dictator.  And his Python is a successful language.)



 Jun 29 2009



 next sibling parent reply Jarrett Billingsley <jarrett.billingsley gmail.com>  writes:


2009/6/29 MIURA Masahiro <echochamber gmail.com>:

 Yigal Chripun wrote:

 do not tell other people what to think and what to write. this is not
 china and you are not the great firewall.
 grow up.


 Apparently you don't share Jarrett's consciousness of the problem
 that more important issues are left undiscussed.


Exactly.  It's not necessarily that I have a problem with people
discussing int.nan.  It's when people are discussing int.nan to death
when _there is a very real possibility that D has no future_.  And
when people bring up valid, uncomfortable truths and the resulting
discussion instead degrades into random, minor issues that have
nothing to do with the original post.



 Jun 29 2009



 next sibling parent reply Tom S <h3r3tic remove.mat.uni.torun.pl>  writes:


Jarrett Billingsley wrote:

 2009/6/29 MIURA Masahiro <echochamber gmail.com>:

 Yigal Chripun wrote:

 do not tell other people what to think and what to write. this is not
 china and you are not the great firewall.
 grow up.


 Apparently you don't share Jarrett's consciousness of the problem
 that more important issues are left undiscussed.


 
 Exactly.  It's not necessarily that I have a problem with people
 discussing int.nan.  It's when people are discussing int.nan to death
 when _there is a very real possibility that D has no future_.  And
 when people bring up valid, uncomfortable truths and the resulting
 discussion instead degrades into random, minor issues that have
 nothing to do with the original post.


People tend to ignore problems that haven't touched them personally. 
Maybe they will fix themselves?

My view is that Jarrett wasn't trying to firewall anyone, but rather 
point their attention at more important issues that relatively fresh D 
users choose not to see. The same issues are making some long-time D 
users think about giving up. I'm not only talking about Jarrett. Stay 
for a few whiles to D-related IRC channels and you'll see more instances 
of this case.

Please don't confuse these voices with the usual trolling/complaining D 
newcomer with their "omg but D doesn't offer anything more than C++ and 
it's not evolving at Warp 7!!!11eleven", like "superdude"'s recent post. 
The folks I'm talking about have invested considerable amount of time in 
D and simply wouldn't like to be on a sinking ship. They probably love D 
and see no real alternative to switch to, which makes them even more 
frustrated :P

And well, "Pick one of the items you find the most interesting, and work 
on it!" doesn't apply e.g. to improving Walter <-> Tango communication.


-- 
Tomasz Stachowiak
http://h3.team0xf.com/
h3/h3r3tic on #D freenode



 Jun 29 2009



  parent  Jarrett Billingsley <jarrett.billingsley gmail.com>  writes:


On Mon, Jun 29, 2009 at 1:37 PM, Tom S<h3r3tic remove.mat.uni.torun.pl> wrote:

 Please don't confuse these voices with the usual trolling/complaining D
 newcomer with their "omg but D doesn't offer anything more than C++ and it's
 not evolving at Warp 7!!!11eleven", like "superdude"'s recent post. The
 folks I'm talking about have invested considerable amount of time in D and
 simply wouldn't like to be on a sinking ship. They probably love D and see
 no real alternative to switch to, which makes them even more frustrated :P


Yes!  FFS!  I *don't* want D to die.  I've used D for five years and
wouldn't want to use anything else.  It's beyond frustrating to have
used it for so long and to have seen so relatively little improvement
in the implementation quality or the community/library situation.

And before anyone accuses me of not contributing?  Um, how about
maintaining a large scripting language and its mounds of documentation
for the last three years?  How about having reported dozens of bugs
not only in the compiler but also in several third-party libraries?
How about helping all sorts of newcomers on IRC and d.learn?  I
challenge *anyone* to say that I don't fucking contribute to this
community.  I've invested more time into D and my D projects than
anything else I've ever done.



 Jun 29 2009



prev sibling  parent reply Yigal Chripun <yigal100 gmail.com>  writes:


Jarrett Billingsley wrote:

 2009/6/29 MIURA Masahiro <echochamber gmail.com>:

 Yigal Chripun wrote:

 do not tell other people what to think and what to write. this is not
 china and you are not the great firewall.
 grow up.


 Apparently you don't share Jarrett's consciousness of the problem
 that more important issues are left undiscussed.


 
 Exactly.  It's not necessarily that I have a problem with people
 discussing int.nan.  It's when people are discussing int.nan to death
 when _there is a very real possibility that D has no future_.  And
 when people bring up valid, uncomfortable truths and the resulting
 discussion instead degrades into random, minor issues that have
 nothing to do with the original post.


I disagree with the above.
first, people have a prerogative to discuss whatever they want to death. 
  don't participate if you don't like it.
second, saying that D has no future is illogical - the spec is open 
source and there is a fully open source compiler for it (LDC), so 
whatever happens it's always possible to just for it as D++ or 
communityD or whatever.
thirdly, D has a dictator, Walter Bright, which decides its fate and we 
have almost zero influence on this.

your scripting language, while awesome, has little bearing on the future 
of the D language itself.

IMHO, the Tango vs. Phobos licensing issue is the biggest bikeshed color 
problem in the D realm and the only people that can solve it are the 
tango devs and walter and co. of which Neither are willing to budge.
since I have no power to help solve this problem, I see no need to waste 
my time/energy on it. I see therefore only two options to proceed:
a. wait until it is solved by the relevant parties.
b. join a fork effort.



 Jun 29 2009



 next sibling parent reply Tom S <h3r3tic remove.mat.uni.torun.pl>  writes:


Yigal Chripun wrote:

 Jarrett Billingsley wrote:

 2009/6/29 MIURA Masahiro <echochamber gmail.com>:

 Yigal Chripun wrote:

 do not tell other people what to think and what to write. this is not
 china and you are not the great firewall.
 grow up.


 Apparently you don't share Jarrett's consciousness of the problem
 that more important issues are left undiscussed.


 Exactly.  It's not necessarily that I have a problem with people
 discussing int.nan.  It's when people are discussing int.nan to death
 when _there is a very real possibility that D has no future_.  And
 when people bring up valid, uncomfortable truths and the resulting
 discussion instead degrades into random, minor issues that have
 nothing to do with the original post.


 
 I disagree with the above.
 first, people have a prerogative to discuss whatever they want to death. 
  don't participate if you don't like it.




 second, saying that D has no future is illogical - the spec is open 
 source and there is a fully open source compiler for it (LDC), so 
 whatever happens it's always possible to just for it as D++ or 
 communityD or whatever.


Modula-3 has a future!



 thirdly, D has a dictator, Walter Bright, which decides its fate and we 
 have almost zero influence on this.


I thought "The needs and contributions of the D programming community 
form the direction it goes.".



 your scripting language, while awesome, has little bearing on the future 
 of the D language itself.


So have many other projects. Let's stop writing them and all focus on 
making a compiler, IDE and a debugger for a language used by no one... 
wait, what?
But what you're saying is true - it has little bearing on D - 
unfortunately so, as it's one of the biggest and oldest projects using 
it. One would think that a successful product would be shaped upon 
feedback from its most important customers.



 IMHO, the Tango vs. Phobos licensing issue is the biggest bikeshed color 
 problem in the D realm and the only people that can solve it are the 
 tango devs and walter and co. of which Neither are willing to budge.


Uhhh... try listening to Tango folks sometimes. They really have tried.



 since I have no power to help solve this problem, I see no need to waste 
 my time/energy on it. I see therefore only two options to proceed:
 a. wait until it is solved by the relevant parties.
 b. join a fork effort.


a) Won't happen on its own. The relevant parties must be informed by 
*someone*
b) I think we're all trying to avoid this one.


-- 
Tomasz Stachowiak
http://h3.team0xf.com/
h3/h3r3tic on #D freenode



 Jun 29 2009



 next sibling parent reply Lutger <lutger.blijdestijn gmail.com>  writes:


Tom S wrote:


 Yigal Chripun wrote:


(snip)

 IMHO, the Tango vs. Phobos licensing issue is the biggest bikeshed color
 problem in the D realm and the only people that can solve it are the
 tango devs and walter and co. of which Neither are willing to budge.


 
 Uhhh... try listening to Tango folks sometimes. They really have tried.


If you can forgive my ignorance, what is the current Tango/Phobos problem 
you see and refer to here? Is it related to D1 or also concerns a possible  
future Tango D2?



 Jun 29 2009



  parent reply Tom S <h3r3tic remove.mat.uni.torun.pl>  writes:


Lutger wrote:

 Tom S wrote:
 

 Yigal Chripun wrote:


 (snip)

 IMHO, the Tango vs. Phobos licensing issue is the biggest bikeshed color
 problem in the D realm and the only people that can solve it are the
 tango devs and walter and co. of which Neither are willing to budge.


 Uhhh... try listening to Tango folks sometimes. They really have tried.


 
 If you can forgive my ignorance, what is the current Tango/Phobos problem 
 you see and refer to here? Is it related to D1 or also concerns a possible  
 future Tango D2?


I'm mostly a Tango user, not its developer, so I might be misinformed, 
but there doesn't seem to be any licensing issue except a conceptional 
one. The bottom of the following thread has some info: 
http://www.digitalmars.com/d/archives/digitalmars/D/Any_chance_to_call_Tango_as_Extended_Standard_Library_82239.html

As for other issues - there's very little communication between the 'D 
Team' and the 'Tango Team'. Much could be learned and borrowed from it, 
but you don't see that in Phobos 2. Looks like we're going to end up 
with two 'utility libraries' that are not compatible with one another 
and instead of complementing each other, they offer ways to do the same 
things in a slightly different manner.

IIRC, Tango devs claim that its runtime is better than druntime, which 
also only supports DMD at the moment. And apparently, there's been very 
little contact with Sean lately, so it's a case of 'us' vs 'them' again.

But that's just how I've subjectively received the topic so please take 
it with a grain of salt.


-- 
Tomasz Stachowiak
http://h3.team0xf.com/
h3/h3r3tic on #D freenode



 Jun 29 2009



 next sibling parent reply "Nick Sabalausky" <a a.a>  writes:


"Tom S" <h3r3tic remove.mat.uni.torun.pl> wrote in message 
news:h2bfaa$1hlm$1 digitalmars.com...

 Lutger wrote:

 Tom S wrote:


 Yigal Chripun wrote:


 (snip)

 IMHO, the Tango vs. Phobos licensing issue is the biggest bikeshed 
 color
 problem in the D realm and the only people that can solve it are the
 tango devs and walter and co. of which Neither are willing to budge.


 Uhhh... try listening to Tango folks sometimes. They really have tried.


 If you can forgive my ignorance, what is the current Tango/Phobos problem 
 you see and refer to here? Is it related to D1 or also concerns a 
 possible  future Tango D2?


 I'm mostly a Tango user, not its developer, so I might be misinformed, but 
 there doesn't seem to be any licensing issue except a conceptional one. 
 The bottom of the following thread has some info: 
 http://www.digitalmars.com/d/archives/digitalmars/D/Any_chance_to_call_Tango_as_Extended_Standard_Library_82239.html

 As for other issues - there's very little communication between the 'D 
 Team' and the 'Tango Team'. Much could be learned and borrowed from it, 
 but you don't see that in Phobos 2. Looks like we're going to end up with 
 two 'utility libraries' that are not compatible with one another and 
 instead of complementing each other, they offer ways to do the same things 
 in a slightly different manner.


Andrei had some reason (license-related, IIRC) for deliberately not looking 
at Tango at all. Maybe that's the license issue being referred to? (I'm 
about as in-the-dark about it as you.)


 IIRC, Tango devs claim that its runtime is better than druntime, which 
 also only supports DMD at the moment. And apparently, there's been very 
 little contact with Sean lately, so it's a case of 'us' vs 'them' again.


Can anyone in-the-know comment on this? (Also, I thought tango runtime == 
druntime? At least for D2.)



 Jun 29 2009



  parent reply Jarrett Billingsley <jarrett.billingsley gmail.com>  writes:


On Mon, Jun 29, 2009 at 7:23 PM, Nick Sabalausky<a a.a> wrote:


 Andrei had some reason (license-related, IIRC) for deliberately not looking
 at Tango at all. Maybe that's the license issue being referred to? (I'm
 about as in-the-dark about it as you.)


I know _Walter_ had a license-related reason for deliberately not
looking at Tango.  I don't know about Andrei, but I can't shake the
feeling that the falling-out between Andrei and Kris (the one that
made Andrei leave the NGs for over a year) has something to do with
it.


 IIRC, Tango devs claim that its runtime is better than druntime, which
 also only supports DMD at the moment. And apparently, there's been very
 little contact with Sean lately, so it's a case of 'us' vs 'them' again.


 Can anyone in-the-know comment on this? (Also, I thought tango runtime ==
 druntime? At least for D2.)


I was under that impression too..?



 Jun 29 2009



 next sibling parent reply Sean Kelly <sean invisibleduck.org>  writes:


== Quote from Jarrett Billingsley (jarrett.billingsley gmail.com)'s article

 On Mon, Jun 29, 2009 at 7:23 PM, Nick Sabalausky<a a.a> wrote:

 IIRC, Tango devs claim that its runtime is better than druntime, which
 also only supports DMD at the moment. And apparently, there's been very
 little contact with Sean lately, so it's a case of 'us' vs 'them' again.


 Can anyone in-the-know comment on this? (Also, I thought tango runtime ==
 druntime? At least for D2.)


 I was under that impression too..?


I've added some features to Druntime, but I believe everything is backwards-
compatible with Tango's runtime.  But as I said elsewhere, I haven't been
keeping tabs on Tango's development, so anything is possible.



 Jun 29 2009



  parent reply "Nick Sabalausky" <a a.a>  writes:


"Sean Kelly" <sean invisibleduck.org> wrote in message 
news:h2c1pb$2q9l$1 digitalmars.com...

 == Quote from Jarrett Billingsley (jarrett.billingsley gmail.com)'s 
 article

 On Mon, Jun 29, 2009 at 7:23 PM, Nick Sabalausky<a a.a> wrote:

 IIRC, Tango devs claim that its runtime is better than druntime, which
 also only supports DMD at the moment. And apparently, there's been 
 very
 little contact with Sean lately, so it's a case of 'us' vs 'them' 
 again.


 Can anyone in-the-know comment on this? (Also, I thought tango runtime 
 ==
 druntime? At least for D2.)


 I was under that impression too..?


 I've added some features to Druntime, but I believe everything is 
 backwards-
 compatible with Tango's runtime.  But as I said elsewhere, I haven't been
 keeping tabs on Tango's development, so anything is possible.


What was Druntime spawned directly from? phobos2's runtime? tango's runtime? 
A merge of the two?



 Jun 29 2009



  parent  Sean Kelly <sean invisibleduck.org>  writes:


== Quote from Nick Sabalausky (a a.a)'s article

 "Sean Kelly" <sean invisibleduck.org> wrote in message
 news:h2c1pb$2q9l$1 digitalmars.com...

 == Quote from Jarrett Billingsley (jarrett.billingsley gmail.com)'s
 article

 On Mon, Jun 29, 2009 at 7:23 PM, Nick Sabalausky<a a.a> wrote:

 IIRC, Tango devs claim that its runtime is better than druntime, which
 also only supports DMD at the moment. And apparently, there's been
 very
 little contact with Sean lately, so it's a case of 'us' vs 'them'
 again.


 Can anyone in-the-know comment on this? (Also, I thought tango runtime
 ==
 druntime? At least for D2.)


 I was under that impression too..?


 I've added some features to Druntime, but I believe everything is
 backwards-
 compatible with Tango's runtime.  But as I said elsewhere, I haven't been
 keeping tabs on Tango's development, so anything is possible.


 What was Druntime spawned directly from? phobos2's runtime? tango's runtime?
 A merge of the two?


Tango's runtime.  I haven't been actively maintaining the D1 branch of
Druntime, but no one was using it anyway, so...



 Jun 29 2009



prev sibling  parent reply Walter Bright <newshound1 digitalmars.com>  writes:


Jarrett Billingsley wrote:

 I know _Walter_ had a license-related reason for deliberately not
 looking at Tango.


Tango is under the BSD license, which requires attribution in binaries 
for linking with it. This is what the license says, regardless of how it 
is interpreted. I don't feel that can be ignored.

The problem with me looking at it and then contributing to Phobos is 
that I can be accused of violating the BSD license. They are so similar 
it is almost impossible for there not be some sort of taint like that. 
I've been developing software for 30 years now, and I've found that the 
best defense against such accusations is to never look at them. (And 
yes, I've been grilled by lawyers.) It's the same reason I never look at 
gcc source code.

I have asked the Tango team for a specific reciprocal cross-licensing 
agreement from Tango to Phobos (I have provided one so that Tango can 
incorporate whatever they want from Phobos). The only ones willing to do 
so were Sean and Don who have incorporated their Tango contributions 
into Phobos and relicensed them.

Sean looked around for a new license for druntime, and settled on using 
the Boost license which doesn't have the BSD problems and is designed 
for maximum utility for any purpose one may want to use it for.

Sean's druntime project is intended to be the core library that both 
Phobos and Tango can be built upon. It is based on Tango's core that 
Sean had written. Phobos was changed to work with it.

I've fixed the bugs identified to me as blocking Tango from working with D2.

If there's more I can do to make this work, I would like to know what 
that is.



 Jul 01 2009



 next sibling parent reply Jason House <jason.james.house gmail.com>  writes:


Walter Bright Wrote:


 If there's more I can do to make this work, I would like to know what 
 that is.


I know D does not burden itself with backwards compatibility, but the lack of
compatibility has to affect many D projects. There are many D1-only projects
that can't be used within D2. When D3 is  started, will we have even more
incompatible choices? I have no solution to this issue, but it deserves some
thought.

In the past, I proposed the idea of forward compatibility which would allow a
D1 compiler to ignore D2-specific keywords and other minor semantic differences
such as invariant()... The idea wasn't 100% compatibility, but rather to allow
writing a reasonable subset of D2 that could compile in D1. Maybe a 3rd party
tool to do the translation is enough?



 Jul 01 2009



 next sibling parent  Sjoerd van Leent <svanleent gmail.com>  writes:


Jason House Wrote:


 Walter Bright Wrote:
 

 If there's more I can do to make this work, I would like to know what 
 that is.


 
 I know D does not burden itself with backwards compatibility, but the lack of
compatibility has to affect many D projects. There are many D1-only projects
that can't be used within D2. When D3 is  started, will we have even more
incompatible choices? I have no solution to this issue, but it deserves some
thought.
 
 In the past, I proposed the idea of forward compatibility which would allow a
D1 compiler to ignore D2-specific keywords and other minor semantic differences
such as invariant()... The idea wasn't 100% compatibility, but rather to allow
writing a reasonable subset of D2 that could compile in D1. Maybe a 3rd party
tool to do the translation is enough?


I would consider this hardly practical. D1 can't know how D2 is going to be
like. D2 can't know how D3 is going to be like. And so on. I would really not
like to see a D3 emerging right after D2. To get the language mainstream, we
need to focus on one version of it, and stick to that. Together with what it
lacks. That way, LDC, GDC and D.NET can get a chance to align, and libraries
can get themselves to align. Only when D(2) is fully up and running, with a
larger userbase, it is practical to start concidering slight changes to the
language in the form of RFCs.



 Jul 01 2009



prev sibling  parent reply Walter Bright <newshound1 digitalmars.com>  writes:


Jason House wrote:

 Walter Bright Wrote:
 

 If there's more I can do to make this work, I would like to know
 what that is.


 
 I know D does not burden itself with backwards compatibility,


That's not quite correct. I have strongly resisted any changes to D2 
that would *silently* break programs. The breaking changes elicit clear 
messages from the compiler.


 but the
 lack of compatibility has to affect many D projects. There are many
 D1-only projects that can't be used within D2. When D3 is  started,
 will we have even more incompatible choices? I have no solution to
 this issue, but it deserves some thought.
 
 In the past, I proposed the idea of forward compatibility which would
 allow a D1 compiler to ignore D2-specific keywords and other minor
 semantic differences such as invariant()... The idea wasn't 100%
 compatibility, but rather to allow writing a reasonable subset of D2
 that could compile in D1. Maybe a 3rd party tool to do the
 translation is enough?


The problem is that creates a third language.



 Jul 01 2009



  parent  Jason House <jason.james.house gmail.com>  writes:


Walter Bright Wrote:


 Jason House wrote:

 Walter Bright Wrote:
 

 If there's more I can do to make this work, I would like to know
 what that is.


 
 I know D does not burden itself with backwards compatibility,


 
 That's not quite correct. I have strongly resisted any changes to D2 
 that would *silently* break programs. The breaking changes elicit clear 
 messages from the compiler.
 

 but the
 lack of compatibility has to affect many D projects. There are many
 D1-only projects that can't be used within D2. When D3 is  started,
 will we have even more incompatible choices? I have no solution to
 this issue, but it deserves some thought.
 
 In the past, I proposed the idea of forward compatibility which would
 allow a D1 compiler to ignore D2-specific keywords and other minor
 semantic differences such as invariant()... The idea wasn't 100%
 compatibility, but rather to allow writing a reasonable subset of D2
 that could compile in D1. Maybe a 3rd party tool to do the
 translation is enough?


 
 The problem is that creates a third language.
 


Please don't let the "forward compatibility" proposal overshadow the other part
of my post. Compatibility between D1, D2 (and D3) can be a serious problem for
library writers. I have no good solution for it. In some ways, this is at the
heart of some divisions in the D community. There are 3 mainstream dialects of
D, and they don't interoperate.  



 Jul 01 2009



prev sibling next sibling parent reply Jarrett Billingsley <jarrett.billingsley gmail.com>  writes:


On Wed, Jul 1, 2009 at 4:48 AM, Walter Bright<newshound1 digitalmars.com> wrote:

 Jarrett Billingsley wrote:

 I know _Walter_ had a license-related reason for deliberately not
 looking at Tango.


 Tango is under the BSD license, which requires attribution in binaries for
 linking with it. This is what the license says, regardless of how it is
 interpreted. I don't feel that can be ignored.

 The problem with me looking at it and then contributing to Phobos is that I
 can be accused of violating the BSD license. They are so similar it is
 almost impossible for there not be some sort of taint like that. I've been
 developing software for 30 years now, and I've found that the best defense
 against such accusations is to never look at them. (And yes, I've been
 grilled by lawyers.) It's the same reason I never look at gcc source code.

 I have asked the Tango team for a specific reciprocal cross-licensing
 agreement from Tango to Phobos (I have provided one so that Tango can
 incorporate whatever they want from Phobos). The only ones willing to do so
 were Sean and Don who have incorporated their Tango contributions into
 Phobos and relicensed them.

 Sean looked around for a new license for druntime, and settled on using the
 Boost license which doesn't have the BSD problems and is designed for
 maximum utility for any purpose one may want to use it for.

 Sean's druntime project is intended to be the core library that both Phobos
 and Tango can be built upon. It is based on Tango's core that Sean had
 written. Phobos was changed to work with it.

 I've fixed the bugs identified to me as blocking Tango from working with D2.

 If there's more I can do to make this work, I would like to know what that
 is.


I didn't mean to make it sound like I was accusing you.  I think you
may have taken my quote out of context.


 Andrei had some reason (license-related, IIRC) for deliberately not looking
 at Tango at all. Maybe that's the license issue being referred to? (I'm
 about as in-the-dark about it as you.)


 I know _Walter_ had a license-related reason for deliberately not
 looking at Tango.


I knew that _you_ had said previously that you wouldn't look at Tango
due to licensing, but I had never heard anything about Andrei.



 Jul 01 2009



  parent  Andrei Alexandrescu <SeeWebsiteForEmail erdani.org>  writes:


Jarrett Billingsley wrote:

 Andrei had some reason (license-related, IIRC) for deliberately not looking
 at Tango at all. Maybe that's the license issue being referred to? (I'm
 about as in-the-dark about it as you.)


 I know _Walter_ had a license-related reason for deliberately not
 looking at Tango.


 
 I knew that _you_ had said previously that you wouldn't look at Tango
 due to licensing, but I had never heard anything about Andrei.


Same for me.

Andrei



 Jul 01 2009



prev sibling  parent  Sean Kelly <sean invisibleduck.org>  writes:


== Quote from Walter Bright (newshound1 digitalmars.com)'s article

 Sean looked around for a new license for druntime, and settled on using
 the Boost license which doesn't have the BSD problems and is designed
 for maximum utility for any purpose one may want to use it for.


I'd like to point out that everyone agreed to distribute Phobos2 under the
Boost license as well.  I said I'd take care of the source code comments
and such, and then I dropped the ball.  Hopefully this will serve as a
reminder for me to take care of it :-p



 Jul 01 2009



prev sibling next sibling parent reply Sean Kelly <sean invisibleduck.org>  writes:


== Quote from Tom S (h3r3tic remove.mat.uni.torun.pl)'s article

 IIRC, Tango devs claim that its runtime is better than druntime, which
 also only supports DMD at the moment.


How is it better?  I vaguely recall at least one change in Tango's runtime
that actually violates the Posix spec, and so decided to implement things
differently in Druntime.  But I don't watch the Tango timeline, so it's
possible that some awesome new features have been implemented that
I'm not aware of.

As for Druntime only supporting DMD... see below.


 And apparently, there's been very
 little contact with Sean lately, so it's a case of 'us' vs 'them' again.


No one has tried to contact me.  I talked with Fawzi a bit shortly after
Druntime was created, but that's it.  I'm too busy to even do the things
I have planned for Druntime anyway, so I'm not about to chase people
down to try add yet more tasks to my list.



 Jun 29 2009



  parent reply Tom S <h3r3tic remove.mat.uni.torun.pl>  writes:


Sean Kelly wrote:

 == Quote from Tom S (h3r3tic remove.mat.uni.torun.pl)'s article

 IIRC, Tango devs claim that its runtime is better than druntime, which
 also only supports DMD at the moment.


 
 How is it better?  I vaguely recall at least one change in Tango's runtime
 that actually violates the Posix spec, and so decided to implement things
 differently in Druntime.  But I don't watch the Tango timeline, so it's
 possible that some awesome new features have been implemented that
 I'm not aware of.


Sorry, I don't have a clear answer here. On IRC Fawzi mentioned exactly 
that "tango is still better than druntime".

/me summons Fawzi



 As for Druntime only supporting DMD... see below.
 

 And apparently, there's been very
 little contact with Sean lately, so it's a case of 'us' vs 'them' again.


 
 No one has tried to contact me.  I talked with Fawzi a bit shortly after
 Druntime was created, but that's it.  I'm too busy to even do the things
 I have planned for Druntime anyway, so I'm not about to chase people
 down to try add yet more tasks to my list.


Here I've based my words on a chat with Lars, but it might be that you 
being so busy was misinterpreted as not willing to communicate and 
"acting a bit weird". It might be hard to get it out of him now, as he 
seems to have given up on NG discussions :(


Now it looks like I'm warmongering... Merely trying to get some parts of 
the community to talk with each other, because there are lots of 
misunderstandings and perhaps communications barriers in the air.


-- 
Tomasz Stachowiak
http://h3.team0xf.com/
h3/h3r3tic on #D freenode



 Jun 30 2009



  parent reply Sean Kelly <sean invisibleduck.org>  writes:


== Quote from Tom S (h3r3tic remove.mat.uni.torun.pl)'s article

 Sean Kelly wrote:

 == Quote from Tom S (h3r3tic remove.mat.uni.torun.pl)'s article


 And apparently, there's been very
 little contact with Sean lately, so it's a case of 'us' vs 'them' again.


 No one has tried to contact me.  I talked with Fawzi a bit shortly after
 Druntime was created, but that's it.  I'm too busy to even do the things
 I have planned for Druntime anyway, so I'm not about to chase people
 down to try add yet more tasks to my list.


 Here I've based my words on a chat with Lars, but it might be that you
 being so busy was misinterpreted as not willing to communicate and
 "acting a bit weird". It might be hard to get it out of him now, as he
 seems to have given up on NG discussions :(


For a while, there was an attempt among the Tango folks to make me an
ambassador of sorts to Walter and Andrei.  I never really understood the
need for this, and I suggested that whoever wanted to contact whoever
else simply do so.  Near as I can tell, this made me appear divisive to
some.  More to the point, when I was working on Tango I acted upon
my own best judgment and was trusted to do so by those involved.  This
changed as soon as talk of collaboration began, and the Tango folks
suggested repeatedly that there must be some sort of group consensus
before I made any functional runtime change.  There's more, but it's all
in the same vein.

To be quite frank, I would walk away from D entirely before I'd let myself
be put in such a position, and were it not for the fact that I was the only
person with the ability to resolve some of the issues involved in the
collaboration discussions, I'd have walked away right then because of the
pressure the Tango team was putting on me.  If this has earned me a bad
reputation in some circles, so be it.  I continue to consider Tango support
when making changes to Druntime, and if the Tango team doesn't intend
to use Druntime that's really their problem at this point.

I normally wouldn't air such dirty laundry in public, but this thread shows
that there's still a lot of confusion about where things stand concerning
Druntime and Tango, and so I think it may help to at least outline my
perspective on the issue.  My sincerest hope is that people will let this
go, and focus their energies on something more productive.



 Jun 30 2009



 next sibling parent reply superdan <super dan.org>  writes:


Sean Kelly Wrote:


 == Quote from Tom S (h3r3tic remove.mat.uni.torun.pl)'s article

 Sean Kelly wrote:

 == Quote from Tom S (h3r3tic remove.mat.uni.torun.pl)'s article


 And apparently, there's been very
 little contact with Sean lately, so it's a case of 'us' vs 'them' again.


 No one has tried to contact me.  I talked with Fawzi a bit shortly after
 Druntime was created, but that's it.  I'm too busy to even do the things
 I have planned for Druntime anyway, so I'm not about to chase people
 down to try add yet more tasks to my list.


 Here I've based my words on a chat with Lars, but it might be that you
 being so busy was misinterpreted as not willing to communicate and
 "acting a bit weird". It might be hard to get it out of him now, as he
 seems to have given up on NG discussions :(


 
 For a while, there was an attempt among the Tango folks to make me an
 ambassador of sorts to Walter and Andrei.  I never really understood the
 need for this, and I suggested that whoever wanted to contact whoever
 else simply do so.  Near as I can tell, this made me appear divisive to
 some.  More to the point, when I was working on Tango I acted upon
 my own best judgment and was trusted to do so by those involved.  This
 changed as soon as talk of collaboration began, and the Tango folks
 suggested repeatedly that there must be some sort of group consensus
 before I made any functional runtime change.  There's more, but it's all
 in the same vein.
 
 To be quite frank, I would walk away from D entirely before I'd let myself
 be put in such a position, and were it not for the fact that I was the only
 person with the ability to resolve some of the issues involved in the
 collaboration discussions, I'd have walked away right then because of the
 pressure the Tango team was putting on me.  If this has earned me a bad
 reputation in some circles, so be it.  I continue to consider Tango support
 when making changes to Druntime, and if the Tango team doesn't intend
 to use Druntime that's really their problem at this point.
 
 I normally wouldn't air such dirty laundry in public, but this thread shows
 that there's still a lot of confusion about where things stand concerning
 Druntime and Tango, and so I think it may help to at least outline my
 perspective on the issue.  My sincerest hope is that people will let this
 go, and focus their energies on something more productive.


d00d i ain't gettin' it. did u have a fallin' with tango folks? with phobos
folks? both? im stoopid. r u still workin' on druntime? if not to whom did u
give it. pls clarify.



 Jun 30 2009



  parent  Sean Kelly <sean invisibleduck.org>  writes:


== Quote from superdan (super dan.org)'s article

 d00d i ain't gettin' it. did u have a fallin' with tango folks? with phobos


folks? both? im stoopid. r u still workin' on druntime? if not to whom did u
give
it. pls clarify.

I'm still maintaining druntime and working with the Phobos folks.
Tickets in bugzilla for druntime go to me, etc.  Nothing has changed.



 Jun 30 2009



prev sibling next sibling parent  anony-4A4A52 <anon anon.net>  writes:


Sean,

With this one honest post, you may have just revitalized D's future by a year or
two (perhaps long enough for it to be forcefully pulled into popularity beyond
the
clutches of central control).

Expect Phobos2 to gain more popularity as Tango (*sniff*) drifts into the
background of d1 history.

Signed,

Your-local-fortune-cookie. ;)



 Jun 30 2009



prev sibling  parent reply Tom S <h3r3tic remove.mat.uni.torun.pl>  writes:


Sean Kelly wrote:

 == Quote from Tom S (h3r3tic remove.mat.uni.torun.pl)'s article

 Sean Kelly wrote:

 == Quote from Tom S (h3r3tic remove.mat.uni.torun.pl)'s article


 And apparently, there's been very
 little contact with Sean lately, so it's a case of 'us' vs 'them' again.


 No one has tried to contact me.  I talked with Fawzi a bit shortly after
 Druntime was created, but that's it.  I'm too busy to even do the things
 I have planned for Druntime anyway, so I'm not about to chase people
 down to try add yet more tasks to my list.


 Here I've based my words on a chat with Lars, but it might be that you
 being so busy was misinterpreted as not willing to communicate and
 "acting a bit weird". It might be hard to get it out of him now, as he
 seems to have given up on NG discussions :(


 
 For a while, there was an attempt among the Tango folks to make me an
 ambassador of sorts to Walter and Andrei.  I never really understood the
 need for this, and I suggested that whoever wanted to contact whoever
 else simply do so.  Near as I can tell, this made me appear divisive to
 some.  More to the point, when I was working on Tango I acted upon
 my own best judgment and was trusted to do so by those involved.  This
 changed as soon as talk of collaboration began, and the Tango folks
 suggested repeatedly that there must be some sort of group consensus
 before I made any functional runtime change.  There's more, but it's all
 in the same vein.
 
 To be quite frank, I would walk away from D entirely before I'd let myself
 be put in such a position, and were it not for the fact that I was the only
 person with the ability to resolve some of the issues involved in the
 collaboration discussions, I'd have walked away right then because of the
 pressure the Tango team was putting on me.  If this has earned me a bad
 reputation in some circles, so be it.  I continue to consider Tango support
 when making changes to Druntime, and if the Tango team doesn't intend
 to use Druntime that's really their problem at this point.
 
 I normally wouldn't air such dirty laundry in public, but this thread shows
 that there's still a lot of confusion about where things stand concerning
 Druntime and Tango, and so I think it may help to at least outline my
 perspective on the issue.  My sincerest hope is that people will let this
 go, and focus their energies on something more productive.


Thank you, Sean! Seeing the larger picture now, I'm with you on it. I'd 
probably rather slit my wrists than be a proxy server / ambassador of 
this kind. We're in it for the code, not flame wars, after all. I also 
hope we can forget the quibbles and focus on helping D instead :)
I'm glad you're still with us!


-- 
Tomasz Stachowiak
http://h3.team0xf.com/
h3/h3r3tic on #D freenode



 Jul 01 2009



  parent  Walter Bright <newshound1 digitalmars.com>  writes:


Tom S wrote:

 Thank you, Sean! Seeing the larger picture now, I'm with you on it. I'd 
 probably rather slit my wrists than be a proxy server / ambassador of 
 this kind. We're in it for the code, not flame wars, after all. I also 
 hope we can forget the quibbles and focus on helping D instead :)
 I'm glad you're still with us!


So am I. Sean's been doing a great job with druntime.



 Jul 01 2009



prev sibling  parent reply Don <nospam nospam.com>  writes:


Tom S wrote:

 Lutger wrote:

 Tom S wrote:


 Yigal Chripun wrote:


 (snip)

 IMHO, the Tango vs. Phobos licensing issue is the biggest bikeshed 
 color
 problem in the D realm and the only people that can solve it are the
 tango devs and walter and co. of which Neither are willing to budge.


 Uhhh... try listening to Tango folks sometimes. They really have tried.


 If you can forgive my ignorance, what is the current Tango/Phobos 
 problem you see and refer to here? Is it related to D1 or also 
 concerns a possible  future Tango D2?


 
 I'm mostly a Tango user, not its developer, so I might be misinformed, 
 but there doesn't seem to be any licensing issue except a conceptional 
 one.


Not true. The issue is that Tango uses the BSD license, which is 
inappropriate for a standard library. Phobos2 now uses the Boost license 
throughout. Because of the licensing issue, Andrei and Walter won't look 
at any Tango code.
This could be fixed quite simply by adding the Boost license to the list
of Tango licenses (it should replace BSD in my opinion).

The next biggest issue is module naming.


 As for other issues - there's very little communication between the 'D 
 Team' and the 'Tango Team'. Much could be learned and borrowed from it, 
 but you don't see that in Phobos 2. Looks like we're going to end up 
 with two 'utility libraries' that are not compatible with one another 
 and instead of complementing each other, they offer ways to do the same 
 things in a slightly different manner.


Most of the competing functionality is with parts of Phobos which are 
going to be ditched, eg the I/O system.
In Phobos2, everything will be range-based -- and that introduces a 
conceptual difference. (much like the STL in C++ vs the C libraries).

The big issue will be, how far can Tango2 go in integrating Phobos2 
concepts while retaining as much of Tango1 as possible?


 
 IIRC, Tango devs claim that its runtime is better than druntime, which 
 also only supports DMD at the moment. And apparently, there's been very 
 little contact with Sean lately, so it's a case of 'us' vs 'them' again.


The Phobos2 runtime _is_ the Tango runtime. That problem has been fixed.



 Jun 30 2009



  parent reply Tom S <h3r3tic remove.mat.uni.torun.pl>  writes:


Don wrote:

 Tom S wrote:

 Lutger wrote:

 Tom S wrote:


 Yigal Chripun wrote:


 (snip)

 IMHO, the Tango vs. Phobos licensing issue is the biggest bikeshed 
 color
 problem in the D realm and the only people that can solve it are the
 tango devs and walter and co. of which Neither are willing to budge.


 Uhhh... try listening to Tango folks sometimes. They really have tried.


 If you can forgive my ignorance, what is the current Tango/Phobos 
 problem you see and refer to here? Is it related to D1 or also 
 concerns a possible  future Tango D2?


 I'm mostly a Tango user, not its developer, so I might be misinformed, 
 but there doesn't seem to be any licensing issue except a conceptional 
 one.


 
 Not true. The issue is that Tango uses the BSD license, which is 
 inappropriate for a standard library. Phobos2 now uses the Boost license 
 throughout. Because of the licensing issue, Andrei and Walter won't look 
 at any Tango code.
 This could be fixed quite simply by adding the Boost license to the list
 of Tango licenses (it should replace BSD in my opinion).


BSD is just one of two options for Tango. What's wrong with AFL v3.0?
http://dsource.org/projects/tango/wiki/License



 The next biggest issue is module naming.


Ouch :D I'll back away from that one quickly.



 As for other issues - there's very little communication between the 'D 
 Team' and the 'Tango Team'. Much could be learned and borrowed from 
 it, but you don't see that in Phobos 2. Looks like we're going to end 
 up with two 'utility libraries' that are not compatible with one 
 another and instead of complementing each other, they offer ways to do 
 the same things in a slightly different manner.


 
 Most of the competing functionality is with parts of Phobos which are 
 going to be ditched, eg the I/O system.
 In Phobos2, everything will be range-based -- and that introduces a 
 conceptual difference. (much like the STL in C++ vs the C libraries).


How much is 'most' here? Modules like base64, bigint, boxer/variant, 
conv, date utils, filesystem ops, regex, traits, utf/unicode contain a 
lot of duplicate work.



 The big issue will be, how far can Tango2 go in integrating Phobos2 
 concepts while retaining as much of Tango1 as possible?
 

 IIRC, Tango devs claim that its runtime is better than druntime, which 
 also only supports DMD at the moment. And apparently, there's been 
 very little contact with Sean lately, so it's a case of 'us' vs 'them' 
 again.


 
 The Phobos2 runtime _is_ the Tango runtime. That problem has been fixed.


Unless a merger has been done quite recently, it _was_.


-- 
Tomasz Stachowiak
http://h3.team0xf.com/
h3/h3r3tic on #D freenode



 Jun 30 2009



  parent reply Don <nospam nospam.com>  writes:


Tom S wrote:

 Don wrote:

 Tom S wrote:

 Lutger wrote:

 Tom S wrote:


 Yigal Chripun wrote:


 (snip)

 IMHO, the Tango vs. Phobos licensing issue is the biggest bikeshed 
 color
 problem in the D realm and the only people that can solve it are the
 tango devs and walter and co. of which Neither are willing to budge.


 Uhhh... try listening to Tango folks sometimes. They really have 
 tried.


 If you can forgive my ignorance, what is the current Tango/Phobos 
 problem you see and refer to here? Is it related to D1 or also 
 concerns a possible  future Tango D2?


 I'm mostly a Tango user, not its developer, so I might be 
 misinformed, but there doesn't seem to be any licensing issue except 
 a conceptional one.


 Not true. The issue is that Tango uses the BSD license, which is 
 inappropriate for a standard library. Phobos2 now uses the Boost 
 license throughout. Because of the licensing issue, Andrei and Walter 
 won't look at any Tango code.
 This could be fixed quite simply by adding the Boost license to the list
 of Tango licenses (it should replace BSD in my opinion).


 
 BSD is just one of two options for Tango. What's wrong with AFL v3.0?
 http://dsource.org/projects/tango/wiki/License


AFL v3.0 Section 9.
If You distribute or communicate copies of the Original Work or a 
Derivative Work, You must make a reasonable effort under the 
circumstances to obtain the express assent of recipients to the terms of 
this License.

---
Richard Stallman's comment on this was:

Recent versions of the Open Software License have a term which requires 
distributors to try to obtain explicit assent to the license. This means 
that distributing OSL software on ordinary FTP sites, sending patches to 
ordinary mailing lists, or storing the software in an ordinary version 
control system, is arguably a violation of the license and would subject 
you to possible termination of the license. Thus, the Open Software 
License makes it very difficult to develop software using the ordinary 
tools of free software development. For this reason, and because it is 
incompatible with the GPL, we recommend that no version of the OSL be 
used for any software.
----


 

 The next biggest issue is module naming.


 
 Ouch :D I'll back away from that one quickly.
 
 

 As for other issues - there's very little communication between the 
 'D Team' and the 'Tango Team'. Much could be learned and borrowed 
 from it, but you don't see that in Phobos 2. Looks like we're going 
 to end up with two 'utility libraries' that are not compatible with 
 one another and instead of complementing each other, they offer ways 
 to do the same things in a slightly different manner.


 Most of the competing functionality is with parts of Phobos which are 
 going to be ditched, eg the I/O system.
 In Phobos2, everything will be range-based -- and that introduces a 
 conceptual difference. (much like the STL in C++ vs the C libraries).


 
 How much is 'most' here? Modules like base64, bigint, boxer/variant, 
 conv, date utils, filesystem ops, regex, traits, utf/unicode contain a 
 lot of duplicate work.


Yes, AFAIK half of those will be ditched from Phobos. Some were 
copy-and-paste from each other in the first place.


 
 

 The big issue will be, how far can Tango2 go in integrating Phobos2 
 concepts while retaining as much of Tango1 as possible?


 IIRC, Tango devs claim that its runtime is better than druntime, 
 which also only supports DMD at the moment. And apparently, there's 
 been very little contact with Sean lately, so it's a case of 'us' vs 
 'them' again.


 The Phobos2 runtime _is_ the Tango runtime. That problem has been fixed.


 
 Unless a merger has been done quite recently, it _was_.
 
 





 Jun 30 2009



  parent reply Tom S <h3r3tic remove.mat.uni.torun.pl>  writes:


Don wrote:

 Tom S wrote:

 Don wrote:

 Tom S wrote:

 Lutger wrote:

 Tom S wrote:


 Yigal Chripun wrote:


 (snip)

 IMHO, the Tango vs. Phobos licensing issue is the biggest 
 bikeshed color
 problem in the D realm and the only people that can solve it are the
 tango devs and walter and co. of which Neither are willing to budge.


 Uhhh... try listening to Tango folks sometimes. They really have 
 tried.


 If you can forgive my ignorance, what is the current Tango/Phobos 
 problem you see and refer to here? Is it related to D1 or also 
 concerns a possible  future Tango D2?


 I'm mostly a Tango user, not its developer, so I might be 
 misinformed, but there doesn't seem to be any licensing issue except 
 a conceptional one.


 Not true. The issue is that Tango uses the BSD license, which is 
 inappropriate for a standard library. Phobos2 now uses the Boost 
 license throughout. Because of the licensing issue, Andrei and Walter 
 won't look at any Tango code.
 This could be fixed quite simply by adding the Boost license to the list
 of Tango licenses (it should replace BSD in my opinion).


 BSD is just one of two options for Tango. What's wrong with AFL v3.0?
 http://dsource.org/projects/tango/wiki/License


 
 AFL v3.0 Section 9.
 If You distribute or communicate copies of the Original Work or a 
 Derivative Work, You must make a reasonable effort under the 
 circumstances to obtain the express assent of recipients to the terms of 
 this License.
 
 ---
 Richard Stallman's comment on this was:
 [ snip ]
 ----


Thanks for explaining this! I was not aware of this clause. The 
wiki/License page for Tango puts AFL 3.0 in a much better light... I'll 
see what folks have to say on IRC :)



 The next biggest issue is module naming.


 Ouch :D I'll back away from that one quickly.



 As for other issues - there's very little communication between the 
 'D Team' and the 'Tango Team'. Much could be learned and borrowed 
 from it, but you don't see that in Phobos 2. Looks like we're going 
 to end up with two 'utility libraries' that are not compatible with 
 one another and instead of complementing each other, they offer ways 
 to do the same things in a slightly different manner.


 Most of the competing functionality is with parts of Phobos which are 
 going to be ditched, eg the I/O system.
 In Phobos2, everything will be range-based -- and that introduces a 
 conceptual difference. (much like the STL in C++ vs the C libraries).


 How much is 'most' here? Modules like base64, bigint, boxer/variant, 
 conv, date utils, filesystem ops, regex, traits, utf/unicode contain a 
 lot of duplicate work.


 
 Yes, AFAIK half of those will be ditched from Phobos. Some were 
 copy-and-paste from each other in the first place.


Cool! But if they are ditched, does it mean that they will have 
alternative implementations written in the nearest future or does it 
mean that Tango will actually complement Phobos?


-- 
Tomasz Stachowiak
http://h3.team0xf.com/
h3/h3r3tic on #D freenode



 Jun 30 2009



  parent reply Don <nospam nospam.com>  writes:


Tom S wrote:

 Don wrote:

 Tom S wrote:

 Don wrote:

 Tom S wrote:

 Lutger wrote:

 Tom S wrote:


 Yigal Chripun wrote:


 (snip)

 IMHO, the Tango vs. Phobos licensing issue is the biggest 
 bikeshed color
 problem in the D realm and the only people that can solve it are 
 the
 tango devs and walter and co. of which Neither are willing to 
 budge.


 Uhhh... try listening to Tango folks sometimes. They really have 
 tried.


 If you can forgive my ignorance, what is the current Tango/Phobos 
 problem you see and refer to here? Is it related to D1 or also 
 concerns a possible  future Tango D2?


 I'm mostly a Tango user, not its developer, so I might be 
 misinformed, but there doesn't seem to be any licensing issue 
 except a conceptional one.


 Not true. The issue is that Tango uses the BSD license, which is 
 inappropriate for a standard library. Phobos2 now uses the Boost 
 license throughout. Because of the licensing issue, Andrei and 
 Walter won't look at any Tango code.
 This could be fixed quite simply by adding the Boost license to the 
 list
 of Tango licenses (it should replace BSD in my opinion).


 BSD is just one of two options for Tango. What's wrong with AFL v3.0?
 http://dsource.org/projects/tango/wiki/License


 AFL v3.0 Section 9.
 If You distribute or communicate copies of the Original Work or a 
 Derivative Work, You must make a reasonable effort under the 
 circumstances to obtain the express assent of recipients to the terms 
 of this License.

 ---
 Richard Stallman's comment on this was:
 [ snip ]
 ----


 
 Thanks for explaining this! I was not aware of this clause. The 
 wiki/License page for Tango puts AFL 3.0 in a much better light... I'll 
 see what folks have to say on IRC :)


Those long licenses really scare me, I'm never sure what they actually mean.


 The next biggest issue is module naming.


 Ouch :D I'll back away from that one quickly.



 As for other issues - there's very little communication between the 
 'D Team' and the 'Tango Team'. Much could be learned and borrowed 
 from it, but you don't see that in Phobos 2. Looks like we're going 
 to end up with two 'utility libraries' that are not compatible with 
 one another and instead of complementing each other, they offer 
 ways to do the same things in a slightly different manner.


 Most of the competing functionality is with parts of Phobos which 
 are going to be ditched, eg the I/O system.
 In Phobos2, everything will be range-based -- and that introduces a 
 conceptual difference. (much like the STL in C++ vs the C libraries).


 How much is 'most' here? Modules like base64, bigint, boxer/variant, 
 conv, date utils, filesystem ops, regex, traits, utf/unicode contain 
 a lot of duplicate work.


 Yes, AFAIK half of those will be ditched from Phobos. Some were 
 copy-and-paste from each other in the first place.


 
 Cool! But if they are ditched, does it mean that they will have 
 alternative implementations written in the nearest future or does it 
 mean that Tango will actually complement Phobos?


Clearly they'll have range-based implementations where appropriate. The 
extent to which Phobos and Tango overlap will probably depend on the 
extent to which Tango2 embraces the range paradigm.



 Jul 01 2009



  parent  "Nick Sabalausky" <a a.a>  writes:


"Don" <nospam nospam.com> wrote in message 
news:h2f2pq$64q$1 digitalmars.com...

 Tom S wrote:

 Don wrote:

 AFL v3.0 Section 9.
 If You distribute or communicate copies of the Original Work or a 
 Derivative Work, You must make a reasonable effort under the 
 circumstances to obtain the express assent of recipients to the terms of 
 this License.

 ---
 Richard Stallman's comment on this was:
 [ snip ]
 ----


 Thanks for explaining this! I was not aware of this clause. The 
 wiki/License page for Tango puts AFL 3.0 in a much better light... I'll 
 see what folks have to say on IRC :)


 Those long licenses really scare me, I'm never sure what they actually 
 mean.


That's something I've always considered a big problem. And one of the main 
reasons I'm a huge fan of the zlib/libpng license. 



 Jul 01 2009



prev sibling next sibling parent reply Yigal Chripun <yigal100 gmail.com>  writes:


Tom S wrote:

 Yigal Chripun wrote:
 

 thirdly, D has a dictator, Walter Bright, which decides its fate and 
 we have almost zero influence on this.


 
 I thought "The needs and contributions of the D programming community 
 form the direction it goes.".
 


who told you that?

 

 your scripting language, while awesome, has little bearing on the 
 future of the D language itself.


 
 So have many other projects. Let's stop writing them and all focus on 
 making a compiler, IDE and a debugger for a language used by no one... 
 wait, what?
 But what you're saying is true - it has little bearing on D - 
 unfortunately so, as it's one of the biggest and oldest projects using 
 it. One would think that a successful product would be shaped upon 
 feedback from its most important customers.
 
 

 IMHO, the Tango vs. Phobos licensing issue is the biggest bikeshed 
 color problem in the D realm and the only people that can solve it are 
 the tango devs and walter and co. of which Neither are willing to budge.


 
 Uhhh... try listening to Tango folks sometimes. They really have tried.
 
 

 since I have no power to help solve this problem, I see no need to 
 waste my time/energy on it. I see therefore only two options to proceed:
 a. wait until it is solved by the relevant parties.
 b. join a fork effort.


 
 a) Won't happen on its own. The relevant parties must be informed by 
 *someone*
 b) I think we're all trying to avoid this one.
 
 


I see no reason to avoid option b. it is a valid option. this fear of 
forking is silly IMO, since forking brought a lot of good to the world. 
one example that comes to mind is compiz vs. Beryl.

here's my take on this:
when people have a headache they usually just take an aspirin to stop 
the pain instead of taking care of the root cause of that headache.

I see the same thing here. people keep complaining about all the various 
symptoms: two incompatible standard libraries, toolchain issues, legacy 
linker, license issues, D2 is a moving target, stability, etc..

what is missing in all of those is a specification for the development 
process of D. until this is properly defined and designed, there will 
little progress with any of the core issues IMO.

Java, even C++ from D.



 Jun 29 2009



  parent reply Tom S <h3r3tic remove.mat.uni.torun.pl>  writes:


Yigal Chripun wrote:

 Tom S wrote:

 Yigal Chripun wrote:


 thirdly, D has a dictator, Walter Bright, which decides its fate and 
 we have almost zero influence on this.


 I thought "The needs and contributions of the D programming community 
 form the direction it goes.".


 who told you that?


http://digitalmars.com/d/


-- 
Tomasz Stachowiak
http://h3.team0xf.com/
h3/h3r3tic on #D freenode



 Jun 29 2009



  parent  Yigal Chripun <yigal100 gmail.com>  writes:


Tom S wrote:

 Yigal Chripun wrote:

 Tom S wrote:

 Yigal Chripun wrote:


 thirdly, D has a dictator, Walter Bright, which decides its fate and 
 we have almost zero influence on this.


 I thought "The needs and contributions of the D programming community 
 form the direction it goes.".


 who told you that?


 
 http://digitalmars.com/d/
 
 


don't believe everything you read online..
http://www.digitalmars.com/d/2.0/dbc.html (contracts and inheritance)



 Jun 29 2009



prev sibling  parent  Derek Parnell <derek psych.ward>  writes:


On Mon, 29 Jun 2009 23:05:29 +0200, Tom S wrote:


 thirdly, D has a dictator, Walter Bright, which decides its fate and we 
 have almost zero influence on this.


 
 I thought "The needs and contributions of the D programming community 
 form the direction it goes.".


 
LOL  ... yeah, right.

-- 
Derek Parnell
Melbourne, Australia
skype: derek.j.parnell



 Jun 29 2009



prev sibling  parent reply Walter Bright <newshound1 digitalmars.com>  writes:


Yigal Chripun wrote:

 IMHO, the Tango vs. Phobos licensing issue is the biggest bikeshed color 
 problem in the D realm and the only people that can solve it are the 
 tango devs and walter and co. of which Neither are willing to budge.


A lot of fundamental breaking changes were made to Phobos2 to be 
compatible with Tango. It's now up to Tango to take advantage of that.



 Jul 01 2009



  parent reply yigal chripun <yigal100 gmail.com>  writes:


Walter Bright Wrote:


 Yigal Chripun wrote:

 IMHO, the Tango vs. Phobos licensing issue is the biggest bikeshed color 
 problem in the D realm and the only people that can solve it are the 
 tango devs and walter and co. of which Neither are willing to budge.


 
 A lot of fundamental breaking changes were made to Phobos2 to be 
 compatible with Tango. It's now up to Tango to take advantage of that.


the above reasoning is why the problem exists. "We did our part, go blame the
other party". 
can you please for once try to see the core issue here and not just the
resulting problems?
there is no defined system for the development of D. even MS has a well defined
plan for their .net platform. where's the plan for D? where the process to
define that plan? 
Either you need to have a plan or you need to have a community driven process
(Java JSRs, Python PEPs). 



 Jul 01 2009



 next sibling parent  "Adam D. Ruppe" <destructionator gmail.com>  writes:


On Wed, Jul 01, 2009 at 07:41:17AM -0400, yigal chripun wrote:

 there is no defined system for the development of D.


What does this have to do with the development of an independent project?

-- 
Adam D. Ruppe
http://arsdnet.net



 Jul 01 2009



prev sibling next sibling parent reply Kagamin <spam here.lot>  writes:


yigal chripun Wrote:


 there is no defined system for the development of D. even MS has a well
defined plan for their .net platform. where's the plan for D? where the process
to define that plan? 
 Either you need to have a plan or you need to have a community driven process
(Java JSRs, Python PEPs). 


How the development plan relates to tango? There's a plan to port tango to D2,
though it proved to be troublesome. And I think, tango is supposed to be
community driven.



 Jul 01 2009



 next sibling parent reply Jason House <jason.james.house gmail.com>  writes:


Kagamin Wrote:


 yigal chripun Wrote:
 

 there is no defined system for the development of D. even MS has a well
defined plan for their .net platform. where's the plan for D? where the process
to define that plan? 
 Either you need to have a plan or you need to have a community driven process
(Java JSRs, Python PEPs). 


 
 How the development plan relates to tango? There's a plan to port tango to D2,
though it proved to be troublesome. And I think, tango is supposed to be
community driven.


My understanding is that the D2 port was an effort by one inspired community
member. It lived in its own branch and quickly got out of date. Both D2 and
this mailing list are completely ignored by the Tango developers. Once D2 stops
changing, they may reconsider. As far as I know, however, there is no way to
maintain a dual D1/D2 code base, and that makes me worry that the Tango devs
will have to choose between D1 and D2.

 



 Jul 01 2009



 next sibling parent reply Kagamin <spam here.lot>  writes:


Jason House Wrote:


 My understanding is that the D2 port was an effort by one inspired community
member. It lived in its own branch and quickly got out of date. Both D2 and
this mailing list are completely ignored by the Tango developers. Once D2 stops
changing, they may reconsider. As far as I know, however, there is no way to
maintain a dual D1/D2 code base, and that makes me worry that the Tango devs
will have to choose between D1 and D2.
 


If I recall it right there are bugs blocking tango port.



 Jul 01 2009



  parent reply Walter Bright <newshound1 digitalmars.com>  writes:


Kagamin wrote:

 If I recall it right there are bugs blocking tango port.


I've fixed all the bugs identified by the Tango team as blocking Tango2. 
If there are more, please give me the bugzilla numbers.



 Jul 01 2009



  parent  Kagamin <spam here.lot>  writes:


Walter Bright Wrote:


 Kagamin wrote:

 If I recall it right there are bugs blocking tango port.


 
 I've fixed all the bugs identified by the Tango team as blocking Tango2. 
 If there are more, please give me the bugzilla numbers.


I may have an outdated info, I don't track the subject.



 Jul 02 2009



prev sibling  parent  "Nick Sabalausky" <a a.a>  writes:


"Jason House" <jason.james.house gmail.com> wrote in message 
news:h2flfv$1bkj$1 digitalmars.com...

 Kagamin Wrote:


 yigal chripun Wrote:


 there is no defined system for the development of D. even MS has a well 
 defined plan for their .net platform. where's the plan for D? where the 
 process to define that plan?
 Either you need to have a plan or you need to have a community driven 
 process (Java JSRs, Python PEPs).


 How the development plan relates to tango? There's a plan to port tango 
 to D2, though it proved to be troublesome. And I think, tango is supposed 
 to be community driven.


 My understanding is that the D2 port was an effort by one inspired 
 community member. It lived in its own branch and quickly got out of date. 
 Both D2 and this mailing list are completely ignored by the Tango 
 developers. Once D2 stops changing, they may reconsider. As far as I know, 
 however, there is no way to maintain a dual D1/D2 code base, and that 
 makes me worry that the Tango devs will have to choose between D1 and D2.


You make it sound like the Tango devs are just being stubborn. But AIUI, it 
*is* Tango's plan to port to D2 as soon as D2 stabalizes (a lesson learned 
from the prior efforts that you mentioned), which Walter/Andrei have been 
promising will be in a few months around the time of the book's release.

And I've seen some of them around here, like Lars and Sean. I suppose I 
haven't seen Kris unless he goes by a different name here. But then there's 
Jasha's who's just plain been busy, so that's understandable with him. (I 
forget offhand who else is a regular tango guy, I'm terrible with names 
anyway...) From what I can tell, I don't see much evidence to suggest that 
the Tango guys are avoiding the ng.



 Jul 01 2009



prev sibling  parent reply yigal chripun <yigal100 gmail.com>  writes:


Kagamin Wrote:


 yigal chripun Wrote:
 

 there is no defined system for the development of D. even MS has a well
defined plan for their .net platform. where's the plan for D? where the process
to define that plan? 
 Either you need to have a plan or you need to have a community driven process
(Java JSRs, Python PEPs). 


 
 How the development plan relates to tango? There's a plan to port tango to D2,
though it proved to be troublesome. And I think, tango is supposed to be
community driven.


the lack of proper planning relates to everything:
blocking bugs that affect tango for D2, licensing issues - everyone has his own
prefered license and there is no central body to manage that (there is a GOOD
reason why all GNU code is copyrighted by the FSF), no plan as to what features
will be implemented, how and when  (latest example - Bartosz' concurrency
design for D which was rejected by Andrei), lack of planning for the standard
library user APIs - Andrei rewrote half of phobos - with no regard for
integration efforts with tango, and so forth. 

It really doesn't matter how good a programmer Andrei is if there is no
consideration for the end user in his code. It doesn't matter how fast a car
you can build if it doesn't fit on the standard state roads. 
D feels like patient zero of NIH syndrom where everything is a one man show. no
fucking amount of colaboration is even taken into account. 

The only person here that undersands this is Don and nobody listens to him, so
fucking what if he needs to copy-paste all his code to support the tango-phobos
dichotomy, right? 



 Jul 01 2009



 next sibling parent reply "Adam D. Ruppe" <destructionator gmail.com>  writes:


On Wed, Jul 01, 2009 at 01:21:58PM -0400, yigal chripun wrote:

 the lack of proper planning relates to everything:


I think D has proper planning. It has a unified guiding vision with Walter
Bright and Andrei Alexandrescu. And they discuss it in blogs and on this
newsgroup, which usually gets worthless replies.

Their vision is why Phobos 2 is coming together and why D isn't being
bloated with every useless feature mentioned in this group.


 blocking bugs that affect tango for D2


Which ones?


 licensing issues - everyone has his own prefered license and there is no
central body to manage that


Yes, there is: Walter Bright. There is a GOOD reason why he asks for those
public domain statements for all contributions.


 lack of planning for the standard library user APIs - Andrei rewrote half of
phobos - with no regard for integration efforts with tango, and so forth. 


He rewrote it to all fit in to a unified plan. He made requests for comments
on this group several times.


If you guys want more involvement, stop spamming the newsgroup with false or
unsupported statements and irrelevant bullshit. Give the big names a good
reason to discuss technical subjects with you - an expectation that they'll
have to sift through dozens of noise posts isn't that reason.


-- 
Adam D. Ruppe
http://arsdnet.net



 Jul 01 2009



  parent  "Lars T. Kyllingstad" <public kyllingen.NOSPAMnet>  writes:


Adam D. Ruppe wrote:

 On Wed, Jul 01, 2009 at 01:21:58PM -0400, yigal chripun wrote:

 the lack of proper planning relates to everything:


 
 I think D has proper planning. It has a unified guiding vision with Walter
 Bright and Andrei Alexandrescu. And they discuss it in blogs and on this
 newsgroup, which usually gets worthless replies.
 
 Their vision is why Phobos 2 is coming together and why D isn't being
 bloated with every useless feature mentioned in this group.



Hear, hear!

-Lars



 Jul 01 2009



prev sibling next sibling parent  superdan <super dan.org>  writes:


yigal chripun Wrote:


 Kagamin Wrote:
 

 yigal chripun Wrote:
 

 there is no defined system for the development of D. even MS has a well
defined plan for their .net platform. where's the plan for D? where the process
to define that plan? 
 Either you need to have a plan or you need to have a community driven process
(Java JSRs, Python PEPs). 


 
 How the development plan relates to tango? There's a plan to port tango to D2,
though it proved to be troublesome. And I think, tango is supposed to be
community driven.


 
 the lack of proper planning relates to everything:
 blocking bugs that affect tango for D2, licensing issues - everyone has his
own prefered license and there is no central body to manage that (there is a
GOOD reason why all GNU code is copyrighted by the FSF), no plan as to what
features will be implemented, how and when  (latest example - Bartosz'
concurrency design for D which was rejected by Andrei), lack of planning for
the standard library user APIs - Andrei rewrote half of phobos - with no regard
for integration efforts with tango, and so forth. 
 
 It really doesn't matter how good a programmer Andrei is if there is no
consideration for the end user in his code. It doesn't matter how fast a car
you can build if it doesn't fit on the standard state roads. 
 D feels like patient zero of NIH syndrom where everything is a one man show.
no fucking amount of colaboration is even taken into account. 
 
 The only person here that undersands this is Don and nobody listens to him, so
fucking what if he needs to copy-paste all his code to support the tango-phobos
dichotomy, right? 
 


d00d. cussin's pathetic. don't suit ya. wut's yer real problem?



 Jul 01 2009



prev sibling  parent reply Walter Bright <newshound1 digitalmars.com>  writes:


yigal chripun wrote:

 blocking bugs that affect tango for D2,


Please let me know the Bugzilla numbers for these.



 Jul 01 2009



  parent reply davidl <davidl nospam.org>  writes:


在 Thu, 02 Jul 2009 04:36:16 +0800，Walter Bright  
<newshound1 digitalmars.com> 写道:


 yigal chripun wrote:

 blocking bugs that affect tango for D2,


 Please let me know the Bugzilla numbers for these.


http://d.puremagic.com/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=3071 //i'm not sure if this  
affects tango, i can't quite remember how i updated tango d2 branch in my  
own box.
http://d.puremagic.com/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=3075
http://d.puremagic.com/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=3125


-- 
使用 Opera 革命性的电子邮件客户程序: http://www.opera.com/mail/



 Jul 02 2009



  parent  Walter Bright <newshound1 digitalmars.com>  writes:


davidl wrote:

 在 Thu, 02 Jul 2009 04:36:16 +0800，Walter Bright 
 <newshound1 digitalmars.com> 写道:
 

 yigal chripun wrote:

 blocking bugs that affect tango for D2,


 Please let me know the Bugzilla numbers for these.


 
 http://d.puremagic.com/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=3071 //i'm not sure if 
 this affects tango, i can't quite remember how i updated tango d2 branch 
 in my own box.
 http://d.puremagic.com/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=3075
 http://d.puremagic.com/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=3125
 
 


Thanks.



 Jul 02 2009



prev sibling next sibling parent  Walter Bright <newshound1 digitalmars.com>  writes:


yigal chripun wrote:

 Walter Bright Wrote:
 

 Yigal Chripun wrote:

 IMHO, the Tango vs. Phobos licensing issue is the biggest bikeshed color 
 problem in the D realm and the only people that can solve it are the 
 tango devs and walter and co. of which Neither are willing to budge.


 A lot of fundamental breaking changes were made to Phobos2 to be 
 compatible with Tango. It's now up to Tango to take advantage of that.


 
 the above reasoning is why the problem exists. "We did our part, go blame the
other party".


I do not tell the Tango team what to do. All I can do is get Phobos 
adjust to accommodate Tango compatibility, which has been done.



 Jul 01 2009



prev sibling  parent reply "Lars T. Kyllingstad" <public kyllingen.NOSPAMnet>  writes:


yigal chripun wrote:

 Either you need to have a plan or you need to have a community driven process
(Java JSRs, Python PEPs). 


There is a similar option for D, although it doesn't have a fancy 
abbreviation: You can put enhancement requests in Bugzilla and get 
people to vote for them.

-Lars



 Jul 01 2009



  parent reply yigal chripun <yigal100 gmail.com>  writes:


Lars T. Kyllingstad Wrote:


 yigal chripun wrote:

 Either you need to have a plan or you need to have a community driven process
(Java JSRs, Python PEPs). 


 
 There is a similar option for D, although it doesn't have a fancy 
 abbreviation: You can put enhancement requests in Bugzilla and get 
 people to vote for them.
 
 -Lars


you must be kidding right? 
maybe the situation is improving lately but not that long ago I remember posts
by downs where he pointed out an old bug in DMD with a patch to fix that bug
already in Bugzilla and that fix was in bugzila several *years* without anyone
caring. 

there is no reviewing mechanism in place - so if Walter has no time to review
patches they will not be incorporated. There is no planning regarding timeing
and mile stones, nowhere can you find out what will be implemented when and by
whom, nowhere can you see the test plan, the review plan, etc. 

compare a very successful project like firefox where everything is planned
ahead and timed (what feature will be in what release and so forth) with Debian
where if they're lucky they have two releases in a decade and even Debian with
the faumous "we will release when the software is ready" has a release plan!

for D this means that the released compiler can have blocking bugs for major D
libraries (tango, dwt, etc..) . that means, no one knows ahead of time what
language features a release will contain and how will that affect the code.
sometimes even *after* the release you don't know that since sometimes walter
forgets to mention some new feature he implemented. 

there are free tools available for all of that and nothing has to be done
manually, no matter how high your requirments are. Google for example has a
review system for its Android code base. 



 Jul 02 2009



  parent reply Walter Bright <newshound1 digitalmars.com>  writes:


yigal chripun wrote:

 Lars T. Kyllingstad Wrote:
 

 yigal chripun wrote:

 Either you need to have a plan or you need to have a community
 driven process (Java JSRs, Python PEPs).


 There is a similar option for D, although it doesn't have a fancy 
 abbreviation: You can put enhancement requests in Bugzilla and get
  people to vote for them.
 
 -Lars


 
 you must be kidding right? maybe the situation is improving lately
 but not that long ago I remember posts by downs where he pointed out
 an old bug in DMD with a patch to fix that bug already in Bugzilla
 and that fix was in bugzila several *years* without anyone caring.


If that is the bug I am thinking of, the patch papered over one instance 
of the problem and didn't fix it at all. The patch even noted that it 
was incomplete. The real fix required much more extensive work, and 
there were higher priority problems.

My general experience with posted compiler patches is about half of them 
are good, the other half are incorrect and require more development.

For a more recent example, 3122 contained a patch that was marked as 
complete and tested, but it had two serious bugs (did not check that a 
filename was supplied, and did not check for file write errors) and an 
unnecessary hardcoded OS dependency (on path lengths). These aren't hard 
to fix, and I merged in the patch with fixes, I'm just trying to say 
that things are not as simple as just apply patches.

That said, I still appreciate and encourage posting patches to bugzilla, 
as even if incomplete they still cut down the work for me that is 
necessary to fix the problem, and hence they are valuable.



 Jul 02 2009



 next sibling parent reply Tom S <h3r3tic remove.mat.uni.torun.pl>  writes:


Walter Bright wrote:

 For a more recent example, 3122 contained a patch that was marked as 
 complete and tested, but it had two serious bugs (did not check that a 
 filename was supplied, and did not check for file write errors) and an 
 unnecessary hardcoded OS dependency (on path lengths). These aren't hard 
 to fix, and I merged in the patch with fixes, I'm just trying to say 
 that things are not as simple as just apply patches.


Guilty as charged. Sorry about that. I didn't consider the case where 
someone would not provide a file name and didn't realize that write 
errors were an issue in this case. I guess I'm used to I/O code throwing 
exceptions when something goes wrong ;)

The MAX_PATH+2 was probably plain stupid of me. I wanted to hardcode it 
to '256' but then thought 'oh, MAX_PATH+2 would be better!', both of 
which were braindead considering that I've just checked that filename 
ops in DMD use dynamic allocation for this purpose. Please let me know 
the next time I commit a crime like this and I'll fix it gladly! I 
promise my next patch will be better :P

Thanks for folding it in! *g*


-- 
Tomasz Stachowiak
http://h3.team0xf.com/
h3/h3r3tic on #D freenode



 Jul 02 2009



  parent  Walter Bright <newshound1 digitalmars.com>  writes:


Tom S wrote:

 Guilty as charged. Sorry about that. I didn't consider the case where 
 someone would not provide a file name and didn't realize that write 
 errors were an issue in this case. I guess I'm used to I/O code throwing 
 exceptions when something goes wrong ;)
 
 The MAX_PATH+2 was probably plain stupid of me. I wanted to hardcode it 
 to '256' but then thought 'oh, MAX_PATH+2 would be better!', both of 
 which were braindead considering that I've just checked that filename 
 ops in DMD use dynamic allocation for this purpose. Please let me know 
 the next time I commit a crime like this and I'll fix it gladly! I 
 promise my next patch will be better :P


I wouldn't worry about it. We all make mistakes programming - that's 
what code reviews are for.



 Thanks for folding it in! *g*





 Jul 02 2009



prev sibling next sibling parent reply Jason House <jason.james.house gmail.com>  writes:


Walter Bright Wrote:


 My general experience with posted compiler patches is about half of them 
 are good, the other half are incorrect and require more


for the bad half, do you comment in the bug reports about why you think the
patches are bad? 



 Jul 02 2009



  parent reply Walter Bright <newshound1 digitalmars.com>  writes:


Jason House wrote:

 Walter Bright Wrote:
 

 My general experience with posted compiler patches is about half of them 
 are good, the other half are incorrect and require more


 
 for the bad half, do you comment in the bug reports about why you think the
patches are bad? 


Sometimes, but not usually. I doubted anyone cared as long as they got 
fixed one way or another.



 Jul 02 2009



 next sibling parent  Brad Roberts <braddr bellevue.puremagic.com>  writes:


On Thu, 2 Jul 2009, Walter Bright wrote:


 Jason House wrote:

 Walter Bright Wrote:
 

 My general experience with posted compiler patches is about half of them
 are good, the other half are incorrect and require more


 
 for the bad half, do you comment in the bug reports about why you think the
 patches are bad? 


 
 Sometimes, but not usually. I doubted anyone cared as long as they got fixed
 one way or another.


Without education, the chances of the patches getting better in the future 
is pretty close to zero.  With a little education, the chances are pretty 
good.  IE, it's in your own best interest to help out the people that are 
willing to help you.

Later,
Brad



 Jul 02 2009



prev sibling next sibling parent  Derek Parnell <derek psych.ward>  writes:


On Thu, 02 Jul 2009 13:55:56 -0700, Walter Bright wrote:


 Jason House wrote:

 Walter Bright Wrote:
 

 My general experience with posted compiler patches is about half of them 
 are good, the other half are incorrect and require more


 
 for the bad half, do you comment in the bug reports about why you think the
patches are bad? 


 
 Sometimes, but not usually. I doubted anyone cared as long as they got 
 fixed one way or another.


Bzzzt ... wrong answer.

-- 
Derek Parnell
Melbourne, Australia
skype: derek.j.parnell



 Jul 02 2009



prev sibling  parent reply Jason House <jason.james.house gmail.com>  writes:


Walter Bright Wrote:


 Jason House wrote:

 Walter Bright Wrote:
 

 My general experience with posted compiler patches is about half of them 
 are good, the other half are incorrect and require more


 
 for the bad half, do you comment in the bug reports about why you think the
patches are bad? 




If you closed every bug promptly, we probably wouldn't care. Bugs that are not
closed can be for many reasons... You could be too busy, the patch requires too
much time to fix, you don't understand the bug, you disagree with the bug, you
forgot about the bug, you never read the bug report, etc...

Silence is frequently mistaken for apathy. Responses to bug reports generate a
lot of good will and encourages further help from the community. Bugs open for
years with no comments have the opposite effect... 

 
 Sometimes, but not usually. I doubted anyone cared as long as they got 
 fixed one way or another.





 Jul 02 2009



  parent reply Walter Bright <newshound1 digitalmars.com>  writes:


Jason House wrote:

 Silence is frequently mistaken for apathy. Responses to bug reports
 generate a lot of good will and encourages further help from the
 community. Bugs open for years with no comments have the opposite
 effect...


Look at the changelog - there's regular and significant progress every 
month in fixing reported bugs.

If someone wants to help advance D with something that does not have me 
as a gating factor, a *big* help would be to get the gdb patches folded 
into the main branch of gdb:

http://sourceware.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=10142



 Jul 02 2009



  parent reply Jason House <jason.james.house gmail.com>  writes:


Walter Bright Wrote:


 Jason House wrote:

 Silence is frequently mistaken for apathy. Responses to bug reports
 generate a lot of good will and encourages further help from the
 community. Bugs open for years with no comments have the opposite
 effect...


 
 Look at the changelog - there's regular and significant progress every 
 month in fixing reported bugs.
 
 If someone wants to help advance D with something that does not have me 
 as a gating factor, a *big* help would be to get the gdb patches folded 
 into the main branch of gdb:
 
 http://sourceware.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=10142


there's already someone working on getting that patch into gdb. I've been
trying lately to play with the dmd -gc output so that gdb recognizes it
properly. I'm not very far, and my queries in #gdb have gone unanswered :(



 Jul 02 2009



 next sibling parent reply Walter Bright <newshound1 digitalmars.com>  writes:


Jason House wrote:

 there's already someone working on getting that patch into gdb.


Great!


 I've
 been trying lately to play with the dmd -gc output so that gdb
 recognizes it properly.


dumpobj will pretty-print the compiler debug output. It's a handy tool.


 I'm not very far, and my queries in #gdb have
 gone unanswered :(


That's normal. But the source to GDB is available, and that's usually a 
lot better source of information. I prefer it to asking questions and 
getting incorrect answers back :-(



 Jul 02 2009



  parent reply Jason House <jason.james.house gmail.com>  writes:


Walter Bright Wrote:


 Jason House wrote:

 there's already someone working on getting that patch into gdb.


 
 Great!
 

 I've
 been trying lately to play with the dmd -gc output so that gdb
 recognizes it properly.


 
 dumpobj will pretty-print the compiler debug output. It's a handy tool.


Any tips/links on usage and output interpretation would be appreciated. I've
never read the dwarf spec and have no idea what should be in debug info.
 

 I'm not very far, and my queries in #gdb have
 gone unanswered :(


 
 That's normal. But the source to GDB is available, and that's usually a 
 lot better source of information. I prefer it to asking questions and 
 getting incorrect answers back :-(


the last time someone helped me on #gdb, they were extremely helpful and
knowledgable. I'm hoping for a similar experience. It'd likely speed up my
efforts 5 fold. I won't hold my breath though.   



 Jul 02 2009



  parent  Walter Bright <newshound1 digitalmars.com>  writes:


Jason House wrote:

 Walter Bright Wrote:
 

 Jason House wrote:

 there's already someone working on getting that patch into gdb.


 Great!
 

 I've been trying lately to play with the dmd -gc output so that
 gdb recognizes it properly.


 dumpobj will pretty-print the compiler debug output. It's a handy
 tool.


 
 Any tips/links on usage and output interpretation would be
 appreciated. I've never read the dwarf spec and have no idea what
 should be in debug info.


Not really. I developed it by reading the spec and trying to dump the 
output of gcc.


 

 I'm not very far, and my queries in #gdb have gone unanswered :(


 That's normal. But the source to GDB is available, and that's
 usually a lot better source of information. I prefer it to asking
 questions and getting incorrect answers back :-(


 
 the last time someone helped me on #gdb, they were extremely helpful
 and knowledgable. I'm hoping for a similar experience. It'd likely
 speed up my efforts 5 fold. I won't hold my breath though.
 





 Jul 02 2009



prev sibling  parent reply Christian Kamm <kamm-incasoftware removethis.de>  writes:


Jason House wrote:

 there's already someone working on getting that patch into gdb. I've been
 trying lately to play with the dmd -gc output so that gdb recognizes it
 properly. I'm not very far, and my queries in #gdb have gone unanswered :(


You could also try compiling the same file with DMD and LDC and compare the 
debug info.



 Jul 02 2009



  parent  Jason House <jason.james.house gmail.com>  writes:


Christian Kamm wrote:


 Jason House wrote:

 there's already someone working on getting that patch into gdb. I've been
 trying lately to play with the dmd -gc output so that gdb recognizes it
 properly. I'm not very far, and my queries in #gdb have gone unanswered
 :(


 
 You could also try compiling the same file with DMD and LDC and compare
 the debug info.


It's a good idea.

Something really strange happened though.  In order to get ldc to work, I 
had to install libelf.  When I did that, the debug info from dmd changed 
drastically.  I wonder how/why that happened.  

After the install, I get this error from objdump when examing the dmd 
output:
objdump: Warning: .debug_info offset of 0x12c in .debug_pubnames section 
does not point to a CU header.



 Jul 03 2009



prev sibling next sibling parent  Don <nospam nospam.com>  writes:


Walter Bright wrote:

 yigal chripun wrote:

 Lars T. Kyllingstad Wrote:


 yigal chripun wrote:

 Either you need to have a plan or you need to have a community
 driven process (Java JSRs, Python PEPs).


 There is a similar option for D, although it doesn't have a fancy 
 abbreviation: You can put enhancement requests in Bugzilla and get
  people to vote for them.

 -Lars


 you must be kidding right? maybe the situation is improving lately
 but not that long ago I remember posts by downs where he pointed out
 an old bug in DMD with a patch to fix that bug already in Bugzilla
 and that fix was in bugzila several *years* without anyone caring.


 
 If that is the bug I am thinking of, the patch papered over one instance 
 of the problem and didn't fix it at all. The patch even noted that it 
 was incomplete. The real fix required much more extensive work, and 
 there were higher priority problems.
 
 My general experience with posted compiler patches is about half of them 
 are good, the other half are incorrect and require more development.
 
 For a more recent example, 3122 contained a patch that was marked as 
 complete and tested, but it had two serious bugs (did not check that a 
 filename was supplied, and did not check for file write errors) and an 
 unnecessary hardcoded OS dependency (on path lengths). These aren't hard 
 to fix, and I merged in the patch with fixes, I'm just trying to say 
 that things are not as simple as just apply patches.
 
 That said, I still appreciate and encourage posting patches to bugzilla, 
 as even if incomplete they still cut down the work for me that is 
 necessary to fix the problem, and hence they are valuable.


It'd be good to have a keyword in bugzilla, "patch-rejected", which you 
could use if there's a problem with a patch and you aren't going to 
include it in the next release. Then, such cases wouldn't keep showing 
up on a search for all 'patch' bugs, and patch contributers could check 
for them, redoing their patch if desired.

Another useful keyword would be "no-line-number". Error messages with no 
line number are high severity (almost as important as compiler crashes), 
but they're hard to track right now.

This would give the bug severity list as:

patch
wrong-code
ice-on-valid-code
ice-on-invalid-code
no-line-number
rejects-valid
accepts-invalid
diagnostic

Currently, 'patch' is one of the biggest categories in bugzilla! <g>.



 Jul 03 2009



prev sibling  parent  Yigal Chripun <yigal spam.come>  writes:


Walter Bright Wrote:


 yigal chripun wrote:

 Lars T. Kyllingstad Wrote:
 

 yigal chripun wrote:

 Either you need to have a plan or you need to have a community
 driven process (Java JSRs, Python PEPs).


 There is a similar option for D, although it doesn't have a fancy 
 abbreviation: You can put enhancement requests in Bugzilla and get
  people to vote for them.
 
 -Lars


 
 you must be kidding right? maybe the situation is improving lately
 but not that long ago I remember posts by downs where he pointed out
 an old bug in DMD with a patch to fix that bug already in Bugzilla
 and that fix was in bugzila several *years* without anyone caring.


 
 If that is the bug I am thinking of, the patch papered over one instance 
 of the problem and didn't fix it at all. The patch even noted that it 
 was incomplete. The real fix required much more extensive work, and 
 there were higher priority problems.
 
 My general experience with posted compiler patches is about half of them 
 are good, the other half are incorrect and require more development.
 
 For a more recent example, 3122 contained a patch that was marked as 
 complete and tested, but it had two serious bugs (did not check that a 
 filename was supplied, and did not check for file write errors) and an 
 unnecessary hardcoded OS dependency (on path lengths). These aren't hard 
 to fix, and I merged in the patch with fixes, I'm just trying to say 
 that things are not as simple as just apply patches.
 
 That said, I still appreciate and encourage posting patches to bugzilla, 
 as even if incomplete they still cut down the work for me that is 
 necessary to fix the problem, and hence they are valuable.


the above implementation details are completely besides the point. 
and to re-iterate:
the point being that there was a bug report with a patch lying around for 1.5
*years* without any kind of _response_. 



 Jul 03 2009



prev sibling  parent reply Yigal Chripun <yigal100 gmail.com>  writes:


MIURA Masahiro wrote:

 Yigal Chripun wrote:

 do not tell other people what to think and what to write. this is not 
 china and you are not the great firewall.
 grow up.


 
 Apparently you don't share Jarrett's consciousness of the problem
 that more important issues are left undiscussed.
 Freedom may be paramount, but I'm not sure if D's situation would
 improve just by letting people write what they want to.
 
 I don't have a clearcut answer.  Perhaps there should be some kind
 of soft leadership or orientation?
 
 (Reminds me of Guido van Rossum jokingly calling himself a kind of
 dictator.  And his Python is a successful language.)


Your conclusion is false.
I didn't share my opinion regarding Jarrett's "consciousness of the
problem" at all. That's entirely your assumption.

If Jarrett sees some discussion topic being neglected than by all means
he should voice his opinion.

there are two options here:
positive option - "let's talk about subject X". <- this is productive.
negative option - "you must stop discussing subject Y". <- this is not.

Jarrett chose the negative option for which I voiced my criticism, that
is all.



 Jun 29 2009



  parent  Tom S <h3r3tic remove.mat.uni.torun.pl>  writes:


Yigal Chripun wrote:

 MIURA Masahiro wrote:

 Yigal Chripun wrote:

 do not tell other people what to think and what to write. this is not 
 china and you are not the great firewall.
 grow up.


 Apparently you don't share Jarrett's consciousness of the problem
 that more important issues are left undiscussed.
 Freedom may be paramount, but I'm not sure if D's situation would
 improve just by letting people write what they want to.

 I don't have a clearcut answer.  Perhaps there should be some kind
 of soft leadership or orientation?

 (Reminds me of Guido van Rossum jokingly calling himself a kind of
 dictator.  And his Python is a successful language.)


 
 Your conclusion is false.
 I didn't share my opinion regarding Jarrett's "consciousness of the
 problem" at all. That's entirely your assumption.
 
 If Jarrett sees some discussion topic being neglected than by all means
 he should voice his opinion.
 
 there are two options here:
 positive option - "let's talk about subject X". <- this is productive.
 negative option - "you must stop discussing subject Y". <- this is not.
 
 Jarrett chose the negative option for which I voiced my criticism, that
 is all.


http://www.jfbillingsley.com/blog/?p=53


-- 
Tomasz Stachowiak
http://h3.team0xf.com/
h3/h3r3tic on #D freenode



 Jun 29 2009



prev sibling  parent  Derek Parnell <derek psych.ward>  writes:


On Mon, 29 Jun 2009 09:21:29 +0300, Yigal Chripun wrote:


 Jarrett Billingsley wrote:

 With four or five people having voiced concerns over the future of D
 in the past week or so, what's the busiest discussion?
 
 int.nan, of course.
 
 Come on.  Get with the program.  Enough already with the bikeshed
 bullshit.  There are far more important issues at hand.


 
 if you do not want to discuss a particular topic than by all means do 
 not participate in it.
 do not tell other people what to think and what to write. this is not 
 china and you are not the great firewall.
 grow up.
 
 if you want a moderated NG than ask Walter to create one. This is *not* 
 such a NG and people *will* discuss whatever they want, whether you like 
 it or not.


I agree with both of you.

-- 
Derek Parnell
Melbourne, Australia
skype: derek.j.parnell



 Jun 29 2009



prev sibling next sibling parent  "Lars T. Kyllingstad" <public kyllingen.NOSPAMnet>  writes:


Jarrett Billingsley wrote:

 With four or five people having voiced concerns over the future of D
 in the past week or so, what's the busiest discussion?
 
 int.nan, of course.
 
 Come on.  Get with the program.  Enough already with the bikeshed
 bullshit.  There are far more important issues at hand.



Although I definitely feel your pain, I am not worried about the impact 
these kinds of discussions will have on D development. If Walter & co. 
were among the most active participants, I would be deeply worried 
indeed, but luckily they aren't. Hopefully they spend their time on more 
important stuff.

Do you know what worries me, though? The fact that whenever a potential 
D user comes to digitalmars.com/d and clicks "Forum" he/she sees two 
things: Bikeshed stuff or "D is doomed".

Walter: Please, please, please direct new users towards D.learn instead 
of this group!

I'm starting to think one should be required pass some D programming 
test to be able to acess this NG, to sift out those who are new enough 
to potentially be scared off. Instead of having to read distorted text 
in a CAPTCHA, one would have to decipher a piece of complex template 
code or something.

-Lars



 Jun 29 2009



prev sibling  parent reply Steve Teale <steve.teale britseyeview.com>  writes:


dsimcha Wrote:


 I feel that miscellaneous toolchain issues (other than implementing changes to
the
 spec and fixing bugs that severely affect the usability of language features)
are
 an order of magnitude less important because this stuff can always be done
after
 the fact without breaking code.  In other words, once the spec is finalized
and a
 decent reference implementation is out the door, people can confidently use D2
 knowing that the situation will only get better.  Until then, it's two steps
 forward, one step back when code breaks in non-trivial ways due to a spec
change
 or a compiler bug makes a seemingly useful feature that you planned on using
 absolutely useless.


Dsimcha,

Everything can be done later. The concern is 'will it'. If D dies on the way
because people come to look __again__ and see same-old, same-old, then this is
a real risk.

Steve



 Jun 29 2009



 next sibling parent  "Nick Sabalausky" <a a.a>  writes:


"Steve Teale" <steve.teale britseyeview.com> wrote in message 
news:h2asuv$cm4$1 digitalmars.com...

 dsimcha Wrote:


 I feel that miscellaneous toolchain issues (other than implementing 
 changes to the
 spec and fixing bugs that severely affect the usability of language 
 features) are
 an order of magnitude less important because this stuff can always be 
 done after
 the fact without breaking code.  In other words, once the spec is 
 finalized and a
 decent reference implementation is out the door, people can confidently 
 use D2
 knowing that the situation will only get better.  Until then, it's two 
 steps
 forward, one step back when code breaks in non-trivial ways due to a spec 
 change
 or a compiler bug makes a seemingly useful feature that you planned on 
 using
 absolutely useless.


 Dsimcha,

 Everything can be done later. The concern is 'will it'. If D dies on the 
 way because people come to look __again__ and see same-old, same-old, then 
 this is a real risk.


Sorry about my bad mood and echoing of the "elbow grease" stance, but "it 
will" if people work on these things (as they are doing) instead of 
complaining about the sky falling. 



 Jun 29 2009



prev sibling  parent  "Lars T. Kyllingstad" <public kyllingen.NOSPAMnet>  writes:


Steve Teale wrote:

 dsimcha Wrote:
 

 I feel that miscellaneous toolchain issues (other than implementing changes to
the
 spec and fixing bugs that severely affect the usability of language features)
are
 an order of magnitude less important because this stuff can always be done
after
 the fact without breaking code.  In other words, once the spec is finalized
and a
 decent reference implementation is out the door, people can confidently use D2
 knowing that the situation will only get better.  Until then, it's two steps
 forward, one step back when code breaks in non-trivial ways due to a spec
change
 or a compiler bug makes a seemingly useful feature that you planned on using
 absolutely useless.


 
 Dsimcha,
 
 Everything can be done later. The concern is 'will it'. If D dies on the way
because people come to look __again__ and see same-old, same-old, then this is
a real risk.
 
 Steve



...except everything isn't same-old same-old! A lot of exciting things 
have happened in the last year:

   - The D2 spec is soon finished.

   - Phobos is being completely rewritten, and from what I've seen
     so far I think it is a beautiful piece of work.

   - The DMD compiler is available for more architectures than ever.

   - A D book is being written by a well-known author and C++ expert.

   - An alternative compiler is in active development. It is built on
     a modern compiler infrastructure, and it is developed by a team of
     people instead of just one person. This should secure its future
     somewhat. I suspect that once the D1 version is in place, the
     D2 version won't be far behind.

   - The DMD compiler is now open source. It is easier than ever to
     tweak and patch it, and to make a D compiler of your own.

I think these are exciting times in which to be a D user! :)

-Lars



 Jun 29 2009