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digitalmars.D - Phango

reply "Janice Caron" <caron800 googlemail.com> writes:
I've started to like Tango, now that I've got bits of it working with Phobos :-)

With a bit of kludging, I've persuaded all of the examples in the
"console" and "text" directories to build with Phobos using DMD 2.007.
Of the examples files, only "properties.d" needed to be tweaked
slightly - and that was just to replace "char[]" with "string".

I think I'll attack the "conduits" folder next.

Anyway, someone tell me - does Tango have containers? If so, are there
any examples of use in the "examples" folder of the Tango download? I
couldn't find any.
Nov 15 2007
next sibling parent reply "Jarrett Billingsley" <kb3ctd2 yahoo.com> writes:
"Janice Caron" <caron800 googlemail.com> wrote in message 
news:mailman.70.1195164582.2338.digitalmars-d puremagic.com...

 I've started to like Tango, now that I've got bits of it working with 
 Phobos :-)

 With a bit of kludging, I've persuaded all of the examples in the
 "console" and "text" directories to build with Phobos using DMD 2.007.
 Of the examples files, only "properties.d" needed to be tweaked
 slightly - and that was just to replace "char[]" with "string".

 I think I'll attack the "conduits" folder next.

 Anyway, someone tell me - does Tango have containers? If so, are there
 any examples of use in the "examples" folder of the Tango download? I
 couldn't find any.


http://www.dsource.org/projects/tango/docs/current/ is useful indeed.  Yes, 
there are containers, in tango.util.collection.
Nov 15 2007
parent reply "Janice Caron" <caron800 googlemail.com> writes:
On 11/15/07, Jarrett Billingsley <kb3ctd2 yahoo.com> wrote:

 Anyway, someone tell me - does Tango have containers? If so, are there
 any examples of use in the "examples" folder of the Tango download? I
 couldn't find any.


 http://www.dsource.org/projects/tango/docs/current/ is useful indeed.  Yes,
 there are containers, in tango.util.collection.


I don't want docs, I want example source code. I want something I can
compile, with tests to prove it's all working. Is there not a
test-suite handy?
Nov 15 2007
parent reply Frank Benoit <keinfarbton googlemail.com> writes:
 I don't want docs, I want example source code. I want something I can
 compile, with tests to prove it's all working. Is there not a
 test-suite handy?


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

and all the snippets are here

examples/manual/chapterStorage.d
Nov 15 2007
next sibling parent "Janice Caron" <caron800 googlemail.com> writes:
On 11/15/07, Frank Benoit <keinfarbton googlemail.com> wrote:

 and all the snippets are here

 examples/manual/chapterStorage.d


That's what I was looking for! Great! :-)

The folder name ("manual") didn't really make it obvious what was in
it. Guess I'll attack that one next.
Nov 15 2007
prev sibling parent reply "Janice Caron" <caron800 googlemail.com> writes:
On 11/15/07, Janice Caron <caron800 googlemail.com> wrote:

 examples/manual/chapterStorage.d


 That's what I was looking for! Great! :-)

 The folder name ("manual") didn't really make it obvious what was in
 it. Guess I'll attack that one next.


That was easy!

Obviously, chapterstorage.d was not written for D2+, so I had to
change all the char[]s into strings in that file.

Anyway, all I had to do was change char[] into string in the source
files, except in toUpper and toLower, and guess what - it compiled
without complaint, and runs perfectly. Woo hoo!
Nov 16 2007
parent reply Alexander Panek <alexander.panek brainsware.org> writes:
On Fri, 16 Nov 2007 12:46:24 +0000
"Janice Caron" <caron800 googlemail.com> wrote:


 Obviously, chapterstorage.d was not written for D2+, so I had to
 change all the char[]s into strings in that file.


As you might know already or at least have guessed - since there's an
experimental  Tango /branch/ for D 2.x -, Tango is D 1.x only, right
now. So it'd be pretty weird to write the reference manual of Tango for
D 2.x. :)

-- 
Alexander Panek <alexander.panek brainsware.org>
Nov 16 2007
parent reply "Janice Caron" <caron800 googlemail.com> writes:
I dunno if you'd consider this a bug in tango.io.filepath.parse(), but
the example program filepathname.d looks like this:

    void main(){
        Cout ((new FilePath(r"d:\path\foo.bat")).name).newline;
        Cout ((new FilePath(r"d:\path.two\bar")).name).newline;
        Cout ((new FilePath("/home/user.name/bar.")).name).newline;
        Cout ((new FilePath(r"d:\path.two\bar")).name).newline;
        Cout ((new FilePath("/home/user/.resource")).name).newline;
    }

And (on Windows) emits the following output - at least, on my ported version:

    foo
    bar
    /home/user.name/bar
    bar
    /home/user/

I think I understand what's going on here. The slash in the third and
fifth examples is being (incorrectly) regarded as a component
character, instead of a path separator, so it thinks "/home/user/" is
the file part and "resource" the extension.

Yes, I know there's a flag in the constructor which converts "\" to
"/", and that that flag wasn't set in this example, BUT...

In Windows, "\" and "/" are BOTH acceptable as file separators. As far
as fopen() is concerned, they are interchangable. If you open
"/home/user/.resource" you'll get exactly the same file as had you
opened "\home\user\.resource".

This isn't true in a Windows (Command Prompt) shell, however, even
there, "/" is not a valid character for use in filenames. In fact, all
of the characters \ / : * ? " < > and | are prohibited from being used
in filenames.

I feel that the filepath.parse routine really should understand how
pathnames actually work on Windows. Sure, if the native flag is set,
then convert / to \. But even if that doesn't happen, parse() should
recognise both \ and / as pathname separators, and should throw an
exception if an illegal character is used in a pathname.

If there are no objections, I plan to "fix" this in my local copy, and
I can certainly post the fix for you, in case you should want to
incorporate it into the real Tango.
Nov 16 2007
parent "Steven Schveighoffer" <schveiguy yahoo.com> writes:
"Janice Caron" wrote

I dunno if you'd consider this a bug in tango.io.filepath.parse(), but
 the example program filepathname.d looks like this:
 ...


Register at dsource: http://www.dsource.org/forums/profile.php?mode=register
File a ticket on tango: http://www.dsource.org/projects/tango/newticket.

It's actually a pretty nice system, and the developers are very responsive.

-Steve
Nov 16 2007
prev sibling next sibling parent reply "Steven Schveighoffer" <schveiguy yahoo.com> writes:
"Janice Caron" wrote

 I've started to like Tango, now that I've got bits of it working with 
 Phobos :-)

 With a bit of kludging, I've persuaded all of the examples in the
 "console" and "text" directories to build with Phobos using DMD 2.007.
 Of the examples files, only "properties.d" needed to be tweaked
 slightly - and that was just to replace "char[]" with "string".


Just an FYI, some of us are working on a D 2.x compatible version of Tango.

Basically the hard part is adding const.

It's not release-ready yet, but I'm hoping once Walter has fixed const, we 
should be able to finish the port.

Of course, it does not use Phobos... But hopefully that problem will be 
solved soon also.

-Steve
Nov 15 2007
next sibling parent reply "Janice Caron" <caron800 googlemail.com> writes:
On 11/15/07, Steven Schveighoffer <schveiguy yahoo.com> wrote:

 Just an FYI, some of us are working on a D 2.x compatible version of Tango.


Yeah, well that's kind of what I did. I took the source in the "tango"
dir (i.e. not the "std" dir, not "object.d"), and then did

    foreach(example)
        while(does not compile)
            fix_first_error()


 Basically the hard part is adding const.


I noticed. I liberally added const and invariant everywhere I could
get away with it. It takes some fine tuning to get it right. D strings
are invariant now, so I had to throw in some idups in places where I
couldn't prove to myself that the original was actually unique.

I also changed toUtf to toString, and changed all the module names to lowercase.



 It's not release-ready yet, but I'm hoping once Walter has fixed const, we
 should be able to finish the port.


I'm working with 2.007. I assume it will be not too hard to upgrade.



 Of course, it does not use Phobos...


Mine does. I specifically do not use Tango's object.d, nor anything in
Tango's std. I'm importing phobos and my bastardised version of Tango
simultaneously.

It's actually quite fun.
Nov 15 2007
parent reply Alexander Panek <alexander.panek brainsware.org> writes:
On Thu, 15 Nov 2007 23:09:55 +0000
"Janice Caron" <caron800 googlemail.com> wrote:

 Of course, it does not use Phobos...


 
 Mine does. I specifically do not use Tango's object.d, nor anything in
 Tango's std. I'm importing phobos and my bastardised version of Tango
 simultaneously.


Actually, the core of Tango is in tango.core - the std/ folder is just
there because DMD requires the intrinsic module to be there, IIRC.

Just curious: why don't you use Tango and the freestanding functions of
Phobos (AFAIK most of them interface with C, anyways - which can be
done in Tango, too, of course)? I suppose that would be less work to
achieve the same goal (oh, and btw, you'll have a less buggy
runtime.. /me hides.)

Kind regards
-- 
Alexander Panek <alexander.panek brainsware.org>
Nov 15 2007
parent reply "Janice Caron" <caron800 googlemail.com> writes:
On 11/16/07, Alexander Panek <alexander.panek brainsware.org> wrote:

 Actually, the core of Tango is in tango.core


Yeah, I've tweaked my copies of several of files in core already.


 - the std/ folder is just
 there because DMD requires the intrinsic module to be there, IIRC.


I didn't understand that, but hey ho. In any case, the original Phobos
std is still there in my case.



 Just curious: why don't you use Tango and the freestanding functions of
 Phobos


Lot of reasons.

(1) If an engine ain't broke, don't fix it.

(2) I like D2.007, and I'll be switching to D2.008 the day it comes out.

(3) I hate Tango, stylisticly. I hate the mixed case module names, and
the mixed case global variable names (e.g. Stdout). I want everything
to look and feel like Phobos.

(4) Walter has been doing this for seven years or whatever, and has
earned my greatest respect. Ripping out the innards of D scares the
shit out of me - and not only that, I see no reason why I should have
to.


This way, I get to use the latest cutting-edge version of D, I can
make all the module names lowercase (yes, that matters!), and though
things like Stdout(x).newline compile and run, I don't have to use
them - I'll be able to throw in nicer looking functions that do the
same thing.
Nov 16 2007
next sibling parent reply Bill Baxter <dnewsgroup billbaxter.com> writes:
I thought we agreed that this should be called "Phandango".  :-)

--bb
Nov 16 2007
parent "Janice Caron" <caron800 googlemail.com> writes:
On 11/16/07, Bill Baxter <dnewsgroup billbaxter.com> wrote:

 I thought we agreed that this should be called "Phandango".  :-)


Well, there isn't really an "it". I was actually getting this working
just for me. I wasn't planning on uploading it anywhere because the
/real/ Tango is being made Phobos compatible, as I understand it, and
we should all just wait for that. Anyone who's impatient could do what
I did, I guess, or maybe I could show my source anyway, but I make no
claims that it's in any way "official". As for the name, it is the
work of /seconds/ to search and replace, and name it anything you
want.
Nov 16 2007
prev sibling next sibling parent reply Alexander Panek <alexander.panek brainsware.org> writes:
On Fri, 16 Nov 2007 08:17:42 +0000
"Janice Caron" <caron800 googlemail.com> wrote:


 On 11/16/07, Alexander Panek <alexander.panek brainsware.org> wrote:

 Actually, the core of Tango is in tango.core


 
 Yeah, I've tweaked my copies of several of files in core already.


My apologies - ... tweaked?


 - the std/ folder is just
 there because DMD requires the intrinsic module to be there, IIRC.


 
 I didn't understand that, but hey ho. In any case, the original Phobos
 std is still there in my case.


As said - you could as well put the Phobos sources into Tango's std
folder and *tweak* those.


 Just curious: why don't you use Tango and the freestanding
 functions of Phobos


 
 Lot of reasons.
 
 (1) If an engine ain't broke, don't fix it.


I think there are people who definitely wouldn't agree on that. But I
am not in the qualified position to argue about that.


 (3) I hate Tango, stylisticly. I hate the mixed case module names, and
 the mixed case global variable names (e.g. Stdout). I want everything
 to look and feel like Phobos.


No comment on that.
 

 (4) Walter has been doing this for seven years or whatever, and has
 earned my greatest respect. Ripping out the innards of D scares the
 shit out of me - and not only that, I see no reason why I should have
 to.


It scares you? Why?


 This way, I get to use the latest cutting-edge version of D, I can
 make all the module names lowercase (yes, that matters!), and though
 things like Stdout(x).newline compile and run, I don't have to use
 them - I'll be able to throw in nicer looking functions that do the
 same thing.


You know, there's still printf in tango.stdc.stdio ..... just in
case. :P

-- 
Alexander Panek <alexander.panek brainsware.org>
Nov 16 2007
parent reply "Janice Caron" <caron800 googlemail.com> writes:
On 11/16/07, Alexander Panek <alexander.panek brainsware.org> wrote:

 On Fri, 16 Nov 2007 08:17:42 +0000
 "Janice Caron" <caron800 googlemail.com> wrote:


 On 11/16/07, Alexander Panek <alexander.panek brainsware.org> wrote:

 Actually, the core of Tango is in tango.core


 Yeah, I've tweaked my copies of several of files in core already.


 My apologies - ... tweaked?


Well yeah. As I said at the start of this thread, what I did was:

   foreach(example)
       while(does not compile)
           fix_first_error()

So if the compiler tells me that A won't cast to B because of some
invariant issue or some-such, then I modified the source in the
offending file. If that happened to be tango.core (actually I renamed
it phango.core to avoid confusion) then so be it.



 As said - you could as well put the Phobos sources into Tango's std
 folder and *tweak* those.


As I mentioned, I did not copy tango's std folder at all. I am doing
without it. I am not interested in messing around with D's standard
library (Phobos) in any way. In fact, I sometimes have had to call on
its services (e.g. std.contracts.assumeUnique()) to get things to
compile.



 It scares you? Why?


Because it might stop something upon which I already rely from working



 You know, there's still printf in tango.stdc.stdio ..... just in


True. But that's not really an issue for what I'm doing. If I can be
bothered, I might find a way to add cout.writefln() and
stdout.writefln() or whatever, to give me Phobos syntax with Tango's
streams. But right now I've still got Phobos's writef() and writefln()
functions at my disposal, so I'm perfectly happy.

Besides ... printf()? Now there's a function that really should be deprecated!
Nov 16 2007
parent reply Sean Kelly <sean f4.ca> writes:
Janice Caron wrote:

 On 11/16/07, Alexander Panek <alexander.panek brainsware.org> wrote:
 

 As said - you could as well put the Phobos sources into Tango's std
 folder and *tweak* those.


 
 As I mentioned, I did not copy tango's std folder at all. I am doing
 without it.


So do you have a /std directory at all?  I would hope so, or some 
portions of Tango won't work.  The instrinsic functions, for example, 
must have a mangled name that begins with "std".  This is unfortunate, 
but what can you do.


Sean
Nov 16 2007
parent reply "Janice Caron" <caron800 googlemail.com> writes:
On 11/16/07, Sean Kelly <sean f4.ca> wrote:


 As I mentioned, I did not copy tango's std folder at all. I am doing
 without it.


 So do you have a /std directory at all?


I have Phobos's std directory. It is completely unchanged and intact.
(And obviously it will be updated the moment D2.008 comes along).



 I would hope so, or some
 portions of Tango won't work.


Given that I have (a now modified copy of) the source code, and the
power and ability to change it. I can make anything work.



 The instrinsic functions, for example,
 must have a mangled name that begins with "std".


None of the examples I've got working have given me this problem so
far, but I'm fair sure that if something doesn't work, I can just
change the source until it does.
Nov 16 2007
parent Sean Kelly <sean f4.ca> writes:
Janice Caron wrote:

 On 11/16/07, Sean Kelly <sean f4.ca> wrote:
 

 As I mentioned, I did not copy tango's std folder at all. I am doing
 without it.


 So do you have a /std directory at all?


 
 I have Phobos's std directory. It is completely unchanged and intact.
 (And obviously it will be updated the moment D2.008 comes along).


Oh, that's fine then.  The /std directory included with Tango just 
contains cleaned-up copies of the Phobos files Tango needs.


Sean
Nov 16 2007
prev sibling parent reply Sean Kelly <sean f4.ca> writes:
Janice Caron wrote:

 On 11/16/07, Alexander Panek <alexander.panek brainsware.org> wrote:


 Just curious: why don't you use Tango and the freestanding functions of
 Phobos


 
 Lot of reasons.
 
 (1) If an engine ain't broke, don't fix it.


Not to plug the Tango engine, but it does actually fix a number of bugs 
which are listed in the D bug tracker and have not been fixed in Phobos.


 (2) I like D2.007, and I'll be switching to D2.008 the day it comes out.
 
 (3) I hate Tango, stylisticly. I hate the mixed case module names, and
 the mixed case global variable names (e.g. Stdout). I want everything
 to look and feel like Phobos.


I'm not a huge fan of the mixed case global variable names either, but 
it does help them stand out, which I think is the point.  The mixed case 
module names help make multi-word names more readable and also help 
distinguish from directories, which is an advantage in such a large 
library.  The C module names have been left lowercase to match the 
original C names and to provide a visual distinction between the API 
layer and Tango.


 (4) Walter has been doing this for seven years or whatever, and has
 earned my greatest respect. Ripping out the innards of D scares the
 shit out of me - and not only that, I see no reason why I should have
 to.


For what it's worth, the Tango core is based on Ares, which began as a 
project perhaps four years ago (I've lost track).  So the Tango runtime 
isn't perhaps quite as new as it may seem.


 This way, I get to use the latest cutting-edge version of D, I can
 make all the module names lowercase (yes, that matters!), and though
 things like Stdout(x).newline compile and run, I don't have to use
 them - I'll be able to throw in nicer looking functions that do the
 same thing.


This is what wrapper functions are for, in my opinion.  But then Tango 
was created because of a dissatisfaction with Phobos, so I can't really 
object to a dissatisfaction with Tango ;-)


Sean
Nov 16 2007
parent reply Walter Bright <newshound1 digitalmars.com> writes:
Sean Kelly wrote:

 Janice Caron wrote:

 (3) I hate Tango, stylisticly. I hate the mixed case module names, and
 the mixed case global variable names (e.g. Stdout). I want everything
 to look and feel like Phobos.


 
 I'm not a huge fan of the mixed case global variable names either, but 
 it does help them stand out, which I think is the point.


Mixed case package/module names are avoided because there needs to be a 
1:1 correspondence between file names and package/module names, and not 
all file systems are case sensitive (like FAT32 and NTFS, for a couple 
widely used examples).
Nov 18 2007
next sibling parent reply Lars Ivar Igesund <larsivar igesund.net> writes:
Walter Bright wrote:


 Sean Kelly wrote:

 Janice Caron wrote:

 (3) I hate Tango, stylisticly. I hate the mixed case module names, and
 the mixed case global variable names (e.g. Stdout). I want everything
 to look and feel like Phobos.


 
 I'm not a huge fan of the mixed case global variable names either, but
 it does help them stand out, which I think is the point.


 
 Mixed case package/module names are avoided because there needs to be a
 1:1 correspondence between file names and package/module names, and not
 all file systems are case sensitive (like FAT32 and NTFS, for a couple
 widely used examples).


As I said elsewhere in the thread, other FS _are_ case sensitive, and thus
you need to be aware of which case you use in either case, rendering the
argument moot. Early on in D history, I encountered several cases of
modules being saved on Windows, then not working on Linux with their
intended module names due to this. And this can only happen if the Windows
programmer typed in a file name with upper case letters, even though the
module name was all lower case.

-- 
Lars Ivar Igesund
blog at http://larsivi.net
DSource, #d.tango & #D: larsivi
Dancing the Tango
Nov 18 2007
parent reply torhu <no spam.invalid> writes:
Lars Ivar Igesund wrote:
  >> Mixed case package/module names are avoided because there needs to be a

 1:1 correspondence between file names and package/module names, and not
 all file systems are case sensitive (like FAT32 and NTFS, for a couple
 widely used examples).


 
 As I said elsewhere in the thread, other FS _are_ case sensitive, and thus
 you need to be aware of which case you use in either case, rendering the
 argument moot. Early on in D history, I encountered several cases of
 modules being saved on Windows, then not working on Linux with their
 intended module names due to this. And this can only happen if the Windows
 programmer typed in a file name with upper case letters, even though the
 module name was all lower case.
 


I believe Walter's point is that "all package and module names are lower 
case" is a simple rule that will help us avoid this problem, given that 
everyone does their best to adhere to the rule.  I don't know how much 
it matters, since I've never run into the problem myself.  But I just 
tried it, and it shouldn't be hard to track down the problem based on 
the compiler's error messages.  Not a big deal either way, it seems.
Nov 18 2007
next sibling parent Lars Ivar Igesund <larsivar igesund.net> writes:
torhu wrote:


 Lars Ivar Igesund wrote:
   >> Mixed case package/module names are avoided because there needs to be
   >> a

 1:1 correspondence between file names and package/module names, and not
 all file systems are case sensitive (like FAT32 and NTFS, for a couple
 widely used examples).


 
 As I said elsewhere in the thread, other FS _are_ case sensitive, and
 thus you need to be aware of which case you use in either case, rendering
 the argument moot. Early on in D history, I encountered several cases of
 modules being saved on Windows, then not working on Linux with their
 intended module names due to this. And this can only happen if the
 Windows programmer typed in a file name with upper case letters, even
 though the module name was all lower case.
 


 
 I believe Walter's point is that "all package and module names are lower
 case" is a simple rule that will help us avoid this problem, given that
 everyone does their best to adhere to the rule.  I don't know how much
 it matters, since I've never run into the problem myself.  But I just
 tried it, and it shouldn't be hard to track down the problem based on
 the compiler's error messages.  Not a big deal either way, it seems.


Yes, I see his point. My point is that there is no difference from having
that as a rule, and CamelCased module names as a rule :) In both cases you
need to adhere to it.

-- 
Lars Ivar Igesund
blog at http://larsivi.net
DSource, #d.tango & #D: larsivi
Dancing the Tango
Nov 18 2007
prev sibling parent reply Bill Baxter <dnewsgroup billbaxter.com> writes:
torhu wrote:

 Lars Ivar Igesund wrote:
  >> Mixed case package/module names are avoided because there needs to be a

 1:1 correspondence between file names and package/module names, and not
 all file systems are case sensitive (like FAT32 and NTFS, for a couple
 widely used examples).


 As I said elsewhere in the thread, other FS _are_ case sensitive, and 
 thus
 you need to be aware of which case you use in either case, rendering the
 argument moot. Early on in D history, I encountered several cases of
 modules being saved on Windows, then not working on Linux with their
 intended module names due to this. And this can only happen if the 
 Windows
 programmer typed in a file name with upper case letters, even though the
 module name was all lower case.


 
 I believe Walter's point is that "all package and module names are lower 
 case" is a simple rule that will help us avoid this problem, given that 
 everyone does their best to adhere to the rule.  I don't know how much 
 it matters, since I've never run into the problem myself.  But I just 
 tried it, and it shouldn't be hard to track down the problem based on 
 the compiler's error messages.  Not a big deal either way, it seems.


There is another issue.  Often a module has basically only one main 
class in it.  If the main class is called Foo, and that's all that's in 
the module, some version of "Foo" is the logical name for the package 
too.  But then if you use fully qualified names you end up with 
Package.Foo.Foo when referring to the class in the module, which just 
look *so* silly that it's easy to forget the second Foo.  But 
package.foo.Foo looks more reasonable, since it's clear the second to 
last "foo" is not a class name.

--bb
Nov 18 2007
next sibling parent reply Lars Ivar Igesund <larsivar igesund.net> writes:
Bill Baxter wrote:


 torhu wrote:

 Lars Ivar Igesund wrote:
  >> Mixed case package/module names are avoided because there needs to be
  >> a

 1:1 correspondence between file names and package/module names, and not
 all file systems are case sensitive (like FAT32 and NTFS, for a couple
 widely used examples).


 As I said elsewhere in the thread, other FS _are_ case sensitive, and
 thus
 you need to be aware of which case you use in either case, rendering the
 argument moot. Early on in D history, I encountered several cases of
 modules being saved on Windows, then not working on Linux with their
 intended module names due to this. And this can only happen if the
 Windows
 programmer typed in a file name with upper case letters, even though the
 module name was all lower case.


 
 I believe Walter's point is that "all package and module names are lower
 case" is a simple rule that will help us avoid this problem, given that
 everyone does their best to adhere to the rule.  I don't know how much
 it matters, since I've never run into the problem myself.  But I just
 tried it, and it shouldn't be hard to track down the problem based on
 the compiler's error messages.  Not a big deal either way, it seems.


 
 There is another issue.  Often a module has basically only one main
 class in it.  If the main class is called Foo, and that's all that's in
 the module, some version of "Foo" is the logical name for the package
 too.  But then if you use fully qualified names you end up with
 Package.Foo.Foo when referring to the class in the module, which just
 look *so* silly that it's easy to forget the second Foo.  But
 package.foo.Foo looks more reasonable, since it's clear the second to
 last "foo" is not a class name.
 
 --bb


Using fully qualified class names are very seldom necessary in D, I find
using renaming imports are much more useful. I'd like to turn your argument
the other way round: If you do

import package.Foo;

then it make a lot of sense that you can just use your class Foo. I
understand that this may have been uncommon for those coming from C, but I
know of several C++ libraries (Object oriented) using header files with
capitalized names, Qt and Coin3D (Open Inventor) comes to mind. Qt wasn't
always this way, but changed with version 4. OI I think always did this,
and it is 15+ years old. Indeed, its top level package is "Inventor"!
FWIW, I think SGI and TrollTech is two of very few companies that have
created truly good library API's in C++.


weirdly enough disregarded in this debate.

-- 
Lars Ivar Igesund
blog at http://larsivi.net
DSource, #d.tango & #D: larsivi
Dancing the Tango
Nov 18 2007
next sibling parent reply Bill Baxter <dnewsgroup billbaxter.com> writes:
Lars Ivar Igesund wrote:

 Bill Baxter wrote:
 

 torhu wrote:

 Lars Ivar Igesund wrote:
  >> Mixed case package/module names are avoided because there needs to be
  >> a

 1:1 correspondence between file names and package/module names, and not
 all file systems are case sensitive (like FAT32 and NTFS, for a couple
 widely used examples).


 As I said elsewhere in the thread, other FS _are_ case sensitive, and
 thus
 you need to be aware of which case you use in either case, rendering the
 argument moot. Early on in D history, I encountered several cases of
 modules being saved on Windows, then not working on Linux with their
 intended module names due to this. And this can only happen if the
 Windows
 programmer typed in a file name with upper case letters, even though the
 module name was all lower case.


 I believe Walter's point is that "all package and module names are lower
 case" is a simple rule that will help us avoid this problem, given that
 everyone does their best to adhere to the rule.  I don't know how much
 it matters, since I've never run into the problem myself.  But I just
 tried it, and it shouldn't be hard to track down the problem based on
 the compiler's error messages.  Not a big deal either way, it seems.


 There is another issue.  Often a module has basically only one main
 class in it.  If the main class is called Foo, and that's all that's in
 the module, some version of "Foo" is the logical name for the package
 too.  But then if you use fully qualified names you end up with
 Package.Foo.Foo when referring to the class in the module, which just
 look *so* silly that it's easy to forget the second Foo.  But
 package.foo.Foo looks more reasonable, since it's clear the second to
 last "foo" is not a class name.

 --bb


 
 Using fully qualified class names are very seldom necessary in D, I find
 using renaming imports are much more useful. 


Ok, but then the most obvious name for the renamed import is the last 
component of the dot-separated module name:
   import Foo = Package.Name.Too.Long.Foo;
   ...
   Foo.Foo

Of course you could rename the module lower-case 'foo', but you could 
also just have named it in lowercase from the beginning.  Or you could 
come up with some other convention.

But anyway, I agree that in Tango the package names are so long that 
static import is impractical.  But for other libraries that's not the 
case, and I think what a lot of people are after here is a convention 
that's universally applicable.  I use static import all the time in my 
code because Phobos' flatter naming works well with that, and my own 
code also is usually only 1 or 2 levels deep.  But I also use renamed 
and selective imports too, depending how much stuff I plan to use from 
the module.
[As an aside I really wish I could do renamed and selective importing on 
one line, like import mod=some.long.module : Foo, Bar; ]

Saying "don't use static import" isn't a very strong argument for the 
Tango naming convention in my opinion.


 I'd like to turn your argument
 the other way round: If you do
 
 import package.Foo;
 
 then it make a lot of sense that you can just use your class Foo. 


If that were the only way to do imports in D, then that would make a lot 
of sense.  But we also have static, renamed, and selective imports and 
their use should be encouraged.  They help keep the top-level namespace 
clean, and help make code more readable by specifying explicitly where 
symbols are coming from.


 I
 understand that this may have been uncommon for those coming from C, but I
 know of several C++ libraries (Object oriented) using header files with
 capitalized names, Qt and Coin3D (Open Inventor) comes to mind. Qt wasn't
 always this way, but changed with version 4. OI I think always did this,
 and it is 15+ years old. Indeed, its top level package is "Inventor"!
 FWIW, I think SGI and TrollTech is two of very few companies that have
 created truly good library API's in C++.


The comparison with C++ is not valid because in C++ namespaces and file 
names are decoupled.  So in C++ something like 
#include<Package/SubPackage/ClassName.h>  will generally put the 
ClassName into the Package::SubPackage namespace.  Or sometimes just the 
Package namespace.  I've never seen anyone create a 
Package::SubPackage::ClassName namespace to enclose a class called 
ClassName.  But in D you don't have a choice.  The full path always 
becomes part of the namespace.



 weirdly enough disregarded in this debate.


I don't remember enough about how Java imports worked to comment, and 


--bb
Nov 18 2007
parent Lars Ivar Igesund <larsivar igesund.net> writes:
Bill Baxter wrote:


 Lars Ivar Igesund wrote:

 
 Using fully qualified class names are very seldom necessary in D, I find
 using renaming imports are much more useful.


 
 Ok, but then the most obvious name for the renamed import is the last
 component of the dot-separated module name:
    import Foo = Package.Name.Too.Long.Foo;
    ...
    Foo.Foo
 
 Of course you could rename the module lower-case 'foo', but you could
 also just have named it in lowercase from the beginning.  Or you could
 come up with some other convention.
 
 But anyway, I agree that in Tango the package names are so long that
 static import is impractical.  But for other libraries that's not the
 case, and I think what a lot of people are after here is a convention
 that's universally applicable.  I use static import all the time in my
 code because Phobos' flatter naming works well with that, and my own
 code also is usually only 1 or 2 levels deep.  But I also use renamed
 and selective imports too, depending how much stuff I plan to use from
 the module.
 [As an aside I really wish I could do renamed and selective importing on
 one line, like import mod=some.long.module : Foo, Bar; ]


I think it does? At least I think the spec allows it.


 
 Saying "don't use static import" isn't a very strong argument for the
 Tango naming convention in my opinion.


Never liked static imports :P The static keyword is probably part of that :)


 

 I'd like to turn your argument
 the other way round: If you do
 
 import package.Foo;
 
 then it make a lot of sense that you can just use your class Foo.


 
 If that were the only way to do imports in D, then that would make a lot
 of sense.  But we also have static, renamed, and selective imports and
 their use should be encouraged.  They help keep the top-level namespace
 clean, and help make code more readable by specifying explicitly where
 symbols are coming from.
 

 I
 understand that this may have been uncommon for those coming from C, but
 I know of several C++ libraries (Object oriented) using header files with
 capitalized names, Qt and Coin3D (Open Inventor) comes to mind. Qt wasn't
 always this way, but changed with version 4. OI I think always did this,
 and it is 15+ years old. Indeed, its top level package is "Inventor"!
 FWIW, I think SGI and TrollTech is two of very few companies that have
 created truly good library API's in C++.


 
 The comparison with C++ is not valid because in C++ namespaces and file
 names are decoupled.  So in C++ something like
 #include<Package/SubPackage/ClassName.h>  will generally put the
 ClassName into the Package::SubPackage namespace.  Or sometimes just the
 Package namespace.  I've never seen anyone create a
 Package::SubPackage::ClassName namespace to enclose a class called
 ClassName.  But in D you don't have a choice.  The full path always
 becomes part of the namespace.
 


 weirdly enough disregarded in this debate.


 
 I don't remember enough about how Java imports worked to comment, and




enough. Java however requires module names to equal class names, whether
they are lowercased or CamelCased. I may agree that such comparisons
possibly aren't entirely applicable though, considering modules in D are
much more important than in those languages. They are encapsulated entities
themselves after all. Which, if used as such, would imply that casing
should be the same as for classes and structs.

I'll accept this match to end with a remis though, so I can stop posting
about this :)


-- 
Lars Ivar Igesund
blog at http://larsivi.net
DSource, #d.tango & #D: larsivi
Dancing the Tango
Nov 18 2007
prev sibling parent reply Oskar Linde <oskar.lindeREM OVEgmail.com> writes:
It is interesting to see how such a trivial thing as the capitalization 
of module names can lead to a much more involved discussion than any of 
Tango's technical merits ever have (possibly with one exception). It is 
somewhat like making a choice between two equipment manufacturers from 
the colors they use on the buttons. But form and style seems to be of 
undervalued importance, and maybe there is more to this issue than it 
appears. Either way, I cannot refrain from writing something about it 
too. :)

Lars Ivar Igesund wrote:


 Using fully qualified class names are very seldom necessary in D, I find
 using renaming imports are much more useful. I'd like to turn your argument
 the other way round: If you do
 
 import package.Foo;
 
 then it make a lot of sense that you can just use your class Foo. 


What says that the module package.Foo contains a class named Foo? Most 
of my own modules contain no classes at all, and many that do contain 
more than one class. I know that (with different qualifiers), that is 
true for Tango as well.

I wouldn't encourage module renaming, at least not without guidelines 
for how things should be renamed. Lots of people making up their own 
custom abbreviations for the same long module names can't lead to 
something good.

I am personally quite fond of using FQN (fully qualified names) in 
certain situations, but names such as

tango.util.collection.iterator.InterleavingIterator.InterleavingIterator

make that a tad inconvenient. :)

Three design choices in Tango seem to be:

* deep rather than shallow package hierarchy
* descriptive rather than abbreviated package names
* highly fragmented modules

In some ways, I tend to feel those three points are misdirected, or at 
least taken a bit too far.

What are the reasons for dividing things into modules? First and 
foremost, functionally independent parts should be separated so that one 
can be replaced or used independent of the others. Secondly, there are 
some issues with compile times and object file sizes, and the third 
reason is convenience for the implementors. The reasons mentioned are in 
descending order of importance. A library should always be designed for 
its users, rather than for its implementers.

We humans, psychologically, tend not to be very hierarchical in our 
categorization of the world. There is a basic level of categorization 
that is the one most readily named and first learned (bird, cat, car). 
The function of a categorization should be to provide the maximum amount 
of information with the least amount of cognitive effort. The more fine 
grained a categorization is, the more cognitive effort is needed. The 
conclusion is that it would be cognitively advantageous to only separate 
library entities into different modules if there is a relevant reason to 
do so (for the purposes at hand).

I believe shallow hierarchies generally are better than deep, and also 
that there should be a functional rather than logical separation between 
packages.

So, instead of:

tango.util.collection.iterator.InterleavingIterator

couldn't there just be:

tango.collection.iterators

or perhaps even:

tango.collection

An interesting parallel is the taxonomy of plants and animals from the 
18th century. The Linnaean taxonomy is a highly hierarchical 
classification, where for instance the common snowdrop is classified as:

Plantae.Magnoliophyta.Liliopsida.Asparagales.Amaryllidaceae. 
Galanthus.nivalis

But such names were considered too unwieldy to use in full, so a concise 
binomial nomenclature was used as a supplement. The same snowdrop as 
above in binomials is just:

Galanthus.nivalis

Regarding capitalized module names: As far as I see it, there are 
entities (functions, classes, etc) and modules (std.string, 
tango.text.convert.Format). I don't really see the point of making a 
distinction between modules and packages, and therefore can't really see 
a point in capitalizing the last part of the module name only. But on 
the other hand, there is a precedent in the binomials above -- only the 
other way around. :)



 weirdly enough disregarded in this debate.



Java (more or less) forces file names to be identical to the sole public 
class in them. There are no modules in java, just classes, and since 
classes are capitalized, so are the file names.

To end, I think it speaks very highly of Tango that the only issues 
being actively debated are the purely stylistic ones.

-- 
Oskar
Nov 18 2007
next sibling parent reply Walter Bright <newshound1 digitalmars.com> writes:
Oskar Linde wrote:

 To end, I think it speaks very highly of Tango that the only issues 
 being actively debated are the purely stylistic ones.


It's normal for easily understood issues to get a lot more comments than 
the ones that need more work to grok.

However, silence is the worst case <g>. It means nobody has even looked 
at it.
Nov 19 2007
parent reply "David Wilson" <dw botanicus.net> writes:
On 11/19/07, Walter Bright <newshound1 digitalmars.com> wrote:

 Oskar Linde wrote:

 To end, I think it speaks very highly of Tango that the only issues
 being actively debated are the purely stylistic ones.


 It's normal for easily understood issues to get a lot more comments than
 the ones that need more work to grok.


http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/faq/misc.html#BIKESHED-PAINTING


 However, silence is the worst case <g>. It means nobody has even looked
 at it.
Nov 19 2007
parent Walter Bright <newshound1 digitalmars.com> writes:
David Wilson wrote:

 On 11/19/07, Walter Bright <newshound1 digitalmars.com> wrote:

 Oskar Linde wrote:

 To end, I think it speaks very highly of Tango that the only issues
 being actively debated are the purely stylistic ones.


 It's normal for easily understood issues to get a lot more comments than
 the ones that need more work to grok.


 
 http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/faq/misc.html#BIKESHED-PAINTING


Spot on.
Nov 19 2007
prev sibling parent Matti Niemenmaa <see_signature for.real.address> writes:
Oskar Linde wrote:

 I believe shallow hierarchies generally are better than deep, and also
 that there should be a functional rather than logical separation between
 packages.
 
 So, instead of:
 
 tango.util.collection.iterator.InterleavingIterator
 
 couldn't there just be:
 
 tango.collection.iterators
 
 or perhaps even:
 
 tango.collection


One problem with shoving all iterators into one module is the way the protection
specifiers work in D. As you probably know, private and co are module-level.
This means that InterleavingIterator and TropicalJungleIterator, while
completely distinct, can access each other's privates! The fact that they are in
different modules thus accentuates their independence of each other.

If protection specifiers worked as they do in C++ (and, as a matter of fact, in
just about every other language I know of that implements such a feature), then
a "tango.collection.iterators" package would make more sense. As it is, putting
two classes into the same module suggests that they are tightly coupled and, at
least to me, that they do access each other's private members.

Plus, especially a general-purpose module such as "tango.collection" would grow
to thousands of lines in length. This would make it a pain to code in, but there
are also issues for the user. For instance, the automatically generated DDoc
would also be exceedingly long and would have to manually be separated into
coherent parts.

I do agree that the "tango.util.collection" package should be just
"tango.collection", though. :-)

-- 
E-mail address: matti.niemenmaa+news, domain is iki (DOT) fi
Nov 20 2007
prev sibling parent reply John Reimer <terminal.node gmail.com> writes:
I actuallBill Baxter wrote:

 torhu wrote:

 Lars Ivar Igesund wrote:
  >> Mixed case package/module names are avoided because there needs to 
 be a

 1:1 correspondence between file names and package/module names, and not
 all file systems are case sensitive (like FAT32 and NTFS, for a couple
 widely used examples).


 As I said elsewhere in the thread, other FS _are_ case sensitive, and 
 thus
 you need to be aware of which case you use in either case, rendering the
 argument moot. Early on in D history, I encountered several cases of
 modules being saved on Windows, then not working on Linux with their
 intended module names due to this. And this can only happen if the 
 Windows
 programmer typed in a file name with upper case letters, even though the
 module name was all lower case.


 I believe Walter's point is that "all package and module names are 
 lower case" is a simple rule that will help us avoid this problem, 
 given that everyone does their best to adhere to the rule.  I don't 
 know how much it matters, since I've never run into the problem 
 myself.  But I just tried it, and it shouldn't be hard to track down 
 the problem based on the compiler's error messages.  Not a big deal 
 either way, it seems.


 
 There is another issue.  Often a module has basically only one main 
 class in it.  If the main class is called Foo, and that's all that's in 
 the module, some version of "Foo" is the logical name for the package 
 too.  But then if you use fully qualified names you end up with 
 Package.Foo.Foo when referring to the class in the module, which just 
 look *so* silly that it's easy to forget the second Foo.  But 
 package.foo.Foo looks more reasonable, since it's clear the second to 
 last "foo" is not a class name.



I actually think both package.foo.Foo and package.Foo.Foo look bizarre. 
  I've always disliked this part of D.  In that light, I think it really 
is more a shortcoming of the way D does namespaces.  Tango just tries to 
work around this (for good or bad... there's seems little choice in the 
matter: I believe tango developers and others haggled over this and 
other issues long and hard in the past: it wasn't an easy decision).

I'm not sure what might be a good solution to these problems without 
"fixing" D. Maybe a more C++ style (horrors!! did I say that?!) would be 
useful in differentiating module namespace from class?  I'm not sure... 
but that would mean a another D spec change:

such as

package.foo::Foo

as a reference to class Foo (or whatever other symbol one wants to specify)

or package.foo::

as an implied reference to whatever symbol has the same name as module 
name... in this case "foo".  If module name "Foo" is capitalized, 
therefore, the class or symbol with "Foo" would be selected.

Just some thoughts,

John
Nov 18 2007
parent reply Don Clugston <dac nospam.com.au> writes:
John Reimer wrote:

 


John, it's great to see you back! I feared you were gone forever.
- Don.
Nov 20 2007
parent reply John Reimer <terminal.node gmail.com> writes:
Don Clugston wrote:

 John Reimer wrote:


 
 John, it's great to see you back! I feared you were gone forever.
 - Don.



Don,

You are too kind. :-)

I almost figured I was gone for good too, but it's hard to stay away 
from the techy side of life for too long... and D is smack in the center 
of it.

Life has been very busy, especially because I'm now apprenticing in log 
home construction (www.pioneerloghomesofbc.com) ... a welcome change 
from paramedic work (yes, a very unusual change in employment yet 
fascinating, nonetheless; it's great to have the opportunity to pick up 
these kind of skills).  Anyway, due to winter finally setting in, my 
work hours are shorter.  Thus, I've managed a time-slice for D lurking 
again among other things (and hopefully a continuation of some 
documentation effort). :-D

It's great to see the rapid growth that's been happening around D. 
Looks like you have been as creative and productive as ever. ;-)  More 
exciting things to come from your end, I can only imagine.

Great to hear from you too, Don. :-)

Take care,

John



 Nov 20 2007



  parent reply John Reimer <terminal.node gmail.com>  writes:


John Reimer wrote:

 Don Clugston wrote:

 John Reimer wrote:


 John, it's great to see you back! I feared you were gone forever.
 - Don.


 
 
 Don,
 
 You are too kind. :-)
 
 I almost figured I was gone for good too, but it's hard to stay away 
 from the techy side of life for too long... and D is smack in the center 
 of it.
 
 Life has been very busy, especially because I'm now apprenticing in log 
 home construction (www.pioneerloghomesofbc.com) ... a welcome change 
 from paramedic work (yes, a very unusual change in employment yet 
 fascinating, nonetheless; it's great to have the opportunity to pick up 
 these kind of skills).  Anyway, due to winter finally setting in, my 
 work hours are shorter.  Thus, I've managed a time-slice for D lurking 
 again among other things (and hopefully a continuation of some 
 documentation effort). :-D
 
 It's great to see the rapid growth that's been happening around D. Looks 
 like you have been as creative and productive as ever. ;-)  More 
 exciting things to come from your end, I can only imagine.
 
 Great to hear from you too, Don. :-)
 
 Take care,
 
 John



*sigh*

Looking over this thread, I am reminded of the major reason that I left 
in the first place (of course, I was partly responsible for it last 
time). :-(

Human nature is so ugly.



 Nov 21 2007



 next sibling parent reply Don Clugston <dac nospam.com.au>  writes:


John Reimer wrote:

 John Reimer wrote:

 Don Clugston wrote:

 John Reimer wrote:


 John, it's great to see you back! I feared you were gone forever.
 - Don.



 Don,

 You are too kind. :-)

 I almost figured I was gone for good too, but it's hard to stay away 
 from the techy side of life for too long... and D is smack in the 
 center of it.

 Life has been very busy, especially because I'm now apprenticing in 
 log home construction (www.pioneerloghomesofbc.com) ... a welcome 
 change from paramedic work (yes, a very unusual change in employment 
 yet fascinating, nonetheless; it's great to have the opportunity to 
 pick up these kind of skills).  Anyway, due to winter finally setting 
 in, my work hours are shorter.  Thus, I've managed a time-slice for D 
 lurking again among other things (and hopefully a continuation of some 
 documentation effort). :-D

 It's great to see the rapid growth that's been happening around D. 
 Looks like you have been as creative and productive as ever. ;-)  More 
 exciting things to come from your end, I can only imagine.

 Great to hear from you too, Don. :-)

 Take care,

 John


 
 
 *sigh*
 
 Looking over this thread, I am reminded of the major reason that I left 
 in the first place (of course, I was partly responsible for it last 
 time). :-(
 
 Human nature is so ugly.


Indeed.

Your brief exit message on Tango was painful to read.
"Bad advertisement for D" as you deleted your name. Ouch.

Especially since it was a post by you (on a C++ ng I think) that made me give D 
a chance in the first place. That's why I'm here.

-Don.



 Nov 21 2007



  parent reply Sean Kelly <sean f4.ca>  writes:


Don Clugston wrote:

 John Reimer wrote:

 Human nature is so ugly.


 
 Indeed.
 
 Your brief exit message on Tango was painful to read.
 "Bad advertisement for D" as you deleted your name. Ouch.
 
 Especially since it was a post by you (on a C++ ng I think) that made me 
 give D a chance in the first place. That's why I'm here.


Yup.  John has always been a valuable member of the D community.  I was 
very disappointed to see him leave, though I can understand why one 
would not want to deal with the drama.


Sean



 Nov 21 2007



  parent  "Kris" <foo bar.com>  writes:


"Sean Kelly" <sean f4.ca> wrote in message

 Don Clugston wrote:

 John Reimer wrote:

 Human nature is so ugly.


 Indeed.

 Your brief exit message on Tango was painful to read.
 "Bad advertisement for D" as you deleted your name. Ouch.

 Especially since it was a post by you (on a C++ ng I think) that made me 
 give D a chance in the first place. That's why I'm here.


 Yup.  John has always been a valuable member of the D community.  I was 
 very disappointed to see him leave, though I can understand why one would 
 not want to deal with the drama.



Yeah, I fully agree. Good to see him back here!



 Nov 21 2007



prev sibling  parent  Sean Kelly <sean f4.ca>  writes:


John Reimer wrote:

 
 *sigh*
 
 Looking over this thread, I am reminded of the major reason that I left 
 in the first place (of course, I was partly responsible for it last 
 time). :-(
 
 Human nature is so ugly.


Fortunately, with usenet, not being a part of the discussion is as 
simple as "mark all read."


Sean



 Nov 21 2007



prev sibling  parent reply Christopher Wright <dhasenan gmail.com>  writes:


Walter Bright wrote:

 Sean Kelly wrote:

 Janice Caron wrote:

 (3) I hate Tango, stylisticly. I hate the mixed case module names, and
 the mixed case global variable names (e.g. Stdout). I want everything
 to look and feel like Phobos.


 I'm not a huge fan of the mixed case global variable names either, but 
 it does help them stand out, which I think is the point.


 
 Mixed case package/module names are avoided because there needs to be a 
 1:1 correspondence between file names and package/module names, and not 
 all file systems are case sensitive (like FAT32 and NTFS, for a couple 
 widely used examples).


The only way to solve this is to have the DMD frontend do 
case-insensitive matching of imports. As it stands, I should be able to 
say 'import STD.STDIO;' on Windows/ntfs and have it work, but have it 
fail when using ext3. (I don't have a copy of Windows, so I can't check; 
and I don't feel like making a case-insensitive fs on my machine right 
now. I don't think you put in an explicit check for accurate case, since 
if you typed in a command line 'cd phobos/StD/', Windows might update 
the case of the folder name.)

This would have a minor benefit of allowing people using tango to write 
'import tango.io.stdout;', but using a standard convention also works 
decently. It's just that different projects use different conventions, 
and I can't use both in my project because of the case insensitive file 
systems.



 Nov 18 2007



  parent  Matti Niemenmaa <see_signature for.real.address>  writes:


Christopher Wright wrote:

 Walter Bright wrote:

 Mixed case package/module names are avoided because there needs to be
 a 1:1 correspondence between file names and package/module names, and
 not all file systems are case sensitive (like FAT32 and NTFS, for a
 couple widely used examples).


 
 The only way to solve this is to have the DMD frontend do
 case-insensitive matching of imports. As it stands, I should be able to
 say 'import STD.STDIO;' on Windows/ntfs and have it work, but have it
 fail when using ext3. (I don't have a copy of Windows, so I can't check;
 and I don't feel like making a case-insensitive fs on my machine right
 now. I don't think you put in an explicit check for accurate case, since
 if you typed in a command line 'cd phobos/StD/', Windows might update
 the case of the folder name.)
 
 This would have a minor benefit of allowing people using tango to write
 'import tango.io.stdout;', but using a standard convention also works
 decently. It's just that different projects use different conventions,
 and I can't use both in my project because of the case insensitive file
 systems.


import StD.sTdIo;
void main() { writefln("hello world"); }

Compiles and runs on Windows.

-- 
E-mail address: matti.niemenmaa+news, domain is iki (DOT) fi



 Nov 18 2007



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


Steven Schveighoffer wrote:

 "Janice Caron" wrote

 I've started to like Tango, now that I've got bits of it working with 
 Phobos :-)

 With a bit of kludging, I've persuaded all of the examples in the
 "console" and "text" directories to build with Phobos using DMD 2.007.
 Of the examples files, only "properties.d" needed to be tweaked
 slightly - and that was just to replace "char[]" with "string".


 
 Just an FYI, some of us are working on a D 2.x compatible version of Tango.
 
 Basically the hard part is adding const.
 
 It's not release-ready yet, but I'm hoping once Walter has fixed const, we 
 should be able to finish the port.
 
 Of course, it does not use Phobos... But hopefully that problem will be 
 solved soon also.


The const stuff is changing significantly (for the much better, I hope), 
so be prepared to do another pass over it if you are adapting it to 
const. I've found the necessary changes to the source to be simple to do 
(and they are flagged by the compiler), so it shouldn't be a problem.



 Nov 18 2007



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


Janice Caron Wrote:


 I've started to like Tango, now that I've got bits of it working with Phobos
:-)



This reminds me... Walter and the Tango team agreed to make their libraries
compatible with each other.

Along those lines, what's the plans/status of that?  I suspect there may even
be different plans/status for D 1.x and D 2.x.



 Nov 16 2007



  parent reply Sean Kelly <sean f4.ca>  writes:


Jason House wrote:

 Janice Caron Wrote:
 

 I've started to like Tango, now that I've got bits of it working with Phobos
:-)


 
 
 This reminds me... Walter and the Tango team agreed to make their libraries
compatible with each other.
 
 Along those lines, what's the plans/status of that?  I suspect there may even
be different plans/status for D 1.x and D 2.x.


D 1.0 is in maintenance mode now, so Phobos 1.0 isn't likely to change 
much, if at all.  D 2.0 is obviously still in flux, and Phobos 2.0 has 
already incorporated some of Tango's changes.  It is uncertain what the 
final result of the merge will be for D 2.0, but from a code perspective 
it is more likely that Phobos 2.0 will end up effectively using the 
Tango runtime than vice-versa.  This is because everyone seems to agree 
that the Tango runtime is a bit more robust.


Sean



 Nov 16 2007



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


Sean Kelly Wrote:

 D 1.0 is in maintenance mode now, so Phobos 1.0 isn't likely to change 
 much, if at all.  D 2.0 is obviously still in flux, and Phobos 2.0 has 
 already incorporated some of Tango's changes.  It is uncertain what the 
 final result of the merge will be for D 2.0, but from a code perspective 
 it is more likely that Phobos 2.0 will end up effectively using the 
 Tango runtime than vice-versa.  This is because everyone seems to agree 
 that the Tango runtime is a bit more robust.


I translate that to mean that the merge of Tango and Phobos relies on the
Phobos developers to do the work.  Is Phobos being actively matured?  My
previous impression is that Walter was doing both that and compiler
internals... with most time dedicated to the latter.  

Is there a timeline when 2.0 versions of phobos and tango will be compatible? 
How will the pieces be partitioned?  Will tango be released with new dmd
versions?  Will both libraries adopt the same style (naming conventions,
capitalization, etc...)?



 
 
 Sean





 Nov 16 2007



 next sibling parent reply "Janice Caron" <caron800 googlemail.com>  writes:


On 11/16/07, Jason House <jason.james.house gmail.com> wrote:

 Will both libraries adopt the same style (naming conventions, capitalization,
etc...)?


I surely hope so. ++myVote



 Nov 16 2007



  parent reply Lars Ivar Igesund <larsivar igesund.net>  writes:


Janice Caron wrote:


 On 11/16/07, Jason House <jason.james.house gmail.com> wrote:

 Will both libraries adopt the same style (naming conventions,
 capitalization, etc...)?


 
 I surely hope so. ++myVote


You understand that that would mean Phobos gaining Tango's style?

-- 
Lars Ivar Igesund
blog at http://larsivi.net
DSource, #d.tango & #D: larsivi
Dancing the Tango



 Nov 17 2007



  parent reply "Janice Caron" <caron800 googlemail.com>  writes:


On 11/17/07, Lars Ivar Igesund <larsivar igesund.net> wrote:

 Will both libraries adopt the same style (naming conventions,
 capitalization, etc...)?


 I surely hope so. ++myVote


 You understand that that would mean Phobos gaining Tango's style?


Oh I don't think so. Walter is quite clear that module names should be
lowercase, and I agree with him. And (apart from Tango) I think it is
"the norm" to name classes in titlecase and variables in lowercase.
Tango is just plain weird in giving variables names like "Stdout".
That's just perverse. Just because it's a global variable doesn't mean
you can go all titlecase.

I kid you not - if Tango used "normal" case conventions, it would have
a lot more adherents.

In any case, I am currently crafting my own personally bastardised
version of Tango. I've already got a significant fraction of it
compiling under D2.007 (including Phobos), and yes I renamed all the
module names to lowercase. And I'll probably make "Stdout" merely an
alias for "stdout" too (etc.)

Seriously - Tango's stylistic issues are a big turn-off. Tango
folk,when you complete your integration with Phobos, please, please
fix them.



 Nov 17 2007



 next sibling parent reply Sean Kelly <sean f4.ca>  writes:


Janice Caron wrote:

 On 11/17/07, Lars Ivar Igesund <larsivar igesund.net> wrote:

 Will both libraries adopt the same style (naming conventions,
 capitalization, etc...)?


 I surely hope so. ++myVote


 You understand that that would mean Phobos gaining Tango's style?


 
 Oh I don't think so. Walter is quite clear that module names should be
 lowercase, and I agree with him.


What is your objection to CamelCase module names?


 I kid you not - if Tango used "normal" case conventions, it would have
 a lot more adherents.


This seems a bit extreme.  The only variables I can think of in Tango 
are Stdin, Stdout, and Stderr.  And these could easily be aliased to 
something else if the user finds the names offensive.


 In any case, I am currently crafting my own personally bastardised
 version of Tango. I've already got a significant fraction of it
 compiling under D2.007 (including Phobos), and yes I renamed all the
 module names to lowercase. And I'll probably make "Stdout" merely an
 alias for "stdout" too (etc.)


You may run into conflicts with the C file handle of the same name.


 Seriously - Tango's stylistic issues are a big turn-off. Tango
 folk,when you complete your integration with Phobos, please, please
 fix them.


Please suggest an alternate formatting style and explain why it is better.


Sean



 Nov 17 2007



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


On Sat, 17 Nov 2007 14:07:56 -0800, Sean Kelly wrote:


 Janice Caron wrote:

 On 11/17/07, Lars Ivar Igesund <larsivar igesund.net> wrote:

 Will both libraries adopt the same style (naming conventions,
 capitalization, etc...)?


 I surely hope so. ++myVote


 You understand that that would mean Phobos gaining Tango's style?


 
 Oh I don't think so. Walter is quite clear that module names should be
 lowercase, and I agree with him.


 
 What is your objection to CamelCase module names?


Windows file system is case insensitive therefore it is easy to cause
'can't find module' type errors even though the file exists.

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



 Nov 17 2007



 next sibling parent  Lars Ivar Igesund <larsivar igesund.net>  writes:


Derek Parnell wrote:


 On Sat, 17 Nov 2007 14:07:56 -0800, Sean Kelly wrote:
 

 Janice Caron wrote:

 On 11/17/07, Lars Ivar Igesund <larsivar igesund.net> wrote:

 Will both libraries adopt the same style (naming conventions,
 capitalization, etc...)?


 I surely hope so. ++myVote


 You understand that that would mean Phobos gaining Tango's style?


 
 Oh I don't think so. Walter is quite clear that module names should be
 lowercase, and I agree with him.


 
 What is your objection to CamelCase module names?


 
 Windows file system is case insensitive therefore it is easy to cause
 'can't find module' type errors even though the file exists.
 


When one thinks the file system is case insensitive, it is easy creating
files that breaks the compile on a system where the FS is case sensitive,
so IMO not a very strong argument. It can be equally useful to have the
creators aware of the casing used.

-- 
Lars Ivar Igesund
blog at http://larsivi.net
DSource, #d.tango & #D: larsivi
Dancing the Tango



 Nov 17 2007



prev sibling  parent reply "Kris" <foo bar.com>  writes:


Hiya Derek,

It's probably worth pointing out that millions of Java developers don't have 
the issue you note? I mean, if it were an issue, we'd surely have heard 
about it years ago?

- Kris


"Derek Parnell" <derek psych.ward> wrote in message 
news:x2bmtq679an5$.1sopa9nv1qrgk$.dlg 40tude.net...

 On Sat, 17 Nov 2007 14:07:56 -0800, Sean Kelly wrote:


 Janice Caron wrote:

 On 11/17/07, Lars Ivar Igesund <larsivar igesund.net> wrote:

 Will both libraries adopt the same style (naming conventions,
 capitalization, etc...)?


 I surely hope so. ++myVote


 You understand that that would mean Phobos gaining Tango's style?


 Oh I don't think so. Walter is quite clear that module names should be
 lowercase, and I agree with him.


 What is your objection to CamelCase module names?


 Windows file system is case insensitive therefore it is easy to cause
 'can't find module' type errors even though the file exists.

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





 Nov 17 2007



  parent  Walter Bright <newshound1 digitalmars.com>  writes:


Kris wrote:

 Hiya Derek,
 
 It's probably worth pointing out that millions of Java developers don't have 
 the issue you note? I mean, if it were an issue, we'd surely have heard 
 about it years ago?


The compiler will distinguish modules Foo and foo as being different, 
but the filesystem won't.

Does it cause problems? See http://mindprod.com/jgloss/casesensitive.html

Evidently it does come up as an issue: 
http://gcc.gnu.org/ml/java/2002-03/msg00334.html

As for me, I've routinely ported code between filesystems that had all 
kinds of varying support for case. What works best is naming files with 
all lower case - then things port smoothly without problems. Why have 
potential problems when they are so easily avoided?

A further reason is that having case conventions for different kinds of 
symbols aids in reading the code (and even catching errors). Having 
module names use a different form than class names, for example, just 
helps. Not a whole lot, but why not take it?

And in the end, the Tango team can use whatever conventions they want to.



 Nov 18 2007



prev sibling  parent reply renoX <renosky free.fr>  writes:


Sean Kelly a écrit :

 Janice Caron wrote:

 On 11/17/07, Lars Ivar Igesund <larsivar igesund.net> wrote:

 Will both libraries adopt the same style (naming conventions,
 capitalization, etc...)?


 I surely hope so. ++myVote


 You understand that that would mean Phobos gaining Tango's style?


 Oh I don't think so. Walter is quite clear that module names should be
 lowercase, and I agree with him.


 
 What is your objection to CamelCase module names?


Easy: when in Romes do like Romans i.e. coherency beats 'invent your own 
style' any time of the day, otherwise big projects looks ugly.

So Tango should really follow convention used by Walter in Phobos.

Not following this simple rule looks 'amateurish' from Tango's guys, 
sorry for the harsh word but that's my view.

renoX





 I kid you not - if Tango used "normal" case conventions, it would have
 a lot more adherents.


 
 This seems a bit extreme.  The only variables I can think of in Tango 
 are Stdin, Stdout, and Stderr.  And these could easily be aliased to 
 something else if the user finds the names offensive.
 

 In any case, I am currently crafting my own personally bastardised
 version of Tango. I've already got a significant fraction of it
 compiling under D2.007 (including Phobos), and yes I renamed all the
 module names to lowercase. And I'll probably make "Stdout" merely an
 alias for "stdout" too (etc.)


 
 You may run into conflicts with the C file handle of the same name.
 

 Seriously - Tango's stylistic issues are a big turn-off. Tango
 folk,when you complete your integration with Phobos, please, please
 fix them.


 
 Please suggest an alternate formatting style and explain why it is better.
 
 
 Sean





 Nov 17 2007



 next sibling parent  Sean Kelly <sean f4.ca>  writes:


renoX wrote:

 Sean Kelly a écrit :

 Janice Caron wrote:

 On 11/17/07, Lars Ivar Igesund <larsivar igesund.net> wrote:

 Will both libraries adopt the same style (naming conventions,
 capitalization, etc...)?


 I surely hope so. ++myVote


 You understand that that would mean Phobos gaining Tango's style?


 Oh I don't think so. Walter is quite clear that module names should be
 lowercase, and I agree with him.


 What is your objection to CamelCase module names?


 
 Easy: when in Romes do like Romans i.e. coherency beats 'invent your own 
 style' any time of the day, otherwise big projects looks ugly.
 
 So Tango should really follow convention used by Walter in Phobos.


What if that convention proves insufficient for a library that is much 
larger than Phobos?


Sean



 Nov 17 2007



prev sibling next sibling parent reply "Kris" <foo bar.com>  writes:


"renoX" <renosky free.fr> wrote in message 
news:fhnr42$1ego$1 digitalmars.com...


 Easy: when in Romes do like Romans i.e. coherency beats 'invent your own 
 style' any time of the day, otherwise big projects looks ugly.

 So Tango should really follow convention used by Walter in Phobos.

 Not following this simple rule looks 'amateurish' from Tango's guys, sorry 
 for the harsh word but that's my view.



No problem, renoX, but there's at least two strawmen in your post. Maybe 
three:

1) "big projects look ugly" -- unsustained nonsense :)

2) "convention used by Walter" -- phobos is a mix of all kinds of 
non-cohesive design and implementation. So much for convention :)

3) "amatuerish" because of a minor variation in style?  Digging for 
mountainous molehills, my friend :)

Further, there a vague implication that Tango is somehow non-coherent, and 
that we 'invented' our own style of using camelCase for global variables and 
module names. LOL!
Well, we didn't invent anything new. Those idioms have been used very 
successfully by millions of programmers for decades.

This is great! No offence taken, RenoX, and none intended toward you ... but 
you might as well say that "D sucks goat turds" because it changes how C 
programmers view the world. Yeah, I know people don't like change, but 
seriously.

If you truly feel the use of CamelCase in global vars is just too 
distressing, please, see a doctor. Such things are /really/ not worth 
getting upset about, or bitching and moaning about. To quote yourself: 
"sorry for the harsh words, but that's my view"

- Kris 



 Nov 17 2007



  parent reply Alix Pexton <_a_l_i_x_._p_e_x_t_o_n_ _g_m_a_i_l_._c_o_m_>  writes:


Kris wrote:

 "renoX" <renosky free.fr> wrote in message 
 news:fhnr42$1ego$1 digitalmars.com...
 

 Easy: when in Romes do like Romans i.e. coherency beats 'invent your own 
 style' any time of the day, otherwise big projects looks ugly.

 So Tango should really follow convention used by Walter in Phobos.

 Not following this simple rule looks 'amateurish' from Tango's guys, sorry 
 for the harsh word but that's my view.


 
 
 No problem, renoX, but there's at least two strawmen in your post. Maybe 
 three:
 
 1) "big projects look ugly" -- unsustained nonsense :)
 
 2) "convention used by Walter" -- phobos is a mix of all kinds of 
 non-cohesive design and implementation. So much for convention :)
 
 3) "amatuerish" because of a minor variation in style?  Digging for 
 mountainous molehills, my friend :)
 
 Further, there a vague implication that Tango is somehow non-coherent, and 
 that we 'invented' our own style of using camelCase for global variables and 
 module names. LOL!
 Well, we didn't invent anything new. Those idioms have been used very 
 successfully by millions of programmers for decades.
 
 This is great! No offence taken, RenoX, and none intended toward you ... but 
 you might as well say that "D sucks goat turds" because it changes how C 
 programmers view the world. Yeah, I know people don't like change, but 
 seriously.
 
 If you truly feel the use of CamelCase in global vars is just too 
 distressing, please, see a doctor. Such things are /really/ not worth 
 getting upset about, or bitching and moaning about. To quote yourself: 
 "sorry for the harsh words, but that's my view"
 
 - Kris 
 
 


All I'm going to say to respond to that is that you have done a very good job
of showing that you are much less mature than RenoX.

A...



 Nov 18 2007



  parent reply "Kris" <foo bar.com>  writes:


"Alix Pexton" <_a_l_i_x_._p_e_x_t_o_n_ _g_m_a_i_l_._c_o_m_

 wrote in message you are much less mature than RenoX.


Thanks Alix.

I find serious immaturity surrounding this entire issue. It's seems to be 
about

"I don't like Stdout because it should be stdout instead. Dammit!", or "I 
won't even use Tango just because the module names aren't lowercase!".

I mean, seriously. What would you call that, Alix? I suspect most people 
would call it "petty beyond contemplation".

You have a choice. Don't get hung up on the tiny details, when there's a 
whole treasure of functionality in Tango, plus an active and dedicted group 
of people to ensure it remains nurtured.



 Nov 18 2007



  parent reply Alix Pexton <_a_l_i_x_._p_e_x_t_o_n_ _g_m_a_i_l_._c_o_m_>  writes:


Kris wrote:

 "Alix Pexton" <_a_l_i_x_._p_e_x_t_o_n_ _g_m_a_i_l_._c_o_m_

 wrote in message you are much less mature than RenoX.


 
 Thanks Alix.
 
 I find serious immaturity surrounding this entire issue. It's seems to be 
 about
 
 "I don't like Stdout because it should be stdout instead. Dammit!", or "I 
 won't even use Tango just because the module names aren't lowercase!".
 
 I mean, seriously. What would you call that, Alix? I suspect most people 
 would call it "petty beyond contemplation".
 
 You have a choice. Don't get hung up on the tiny details, when there's a 
 whole treasure of functionality in Tango, plus an active and dedicted group 
 of people to ensure it remains nurtured.
 
 
 


I can only assume that there is a red mist that is stopping you from seeing the
points that pwople are trying to make, you are too protective of your precious.

I have tried to be constructive and explain exactly my objections and why I
find that one particular aspect of Tango, for me, makes code that uses it
confusing to read, even if I myself follow your exact naming practices, and
more so if I use my own.

All you reply is that you have a choice, you do not try to explain why the
system that you have chosen is better.

Some might read into that you don't actually have a counter argument but are
too stuborn to make any kind of address.

If you were a professional contractor and I had hired you to implement a
library, would you have the same responce, or would you just say "you have a
choice" and forfeit your payment?

I can understand that you perhaps feel that you have already covered this issue
before and that you don't want to get drawn into it again, but your attitude
just seems strange for someone who is creating a library for a community.

And from your point of view as the writer of the library, the presence of some
capitals might be a tiny detail, but the confusion that I have found when
trying to use that library as a consumer are sufficient to deter me from
adopting it.

While there is no alternative, and the fledgeling D community is in effect your
captured audience I believe Tango will do well, but if you ever find yourself
with real competition, I think that you will have to change your attitude (and
this effects way more than theis CamelCase issue) or see Tango's user base
rapidly dwindle.

You will never see any company advertise its products with the slogan "Well,
you have a choice!"

A...



 Nov 18 2007



  parent reply "Kris" <foo bar.com>  writes:


Wow ... I really have no idea of what you're talking about Alix. Honestly, I 
really don't. There is no strange red mist or anything else. Instead it is 
quite simple:

You want something different from what other people want. That cannot be 
accomodated.

- Kris


"Alix Pexton" <_a_l_i_x_._p_e_x_t_o_n_ _g_m_a_i_l_._c_o_m_> wrote in message 
news:fhqee1$2sps$1 digitalmars.com...

 Kris wrote:

 "Alix Pexton" <_a_l_i_x_._p_e_x_t_o_n_ _g_m_a_i_l_._c_o_m_

 wrote in message you are much less mature than RenoX.


 Thanks Alix.

 I find serious immaturity surrounding this entire issue. It's seems to be 
 about

 "I don't like Stdout because it should be stdout instead. Dammit!", or "I 
 won't even use Tango just because the module names aren't lowercase!".

 I mean, seriously. What would you call that, Alix? I suspect most people 
 would call it "petty beyond contemplation".

 You have a choice. Don't get hung up on the tiny details, when there's a 
 whole treasure of functionality in Tango, plus an active and dedicted 
 group of people to ensure it remains nurtured.


 I can only assume that there is a red mist that is stopping you from 
 seeing the points that pwople are trying to make, you are too protective 
 of your precious.

 I have tried to be constructive and explain exactly my objections and why 
 I find that one particular aspect of Tango, for me, makes code that uses 
 it confusing to read, even if I myself follow your exact naming practices, 
 and more so if I use my own.

 All you reply is that you have a choice, you do not try to explain why the 
 system that you have chosen is better.

 Some might read into that you don't actually have a counter argument but 
 are too stuborn to make any kind of address.

 If you were a professional contractor and I had hired you to implement a 
 library, would you have the same responce, or would you just say "you have 
 a choice" and forfeit your payment?

 I can understand that you perhaps feel that you have already covered this 
 issue before and that you don't want to get drawn into it again, but your 
 attitude just seems strange for someone who is creating a library for a 
 community.

 And from your point of view as the writer of the library, the presence of 
 some capitals might be a tiny detail, but the confusion that I have found 
 when trying to use that library as a consumer are sufficient to deter me 
 from adopting it.

 While there is no alternative, and the fledgeling D community is in effect 
 your captured audience I believe Tango will do well, but if you ever find 
 yourself with real competition, I think that you will have to change your 
 attitude (and this effects way more than theis CamelCase issue) or see 
 Tango's user base rapidly dwindle.

 You will never see any company advertise its products with the slogan 
 "Well, you have a choice!"

 A... 





 Nov 18 2007



  parent reply Alix Pexton <_a_l_i_x_._p_e_x_t_o_n_ _g_m_a_i_l_._c_o_m_>  writes:


Kris wrote:

 Wow ... I really have no idea of what you're talking about Alix. Honestly, I 
 really don't. There is no strange red mist or anything else. Instead it is 
 quite simple:
 
 You want something different from what other people want. That cannot be 
 accomodated.
 
 - Kris
 
 
 "Alix Pexton" <_a_l_i_x_._p_e_x_t_o_n_ _g_m_a_i_l_._c_o_m_> wrote in message 
 news:fhqee1$2sps$1 digitalmars.com...

 Kris wrote:

 "Alix Pexton" <_a_l_i_x_._p_e_x_t_o_n_ _g_m_a_i_l_._c_o_m_

 wrote in message you are much less mature than RenoX.


 Thanks Alix.

 I find serious immaturity surrounding this entire issue. It's seems to be 
 about

 "I don't like Stdout because it should be stdout instead. Dammit!", or "I 
 won't even use Tango just because the module names aren't lowercase!".

 I mean, seriously. What would you call that, Alix? I suspect most people 
 would call it "petty beyond contemplation".

 You have a choice. Don't get hung up on the tiny details, when there's a 
 whole treasure of functionality in Tango, plus an active and dedicted 
 group of people to ensure it remains nurtured.


 I can only assume that there is a red mist that is stopping you from 
 seeing the points that pwople are trying to make, you are too protective 
 of your precious.

 I have tried to be constructive and explain exactly my objections and why 
 I find that one particular aspect of Tango, for me, makes code that uses 
 it confusing to read, even if I myself follow your exact naming practices, 
 and more so if I use my own.

 All you reply is that you have a choice, you do not try to explain why the 
 system that you have chosen is better.

 Some might read into that you don't actually have a counter argument but 
 are too stuborn to make any kind of address.

 If you were a professional contractor and I had hired you to implement a 
 library, would you have the same responce, or would you just say "you have 
 a choice" and forfeit your payment?

 I can understand that you perhaps feel that you have already covered this 
 issue before and that you don't want to get drawn into it again, but your 
 attitude just seems strange for someone who is creating a library for a 
 community.

 And from your point of view as the writer of the library, the presence of 
 some capitals might be a tiny detail, but the confusion that I have found 
 when trying to use that library as a consumer are sufficient to deter me 
 from adopting it.

 While there is no alternative, and the fledgeling D community is in effect 
 your captured audience I believe Tango will do well, but if you ever find 
 yourself with real competition, I think that you will have to change your 
 attitude (and this effects way more than theis CamelCase issue) or see 
 Tango's user base rapidly dwindle.

 You will never see any company advertise its products with the slogan 
 "Well, you have a choice!"

 A... 


 
 


Nope, tat is not what I want at all...

A...



 Nov 18 2007



  parent  "Kris" <foo bar.com>  writes:


"Alix Pexton" <_a_l_i_x_._p_e_x_t_o_n_ _g_m_a_i_l_._c_o_m_>


 Nope, tat is not what I want at all...


Then, it not yet clear what it is that you want. I suggest you start a 
completely separate thread, or hook up on IRC where the conversation 
badwidth is a lot higher than here?

- Kris 



 Nov 18 2007



prev sibling  parent reply Alix Pexton <_a_l_i_x_._p_e_x_t_o_n_ _g_m_a_i_l_._c_o_m_>  writes:


renoX wrote:

 Sean Kelly a écrit :

 Janice Caron wrote:

 On 11/17/07, Lars Ivar Igesund <larsivar igesund.net> wrote:

 Will both libraries adopt the same style (naming conventions,
 capitalization, etc...)?


 I surely hope so. ++myVote


 You understand that that would mean Phobos gaining Tango's style?


 Oh I don't think so. Walter is quite clear that module names should be
 lowercase, and I agree with him.


 What is your objection to CamelCase module names?


 
 Easy: when in Romes do like Romans i.e. coherency beats 'invent your own 
 style' any time of the day, otherwise big projects looks ugly.
 
 So Tango should really follow convention used by Walter in Phobos.
 
 Not following this simple rule looks 'amateurish' from Tango's guys, 
 sorry for the harsh word but that's my view.
 
 renoX


I agree, I don't know where it started, but I got used to the convention that
IdentifiersLikeThis were classes onesLikeThis were instances and
OTHERS_LIKE_THIS constants, leaveing alllowercase for
modules/namespaces/short-term-variables.
In an OO lang, its nice to look at an identifier and be able to consistently
know if its a class or an instance or a module. I want "InitailUpper.foo()" to
always be a call to a static method of a class and not be confused with the
disambiguation of a funcion within a module.
That initial capital shouts out to me to declare "I am a class", and in Tango,
its not always the case. While you may be able to argue that modules are more
important than classes, the link to the file system where rules over case may
differ from those of the language, for me, take precidence, and wherever I have
that issue, I resort to all lower-case. This is because it has been shown in
experiments to be easier to read than all caps.
Tango's wild departure from myown naming style is one of the reasons that I was
not an early adopter.

A...



 Nov 18 2007



 next sibling parent  Sean Kelly <sean f4.ca>  writes:


Alix Pexton wrote:

 Tango's wild departure from myown naming style is one of the reasons 
 that I was not an early adopter.


Tango's naming convention isn't consistent with my own style either, but 
I didn't find it terribly difficult to get used to.


Sean



 Nov 18 2007



prev sibling  parent  "Kris" <foo bar.com>  writes:


Alix;

You're certainly welcome to your opinion, just as we all are. There are many 
who disagree with you, and there's no way to resolve that dillema as I've 
already said.




"Alix Pexton" <_a_l_i_x_._p_e_x_t_o_n_ _g_m_a_i_l_._c_o_m_> wrote in message 
news:fhp7v1$ff8$1 digitalmars.com...

 renoX wrote:

 Sean Kelly a écrit :

 Janice Caron wrote:

 On 11/17/07, Lars Ivar Igesund <larsivar igesund.net> wrote:

 Will both libraries adopt the same style (naming conventions,
 capitalization, etc...)?


 I surely hope so. ++myVote


 You understand that that would mean Phobos gaining Tango's style?


 Oh I don't think so. Walter is quite clear that module names should be
 lowercase, and I agree with him.


 What is your objection to CamelCase module names?


 Easy: when in Romes do like Romans i.e. coherency beats 'invent your own 
 style' any time of the day, otherwise big projects looks ugly.

 So Tango should really follow convention used by Walter in Phobos.

 Not following this simple rule looks 'amateurish' from Tango's guys, 
 sorry for the harsh word but that's my view.

 renoX


 I agree, I don't know where it started, but I got used to the convention 
 that IdentifiersLikeThis were classes onesLikeThis were instances and 
 OTHERS_LIKE_THIS constants, leaveing alllowercase for 
 modules/namespaces/short-term-variables.
 In an OO lang, its nice to look at an identifier and be able to 
 consistently know if its a class or an instance or a module. I want 
 "InitailUpper.foo()" to always be a call to a static method of a class and 
 not be confused with the disambiguation of a funcion within a module.
 That initial capital shouts out to me to declare "I am a class", and in 
 Tango, its not always the case. While you may be able to argue that 
 modules are more important than classes, the link to the file system where 
 rules over case may differ from those of the language, for me, take 
 precidence, and wherever I have that issue, I resort to all lower-case. 
 This is because it has been shown in experiments to be easier to read than 
 all caps.
 Tango's wild departure from myown naming style is one of the reasons that 
 I was not an early adopter.

 A... 





 Nov 18 2007



prev sibling next sibling parent  Lars Ivar Igesund <larsivar igesund.net>  writes:


Janice Caron wrote:


 On 11/17/07, Lars Ivar Igesund <larsivar igesund.net> wrote:

 Will both libraries adopt the same style (naming conventions,
 capitalization, etc...)?


 I surely hope so. ++myVote


 You understand that that would mean Phobos gaining Tango's style?


 
 Oh I don't think so. Walter is quite clear that module names should be
 lowercase, and I agree with him. And (apart from Tango) I think it is
 "the norm" to name classes in titlecase and variables in lowercase.


Well, there are many using this style because W says/said it's standard.
That doesn't really mean it's the norm, neither that it is better than any
other style.


 Tango is just plain weird in giving variables names like "Stdout".
 That's just perverse. Just because it's a global variable doesn't mean
 you can go all titlecase.


Are you sure you understand the meaning of the word weird?


 
 I kid you not - if Tango used "normal" case conventions, it would have
 a lot more adherents.


Wow, you certainly know a lot.


 
 In any case, I am currently crafting my own personally bastardised
 version of Tango. I've already got a significant fraction of it
 compiling under D2.007 (including Phobos), and yes I renamed all the
 module names to lowercase. And I'll probably make "Stdout" merely an
 alias for "stdout" too (etc.)


I am truly impressed at the effort you put into this.


 
 Seriously - Tango's stylistic issues are a big turn-off. Tango
 folk,when you complete your integration with Phobos, please, please
 fix them.


Tango have very few stylistic issues, all of which should be gone pretty
soon. Have a feeling those aren't the ones you mean though... Phobos have a
few as it isn't entirely consistent with itself.

-- 
Lars Ivar Igesund
blog at http://larsivi.net
DSource, #d.tango & #D: larsivi
Dancing the Tango



 Nov 17 2007



prev sibling next sibling parent  "Kris" <foo bar.com>  writes:


"Janice Caron" <caron800 googlemail.com> wrote in message


 Oh I don't think so. Walter is quite clear that module names should be
 lowercase, and I agree with him. And (apart from Tango) I think it is
 "the norm" to name classes in titlecase and variables in lowercase.
 Tango is just plain weird in giving variables names like "Stdout".
 That's just perverse. Just because it's a global variable doesn't mean
 you can go all titlecase.


knew you'd find a way to dredge this up again :)

We've already discussed this Janice, and your position was shown to be 
somewhat more than dubious at that time. That hasn't changed, so it comes 
down purely to your 'personal' taste.

You don't /have/ to use Tango if you find the use of distinguishing 
characters to be so bitterly offensive. Really, you don't. You swore it off 
before, and yet here you are ranting about this again. I don't get the 
issue. It's nothing but a storm in a teacup. Shrug

And please, don't start again with the "it says in the D doc that ..." 
because we've already been there. Done that. Over. Finito. Or maybe you 
didn't read the responses the last time around? :)

Still, thanks for your interest in Tango all the same. I'm really glad that 
you find the functionality worthwhile to be spending your time converting 
it.

Best;

- Kris 



 Nov 17 2007



prev sibling  parent reply phango <phango phangowant.com>  writes:


i love that - please release it to us all!
can't wait to get it for all the reasons you put forth.


Janice Caron Wrote:


 On 11/17/07, Lars Ivar Igesund <larsivar igesund.net> wrote:

 Will both libraries adopt the same style (naming conventions,
 capitalization, etc...)?


 I surely hope so. ++myVote


 You understand that that would mean Phobos gaining Tango's style?


 
 Oh I don't think so. Walter is quite clear that module names should be
 lowercase, and I agree with him. And (apart from Tango) I think it is
 "the norm" to name classes in titlecase and variables in lowercase.
 Tango is just plain weird in giving variables names like "Stdout".
 That's just perverse. Just because it's a global variable doesn't mean
 you can go all titlecase.
 
 I kid you not - if Tango used "normal" case conventions, it would have
 a lot more adherents.
 
 In any case, I am currently crafting my own personally bastardised
 version of Tango. I've already got a significant fraction of it
 compiling under D2.007 (including Phobos), and yes I renamed all the
 module names to lowercase. And I'll probably make "Stdout" merely an
 alias for "stdout" too (etc.)
 
 Seriously - Tango's stylistic issues are a big turn-off. Tango
 folk,when you complete your integration with Phobos, please, please
 fix them.





 Nov 17 2007



  parent reply "Kris" <foo bar.com>  writes:


There's a fair chance the poster below is actually Janice, but just in case 
there really is someone voicing an honest opinion there, read on ...

What many people fail to realize is that software doesn't survive without 
nurture. In fact, when you forcibly freeze software, it tends to die quite 
quickly (this is what happened to Simula, for those who follow language 
history, and it's somewhat relevant here since Simula is perhaps the closest 
relative to D).

The take-home message is that Tango will continue to develop, grow, improve, 
mature, in a non-static fashion. If anyone wants to chase that with a 
redundant copy, that's their folly. Making a copy of Tango functionality is 
only inviting more work for yourselves, and generating out-of-date 
functionality for others to operate with. Isn't that obvious?

The recommendation is this: if you'd like something changed within Tango, 
then request it. We can't always please everyone, but we do manage to make a 
lot of people happy with the (often real-time) changes we do make. Having 
said that, requesting sweeping stylistic changes, based purely upon personal 
preference, is likely to conflict with the personal preference of others. 
It's very hard to resolve such a dilemma, as I'm sure everyone can 
understand.

- Kris


"phango" <phango phangowant.com> wrote in message 
news:fhnplh$1cs3$1 digitalmars.com...

i love that - please release it to us all!
 can't wait to get it for all the reasons you put forth.





 Nov 17 2007



 next sibling parent reply "Janice Caron" <caron800 googlemail.com>  writes:


On 11/17/07, Kris <foo bar.com> wrote:

 There's a fair chance the poster below is actually Janice,


Who? What?

Don't insult me.

My opinions - sure - you can insult those. Not a problem there. But
don't insult /me/. Ad hominem is just downright offensive.



 Nov 17 2007



 next sibling parent reply Lars Ivar Igesund <larsivar igesund.net>  writes:


Janice Caron wrote:


 On 11/17/07, Kris <foo bar.com> wrote:

 There's a fair chance the poster below is actually Janice,


 
 Who? What?
 
 Don't insult me.
 
 My opinions - sure - you can insult those. Not a problem there. But
 don't insult /me/. Ad hominem is just downright offensive.


FWIW, you can't call a distinction on you as a person and your opinions when
it comes to insulting. So if you think you may have insulted my opinions
(about Tango or any other subject), then you probably insulted /me/
instead.

-- 
Lars Ivar Igesund
blog at http://larsivi.net
DSource, #d.tango & #D: larsivi
Dancing the Tango



 Nov 17 2007



 next sibling parent reply "Janice Caron" <caron800 googlemail.com>  writes:


On 11/17/07, Lars Ivar Igesund <larsivar igesund.net> wrote:

 Janice Caron wrote:


 On 11/17/07, Kris <foo bar.com> wrote:

 There's a fair chance the poster below is actually Janice,


 Who? What?

 Don't insult me.

 My opinions - sure - you can insult those. Not a problem there. But
 don't insult /me/. Ad hominem is just downright offensive.


 FWIW, you can't call a distinction on you as a person and your opinions when
 it comes to insulting. So if you think you may have insulted my opinions
 (about Tango or any other subject), then you probably insulted /me/
 instead.


Kris made a false accusation. That was unwarranted. You can't go
around accusing people of things they didn't do. That is outrageous.
Worse, it's injustice.

Kris accused me of making a post in another name, in support my actual
posts. That, I did not do, and I resent the implication. That
accusation is several orders magnitude worse than an criticisism of
variable naming conventions, and it stinks.

Kris, That wasn't me. Deal with it. And I hope you have the decency to
retract the accuasion and apologise.



 Nov 17 2007



 next sibling parent  "Kris" <foo bar.com>  writes:


"Janice Caron" <caron800 googlemail.com> wrote in message 
news:mailman.98.1195344174.2338.digitalmars-d puremagic.com...

 On 11/17/07, Lars Ivar Igesund <larsivar igesund.net> wrote:

 Janice Caron wrote:


 On 11/17/07, Kris <foo bar.com> wrote:

 There's a fair chance the poster below is actually Janice,


 Who? What?

 Don't insult me.

 My opinions - sure - you can insult those. Not a problem there. But
 don't insult /me/. Ad hominem is just downright offensive.


 FWIW, you can't call a distinction on you as a person and your opinions 
 when
 it comes to insulting. So if you think you may have insulted my opinions
 (about Tango or any other subject), then you probably insulted /me/
 instead.


 Kris made a false accusation.


Nonsense. I made an interesting parapraxes in conjuction with a speculation 
:)



 That was unwarranted. You can't go
 around accusing people of things they didn't do. That is outrageous.
 Worse, it's injustice.


Melodramatic, yet perhaps true, Janice. But wait! I recall not so long ago 
you accused people involved with Tango as being "amateurs", or something 
like that. I'm not sure how that meshes with your sudden rash of 
indignation?



 Kris, That wasn't me. Deal with it.


Have nothing to "deal" with, Janice. This entire thread seems to be just 
more of the personal ranting we heard in the past.



 And I hope you have the decency to retract


Already posted 



 Nov 17 2007



prev sibling  parent  Bruce Adams <tortoise_74 yeah.who.co.uk>  writes:


Janice Caron Wrote:


 On 11/17/07, Lars Ivar Igesund <larsivar igesund.net> wrote:

 Janice Caron wrote:


 On 11/17/07, Kris <foo bar.com> wrote:

 There's a fair chance the poster below is actually Janice,


 Who? What?

 Don't insult me.

 My opinions - sure - you can insult those. Not a problem there. But
 don't insult /me/. Ad hominem is just downright offensive.


 FWIW, you can't call a distinction on you as a person and your opinions when
 it comes to insulting. So if you think you may have insulted my opinions
 (about Tango or any other subject), then you probably insulted /me/
 instead.


 
 Kris made a false accusation. That was unwarranted. You can't go
 around accusing people of things they didn't do. That is outrageous.
 Worse, it's injustice.
 
 Kris accused me of making a post in another name, in support my actual
 posts. That, I did not do, and I resent the implication. That
 accusation is several orders magnitude worse than an criticisism of
 variable naming conventions, and it stinks.
 
 Kris, That wasn't me. Deal with it. And I hope you have the decency to
 retract the accuasion and apologise.


Are you sure you aren't jumping the gun. I read Kris's post as meaning you'd be
the next person to reply, which funnily enough you were. You're quite prolific
you know. 



 Nov 17 2007



prev sibling  parent  James Dennett <jdennett acm.org>  writes:


Lars Ivar Igesund wrote:

 Janice Caron wrote:
 

 On 11/17/07, Kris <foo bar.com> wrote:

 There's a fair chance the poster below is actually Janice,


 Who? What?

 Don't insult me.

 My opinions - sure - you can insult those. Not a problem there. But
 don't insult /me/. Ad hominem is just downright offensive.


 
 FWIW, you can't call a distinction on you as a person and your opinions when
 it comes to insulting. So if you think you may have insulted my opinions
 (about Tango or any other subject), then you probably insulted /me/
 instead.


There's an interesting issue here.  There are two ways of viewing
discussions.  In one, people *do* distinguish between personal attacks
and attacks on viewpoints; in the other, they do not.  When those of
either school encounter those of the other school, things tend to go
badly.  It's often a problem here on d.D.

-- James



 Dec 12 2007



prev sibling next sibling parent reply "Kris" <foo bar.com>  writes:


"Janice Caron" <caron800 googlemail.com> wrote in message

 On 11/17/07, Kris <foo bar.com> wrote:

 There's a fair chance the poster below is actually Janice,


 Who? What?

 Don't insult me.

 My opinions - sure - you can insult those. Not a problem there. But
 don't insult /me/. Ad hominem is just downright offensive.



Dash it all. This is what I meant to write:

"There's a fair chance the poster below is actually trolling, but just in 
case
there really is someone voicing an honest opinion there, read on ..."

But somehow it came out as:

"There's a fair chance the poster below is actually Janice, but just in case
there really is someone voicing an honest opinion there, read on ..."

Honest mistake, Janice. Really. When it comes to this topic perhaps you've 
made some kind of impression? I don't know how to explain it otherwise, 
except perhaps for senility on my part.

Anyway, I suspect you'd agree that the rest of it is what's important ... 



 Nov 17 2007



  parent reply "Janice Caron" <caron800 googlemail.com>  writes:


On 11/18/07, Kris <foo bar.com> wrote:

 Dash it all. This is what I meant to write:


Phew! OK, I'm happy now. :-)
Thanks for clearing things up.



 Nov 17 2007



  parent reply "Kris" <foo bar.com>  writes:


"Janice Caron" <caron800 googlemail.com> wrote

 On 11/18/07, Kris <foo bar.com> wrote:

 Dash it all. This is what I meant to write:


 Phew! OK, I'm happy now. :-)
 Thanks for clearing things up.


Sure, no problem. Now, perhaps you will address the questions asked 
previously? I'll list them here for your convenience:


 Seriously - Tango's stylistic issues are a big turn-off. Tango
 folk,when you complete your integration with Phobos, please, please
 fix them.


Please suggest an alternate formatting style and explain why it is better.



 So Tango should really follow convention used by Walter in Phobos.


What if that convention proves insufficient for a library that is much
larger than Phobos?



 Kris made a false accusation.
 That was unwarranted. You can't go
 around accusing people of things they didn't do. That is outrageous.
 Worse, it's injustice.


Melodramatic, yet perhaps true, Janice. But wait! I recall not so long ago
you accused people involved with Tango as being "amateurs", or something
like that. I'm not sure how that meshes with your sudden rash of
indignation?



 Nov 18 2007



 next sibling parent reply "Janice Caron" <caron800 googlemail.com>  writes:


On 11/18/07, Kris <foo bar.com> wrote:

 Please suggest an alternate formatting style and explain why it is better.


Module name components: likethis
Class names: LikeThis
Variable names: likeThis;
Constants: LIKETHIS or LIKE_THIS

Consistency makes code easier to understand and maintain.



 What if that convention proves insufficient for a library that is much
 larger than Phobos?


How can it be? You'd need an infinitely large library before you ran
out of identifier names.



 But wait! I recall not so long ago
 you accused people involved with Tango as being "amateurs", or something
 like that.


Consider the possibility that you may have misunderstood? Alas, I
don't recall the quote you mention, but I'm sure that if you drag up
exactly what I said word for word, I can either clarify the quote or
change my mind or whatever.

All I can think of is I might have said that something or other seems
amateurish. But even then, I also say that about some movie plots, but
still think they're great movies. You may be reading too much into it.



 Nov 18 2007



 next sibling parent reply "Kris" <foo bar.com>  writes:


"Janice Caron" <caron800 googlemail.com> wrote


 Consider the possibility that you may have misunderstood? Alas, I
 don't recall the quote you mention, but I'm sure that if you drag up
 exactly what I said word for word, I can either clarify the quote or
 change my mind or whatever.


LOL -- it was the last time you were being shrill about this very topic 
Janice, and you were perfectly clear at the time. I won't bother to dredge 
up your post, since you can do that yourself. However, it's vaguely amusing 
to see your hypocracy is without bounds :)



 Nov 18 2007



  parent reply "Janice Caron" <caron800 googlemail.com>  writes:


On 11/18/07, Kris <foo bar.com> wrote:

 LOL -- it was the last time you were being shrill about this very topic


shrill - adj - said of a voice, sound, etc: high-pitched and piercing.
verb (shrilled, shrilling) to utter in such a high-pitched manner.
shrilly adverb. shrillness noun.
ETYMOLOGY: 14c: from German schrell.

Excuse me!?



 I won't bother to dredge
 up your post, since you can do that yourself.


I'm also capable of just speaking in words, and saying what I think,
which is that Tango is a truly excellent body of work with some
fantastic code in it. Perhaps you don't want to hear that?



 However, it's vaguely amusing
 to see your hypocracy is without bounds :)


Again, excuse me? Any chance you could just scale down the discourtesy a tad?



 Nov 18 2007



  parent reply Regan Heath <regan netmail.co.nz>  writes:


Janice Caron wrote:

 On 11/18/07, Kris <foo bar.com> wrote:

 However, it's vaguely amusing
 to see your hypocracy is without bounds :)


 
 Again, excuse me? Any chance you could just scale down the discourtesy a tad?


Don't hold your breath.  Many a poster has been in your shoes, myself 
included.  Heck, Alix is in the same position right now.  No doubt I'll 
get some of the same treatment shortly, I just wanted to let you know 
you're not alone.

Kris, I wish you wouldn't take comments about Tango quite so personally, 
Sean and Lars are in the same boat and you don't see them responding 
with personal attacks.  It's quite sad really because despite this you 
have a number of quite admirable qualities which I respect you for, but 
damn it if you don't make that hard sometimes.

Anyway, for what it's worth you can chalk my name up on the list of 
people who haven't adopted Tango due to it's style, naming conventions 
included.  Granted it's not the main reason, that being that I don't 
have a large enough project to need the many wonderful features Tango 
has.  If I did I could probably get past the stlye of Tango if I needed 
to, I am a pragmatist at heart once I quell the perfectionist.

As for a suggestion of naming and style, I like the one Janice posted:

Module name components: likethis
Class names: LikeThis
Variable names: likeThis;
Constants: LIKETHIS or LIKE_THIS

Regan /dons flame retardant suit and leaves the building.



 Nov 19 2007



 next sibling parent reply "Kris" <foo bar.com>  writes:


"Regan Heath" <regan netmail.co.nz> wrote in message


 Heck, Alix is in the same position right now.


He is? I don't recall saying anything particularly negative to Alix. Tried 
to get him onto IRC instead, which he ultimately did (thank-you Alix) and we 
had a long and essentially productive discussion. It's quite unlike this 
environment, because you /have/ to interact with people instead of perhaps 
crouching behind a keyboard as some appear to do.



  No doubt I'll get some of the same treatment shortly


Why Regan?

If you were ranting about how Tango cannot be used because of some minor 
stylistic conventions, while advocated forking the library because of that, 
and at the same time had been happily discrediting the team (this is the 
second thread on this topic)  .... well, you'd probably get some pushback 
also, Regan. You and I have been down that road, but we can still see 
eye-to-eye. I'm very happy to say.

If this were a serious topic, then by all means let's talk seriously about 
stylistic changes. That might be a worthy reason to discuss the Tango style 
elements, and there might be something pertinent to debate or consider. But 
this thread? It's hard to pick out anything of value Regan. There's just too 
much misinformation and stylistic preference. I'd rather just get on and 
listen carefully to the people who are willing to post tickets or discuss 
things rationally.

There's plenty of people who use tango and would prefer it had some 
different style here and there. Yet, they don't decry the package, or the 
people responsible. They post tickets, based upon real world use-cases. We 
make changes. These people are not the armchair quarterback types -- they 
make requests based upon their real experience with Tango. We make changes. 
Lot's of changes. We have to focus our limited energy somewhere, so that's 
where it is focused. When there are tangible concerns about Tango in this 
newsgroup, then they will warrant serious attention. That's not to dismiss 
out of hand the concerns a few people have, but we find the interactivity of 
the IRC channels to be far more conducive to progress than the misconduct 
shown throughout this thread (and the prior related one).

I understand that may not be how you see things, and that's cool. There's 
also a thread called "Tango Development" that I'd like to hear your input 
on, if you'd be so kind? 



 Nov 19 2007



  parent  Regan Heath <regan netmail.co.nz>  writes:


Kris wrote:

 "Regan Heath" <regan netmail.co.nz> wrote in message
 

 Heck, Alix is in the same position right now.


 
 He is? I don't recall saying anything particularly negative to Alix. 


My apologies then, I must have confused replies somewhere along the way.


  No doubt I'll get some of the same treatment shortly


 
 Why Regan?


Must be the cynic in me, I try to keep him locked up but sometimes he 
escapes.  In any case I am glad to be mistaken.

<snip many good points>


 I understand that may not be how you see things, and that's cool. There's 
 also a thread called "Tango Development" that I'd like to hear your input 
 on, if you'd be so kind? 


To be honest I don't have a heck of a lot to say on the subject.  Due to 
how little I use Tango (and therefore it's style) I don't feel qualified 
to pass judgement.

All I can say at this stage is what I have already said, the style 
initially put me off, perhaps for the reasons Sean gave when he said:

"I'm not sure if it helps, but I resisted the idea of CamelCase module 
names when we began working on Tango, possibly because I come from a 
C/C++ background."

in other words, it might just be my background.

Regan



 Nov 19 2007



prev sibling  parent reply Bill Baxter <dnewsgroup billbaxter.com>  writes:


Regan Heath wrote:

 Janice Caron wrote:

 On 11/18/07, Kris <foo bar.com> wrote:

 However, it's vaguely amusing
 to see your hypocracy is without bounds :)


 Again, excuse me? Any chance you could just scale down the discourtesy 
 a tad?


 
 Don't hold your breath.  Many a poster has been in your shoes, myself 
 included.  Heck, Alix is in the same position right now.  No doubt I'll 
 get some of the same treatment shortly, I just wanted to let you know 
 you're not alone.
 
 Kris, I wish you wouldn't take comments about Tango quite so personally, 
 Sean and Lars are in the same boat and you don't see them responding 
 with personal attacks.  It's quite sad really because despite this you 
 have a number of quite admirable qualities which I respect you for, but 
 damn it if you don't make that hard sometimes.
 
 Anyway, for what it's worth you can chalk my name up on the list of 
 people who haven't adopted Tango due to it's style, naming conventions 
 included.  Granted it's not the main reason, that being that I don't 
 have a large enough project to need the many wonderful features Tango 
 has.  If I did I could probably get past the stlye of Tango if I needed 
 to, I am a pragmatist at heart once I quell the perfectionist.
 
 As for a suggestion of naming and style, I like the one Janice posted:
 
 Module name components: likethis


What about the pen island module problem?  Underscores?  Do you have any 
comments to add to the pro column for 'likethis' over in the Module 
naming conventions thread?  Or rebuttals to those in the pro column for 
LikeThis?


 Class names: LikeThis
 Variable names: likeThis;
 Constants: LIKETHIS or LIKE_THIS
 
 Regan /dons flame retardant suit and leaves the building.


Wait! Come back!  You haven't answered my questions!  :-)

--bb



 Nov 19 2007



  parent  Regan Heath <regan netmail.co.nz>  writes:


Bill Baxter wrote:

 Regan Heath wrote:

 As for a suggestion of naming and style, I like the one Janice posted:

 Module name components: likethis


 
 What about the pen island module problem?  Underscores?  Do you have any 
 comments to add to the pro column for 'likethis' over in the Module 
 naming conventions thread?  Or rebuttals to those in the pro column for 
 LikeThis?


I don't really like underscores either.  Is the "pen island" problem 
really a problem?  How often does that happen?

I think the number of modules causes/increases the likelyhood.  Sean 
made a good post describing the pro's/con's of having a large number of 
modules:

http://www.digitalmars.com/webnews/newsgroups.php?art_group=digitalmars.D&article_id=61853

A weakness in the linker may have been a factor in some of the decisions 
and I wonder whether they would change if the weakness was fixed?

Then I think, regardless of the number of modules and what you call them 
I'm still going to need searchable documentation to find the 
class/method/feature I want at any given time.  So, while descriptive 
naming of modules etc may help a little they don't mean all that much to me.

At the end of the day a decision has to be made and it won't make 
everyone happy (as both Sean and Kris have said a few times).  Given 
that and provided there isn't an obvious flaw the system used I would 
simply get used to it.

Regan



 Nov 19 2007



prev sibling  parent reply Jeff Nowakowski <jeff dilacero.org>  writes:


Janice Caron wrote:

 Consider the possibility that you may have misunderstood? Alas, I
 don't recall the quote you mention, but I'm sure that if you drag up
 exactly what I said word for word, I can either clarify the quote or
 change my mind or whatever.
 
 All I can think of is I might have said that something or other seems
 amateurish. But even then, I also say that about some movie plots, but
 still think they're great movies. You may be reading too much into it.


For the record, what you said was in this posting:

http://www.digitalmars.com/d/archives/digitalmars/D/Re_D_Conference_Tango_Phobos_58225.html#N58577

"Module names in mixed case!? Did the Tango folk not read the D style
guide where it says "Module and package names are all lower case, and
only contain the characters [a..z][0..9][_]", or did they just
purposefully decide to avoid it? If the former, that was amateurish;
if the latter, it was petty."

[...]

"My apologies if I come across as contentious. I realise I'm a newbie
in this group. But that is the first impression I get from looking at
the Tango docs. I just ask myself over and over again, "Why did they
do that?" (...which should be regarded as a rhetorical question which
really means "I wish they hadn't done that")."

But you guys already had this discussion in September.  Can you stop 
trading barbs and agree that you both got overly personal?

-Jeff



 Nov 18 2007



  parent reply "Janice Caron" <caron800 googlemail.com>  writes:


On 11/18/07, Jeff Nowakowski <jeff dilacero.org> wrote:

 For the record, what you said was in this posting:

 http://www.digitalmars.com/d/archives/digitalmars/D/Re_D_Conference_Tango_Phobos_58225.html#N58577

 "Module names in mixed case!? Did the Tango folk not read the D style
 guide where it says "Module and package names are all lower case, and
 only contain the characters [a..z][0..9][_]", or did they just
 purposefully decide to avoid it? If the former, that was amateurish;
 if the latter, it was petty."


Ooh thank you. Well, that clarifies it.

So yes, the core body of code in Tango is excellent. The engine that
does all the work is a fantastic bit of software, and not in the least
bit amateurish.

So you'll notice that in the quote quoted above, the condition in the
if statement is false, so in fact it's the else branch that runs. My
statement boiled down to the opinion that the /decision/ to ignore the
style guide was petty. Note that the criticism was of the decision,
not the people making it. And actually, I do that to deliberately go
against the style guide was somewhat petty. It's a rival product,
after all.


 "My apologies if I come across as contentious. I realise I'm a newbie
 in this group. But that is the first impression I get from looking at
 the Tango docs.


Thanks also for including that bit. Yes we only talking about a first
impression here anyway. But I understand now that weren't looking for
first impressions.



 Can you stop
 trading barbs and agree that you both got overly personal?


I think it's more that words were /taken/ personally when they were
not intended as such. I know that I have never criticised any
individual, and never would. I have only ever talked about software,
and design decisions. I have too much respect for individuals ever to
use "barbs".



 Nov 18 2007



 next sibling parent reply Jeff Nowakowski <jeff dilacero.org>  writes:


Janice Caron wrote:

 I think it's more that words were /taken/ personally when they were
 not intended as such.


The problem is you presented your argument as either they did something 
amateurish or petty, without first asking if they had deeper reasons. 
It's clear from the responses they that had valid reasons that involved 
neither being petty nor amateurish, even if their decision can be debated.

So I think if you changed your tone you could have had a much more civil 
and productive discussion.  Even now you claim they are being petty with 
a rival product.  There's a big distinction between "this way is better" 
and "let's be incompatible because we don't like the other guy".

By the way, the charge that one of the posts following yours was a sock 
puppet was legitimate.  It was the first thing that crossed my mind. 
Doesn't mean you did it, but it's a valid suspicion.  If you think it's 
valid to point out motives as amateur or petty, then it should be 
equally valid to point out possible sock-puppetry.  Maybe not so helpful 
in either case?

-Jeff



 Nov 18 2007



 next sibling parent reply Jeff Nowakowski <jeff dilacero.org>  writes:


By the way, that Jeff fellow is absolutely BRILLIANT and INSIGHTFUL with 
PIERCING observations of HUMAN NATURE.  Better pay attention to 
everything he says, because the man is a CERTIFIED GENIUS!!!  Here's 
some more brilliance from the Mind of Jeff...whenever a sock puppet 
posts something favorable to an individual, THAT INDIVIDUAL IS THE SOCK 
PUPPET!!  ALWAYS!!!!  Yes, this means that I REALLY AM JEFF 
NOWAKOWSKI!!!  Hahahahah!!!  Fooled you suckas!!!!  Boo-rah!


Jeff Nowakowski wrote:

 By the way, the charge that one of the posts following yours was a sock
 puppet was legitimate.  It was the first thing that crossed my mind.
 Doesn't mean you did it, but it's a valid suspicion.  If you think it's
 valid to point out motives as amateur or petty, then it should be
 equally valid to point out possible sock-puppetry.  Maybe not so helpful
 in either case?





 Nov 18 2007



  parent reply Jeff Nowakowski <jeff dilacero.org>  writes:


The below forgery was posted by David B. Held.  I must say I'm very 
surprised by this childish behavior.  To address David's point, I said 
there was cause for suspicion, not that there were any kind of certainties.

Congratulations David B. Held on reaching new lows.

-Jeff

Jeff Nowakowski wrote:

 By the way, that Jeff fellow is absolutely BRILLIANT and INSIGHTFUL with 
 PIERCING observations of HUMAN NATURE.  Better pay attention to 
 everything he says, because the man is a CERTIFIED GENIUS!!!  Here's 
 some more brilliance from the Mind of Jeff...whenever a sock puppet 
 posts something favorable to an individual, THAT INDIVIDUAL IS THE SOCK 
 PUPPET!!  ALWAYS!!!!  Yes, this means that I REALLY AM JEFF 
 NOWAKOWSKI!!!  Hahahahah!!!  Fooled you suckas!!!!  Boo-rah!
 
 
 Jeff Nowakowski wrote:
  >
  > By the way, the charge that one of the posts following yours was a sock
  > puppet was legitimate.  It was the first thing that crossed my mind.
  > Doesn't mean you did it, but it's a valid suspicion.  If you think it's
  > valid to point out motives as amateur or petty, then it should be
  > equally valid to point out possible sock-puppetry.  Maybe not so helpful
  > in either case?





 Nov 18 2007



  parent reply "David B. Held" <dheld codelogicconsulting.com>  writes:


Jeff Nowakowski wrote:

 The below forgery was posted by David B. Held.  I must say I'm very 
 surprised by this childish behavior.  To address David's point, I said 
 there was cause for suspicion, not that there were any kind of certainties.
 
 Congratulations David B. Held on reaching new lows.


I had a lot of help from my friends who led the way.  Obviously, I'm not 
as sophisticated as them...still, I hope I made my point.  BTW, Obama 
made the same mistake when he accused Hillary of spreading the 
whispering campaign against him.  Maybe she did, or maybe it was 
Republicans.  In any event, it's dangerous to assume, or even suspect 
when anonymity is at play.  For instance, I find it just as plausible 
that *you* are the "sock puppet" and set up the entire subthread as a 
basis to make false accusations.  Is that "cause for suspicion"?

Dave



 Nov 19 2007



  parent reply Jeff Nowakowski <jeff dilacero.org>  writes:


David B. Held wrote:

 I had a lot of help from my friends who led the way.  Obviously, I'm not 
 as sophisticated as them...still, I hope I made my point.


What was your point?  That you are willing to post personal attacks 
using one of the lowest tricks in Usenet, forging your name as somebody 
else?

"Reputations take a very long time to build, but are quite easily 
destroyed, and often by oneself"


 In any event, it's dangerous to assume, or even suspect 
 when anonymity is at play.  For instance, I find it just as plausible 
 that *you* are the "sock puppet" and set up the entire subthread as a 
 basis to make false accusations.  Is that "cause for suspicion"?


I've already discussed the issue in numerous times.  I never endorsed 
any public accusation of sock puppetry -- quite the opposite.  I'll only 
add here that *everything* is a matter of uncertainty.  It's only a 
question of how much evidence you have.  This entire newsgroup could be 
the fabrication of one person.  Not very likely though.

-Jeff



 Nov 20 2007



 next sibling parent reply Regan Heath <regan netmail.co.nz>  writes:


Jeff Nowakowski wrote:

 David B. Held wrote:
 I've already discussed the issue in numerous times.  I never endorsed 
 any public accusation of sock puppetry -- quite the opposite.  


Your use of the word "charge" in this sentence:

"By the way, the charge that one of the posts following yours was a sock 
puppet was legitimate."

Gave me the impression you endorsed the accusation (charge), which 
prompted my response and probably David's actions as well.

Regan



 Nov 20 2007



  parent  Jeff Nowakowski <jeff dilacero.org>  writes:


Regan Heath wrote:

 
 Your use of the word "charge" in this sentence:
 
 "By the way, the charge that one of the posts following yours was a sock 
 puppet was legitimate."
 
 Gave me the impression you endorsed the accusation (charge), which 
 prompted my response and probably David's actions as well.


Ok, I can see how that can be misconstrued, but I tried to make it clear 
in the rest of the paragraph that I did not support the accusation.  In 
particular, the last sentence:

"It was the first thing that crossed my mind. Doesn't mean you did it, 
but it's a valid suspicion.  If you think it's valid to point out 
motives as amateur or petty, then it should be equally valid to point 
out possible sock-puppetry.  Maybe not so helpful in either case?"

-Jeff



 Nov 20 2007



prev sibling  parent reply "David B. Held" <dheld codelogicconsulting.com>  writes:


Jeff Nowakowski wrote:

 David B. Held wrote:

 I had a lot of help from my friends who led the way.  Obviously, I'm 
 not as sophisticated as them...still, I hope I made my point.


 
 What was your point?  That you are willing to post personal attacks 
 using one of the lowest tricks in Usenet, forging your name as somebody 
 else?


Yes, to make a point, I was willing to do that.  And if you weren't 
sophisticated enough to discover the real author for yourself, I was 
prepared to out myself.  I was putting you in Janice's shoes, so you 
could try walking a mile in them.  You only lasted about 5 minutes, so I 
fear the point was lost on you.


 "Reputations take a very long time to build, but are quite easily 
 destroyed, and often by oneself"


In case you haven't noticed, I haven't been working especially hard to 
win friends or standing in the D community.  I've always been too loose 
with my tongue to be a respected expert like Andrei or Walter; but on 
the other hand, it gives me the freedom to say whatever I think is 
necessary, no matter how unpopular.


 [...]
 I've already discussed the issue in numerous times.  I never endorsed 
 any public accusation of sock puppetry -- quite the opposite.  I'll only 
 add here that *everything* is a matter of uncertainty.  It's only a 
 question of how much evidence you have.  This entire newsgroup could be 
 the fabrication of one person.  Not very likely though.


Well, your backpedaling and equivocation is pretty transparent, in my 
book.  First you say:

     "By the way, the charge that one of the posts following yours
     was a sock puppet was legitimate."

Here, there is no "misconstruing" going on.  You clearly said: "Somebody 
accused you of creating a sock puppet, and that accusation was valid, 
not baseless."  I don't think it takes a lawyer to read it that way. 
You made it about as unambiguous as could be.  Then, you followed up with:

     "It was the first thing that crossed my mind."

Here, you say: "And I tend to agree with the accuser."  How do I draw 
that conclusion?  Well, it's simple.  The first thing that crossed *my* 
mind was: "Someone is playing a dirty trick on Janice, and then 
exploiting it."  Which means that if you had a different first 
impression, it must have been because you had already decided that 
Janice was guilty until proven innocent.  But you realized you had gone 
too far, so you decided to try to smooth things over with a CYA clause:

     "Doesn't mean you did it, but it's a valid suspicion."

And here, you make the weakest equivocation possible, with the way you 
followed up with a confirmation of your original claim: "Accusing Janice 
of making sock puppets is 'valid'.  I declare so by fiat."  Umm...you 
pretty much say: "I declare open season on Janice!  Anyone who wants to 
accuse her of sock puppetry, lock & load your .30-06 and put on yer 
huntin' gear!"

If you look at what the "sock puppet" said:

     "i love that - please release it to us all!
     can't wait to get it for all the reasons you put forth."

and:

     "yup - i'd do that too"

it seems just as likely, *if not more so*, that "Phango" was being 
sarcastic and mocking Janice, in just the same way that I was with you. 
  Who in their right mind thinks we are gullible enough to buy the 
endorsement of an anonymous poster with the fake domain name 
"phangowant.com".  I mean, seriously!

The very idea that someone would sit down and say to themselves: 
"Oooh...I got a good idea...I'll post something flattering about myself 
via an anonymous alias...what email address should I make up?  A 
real-sounding name?  Nah, too obvious.  Oh, oh, I know!  Nobody will 
suspect a thing if I use the domain name 'phangowant.com'!!!  Yes!!! 
It's a PERFECT PLAN!!!"  Clearly the email address 
"phango phangowant.com" is transparent sarcasm.  It's insult enough to 
Janice *all by itself*.

What makes your attack particularly heinous is that this was not enough 
for you.  You had to twist the blade the other way by *accusing Janice 
of the being the perpetrator of an anonymous attack on her*!  You want 
to talk about low?!?  *That's* what I say is low, and what justified 
pulling a little prank to make a dramatic point.  The fact that I have 
to spell all this out is, frankly, quite tiresome and a little disturbing.

I think Janice was treated particularly poorly by someone without the 
balls to use their real identity, and then others who happened to 
disagree with her smelled blood in the water and went in for the kill. 
If I have to make a fool of myself to point this out, so be it.  I can 
live with that.  But don't try to gloss over what you pretty clearly 
said by equivocating with your weasel words.  You have no moral high 
ground here, despite the little escape route you think you made for 
yourself.  It's about as legit as me saying:

     "I accuse Jeff of being a big fat nincompoop!!!...possibly.
     But there is some room for doubt, so don't get mad at me.  Oh,
     and I don't endorse anyone calling Jeff a nincompoop, so that
     makes what I said before OK.  This ad paid for by the committee
     to re-elect David B. Held.  Hi, I'm David B. Held and I endorse
     this message...to the extent that it cannot be 'misconstrued'
     to mean something personally embarrassing."

Umm...yeah.  I'm not going to offer any apologies, because I don't care 
if people think I'm a jerk (and I fairly doubt that's a new sentiment, 
anyhow).  But I do think Janice still deserves one more...

Dave



 Nov 20 2007



 next sibling parent reply "Kris" <foo bar.com>  writes:


"David B. Held" <dheld codelogicconsulting.com> wrote in ...

 Jeff Nowakowski wrote:

 David B. Held wrote:

 I had a lot of help from my friends who led the way.  Obviously, I'm not 
 as sophisticated as them...still, I hope I made my point.


 What was your point?  That you are willing to post personal attacks using 
 one of the lowest tricks in Usenet, forging your name as somebody else?


 Yes, to make a point, I was willing to do that.  And if you weren't 
 sophisticated enough to discover the real author for yourself, I was 
 prepared to out myself.  I was putting you in Janice's shoes, so you could 
 try walking a mile in them.  You only lasted about 5 minutes, so I fear 
 the point was lost on you.


 "Reputations take a very long time to build, but are quite easily 
 destroyed, and often by oneself"


 In case you haven't noticed, I haven't been working especially hard to win 
 friends or standing in the D community.  I've always been too loose with 
 my tongue to be a respected expert like Andrei or Walter; but on the other 
 hand, it gives me the freedom to say whatever I think is necessary, no 
 matter how unpopular.


 [...]
 I've already discussed the issue in numerous times.  I never endorsed any 
 public accusation of sock puppetry -- quite the opposite.  I'll only add 
 here that *everything* is a matter of uncertainty.  It's only a question 
 of how much evidence you have.  This entire newsgroup could be the 
 fabrication of one person.  Not very likely though.


 Well, your backpedaling and equivocation is pretty transparent, in my 
 book.  First you say:

     "By the way, the charge that one of the posts following yours
     was a sock puppet was legitimate."

 Here, there is no "misconstruing" going on.  You clearly said: "Somebody 
 accused you of creating a sock puppet, and that accusation was valid, not 
 baseless."  I don't think it takes a lawyer to read it that way. You made 
 it about as unambiguous as could be.  Then, you followed up with:

     "It was the first thing that crossed my mind."

 Here, you say: "And I tend to agree with the accuser."  How do I draw that 
 conclusion?  Well, it's simple.  The first thing that crossed *my* mind 
 was: "Someone is playing a dirty trick on Janice, and then exploiting it." 
 Which means that if you had a different first impression, it must have 
 been because you had already decided that Janice was guilty until proven 
 innocent.  But you realized you had gone too far, so you decided to try to 
 smooth things over with a CYA clause:

     "Doesn't mean you did it, but it's a valid suspicion."

 And here, you make the weakest equivocation possible, with the way you 
 followed up with a confirmation of your original claim: "Accusing Janice 
 of making sock puppets is 'valid'.  I declare so by fiat."  Umm...you 
 pretty much say: "I declare open season on Janice!  Anyone who wants to 
 accuse her of sock puppetry, lock & load your .30-06 and put on yer 
 huntin' gear!"

 If you look at what the "sock puppet" said:

     "i love that - please release it to us all!
     can't wait to get it for all the reasons you put forth."

 and:

     "yup - i'd do that too"

 it seems just as likely, *if not more so*, that "Phango" was being 
 sarcastic and mocking Janice, in just the same way that I was with you. 
 Who in their right mind thinks we are gullible enough to buy the 
 endorsement of an anonymous poster with the fake domain name 
 "phangowant.com".  I mean, seriously!

 The very idea that someone would sit down and say to themselves: "Oooh...I 
 got a good idea...I'll post something flattering about myself via an 
 anonymous alias...what email address should I make up?  A real-sounding 
 name?  Nah, too obvious.  Oh, oh, I know!  Nobody will suspect a thing if 
 I use the domain name 'phangowant.com'!!!  Yes!!! It's a PERFECT PLAN!!!" 
 Clearly the email address "phango phangowant.com" is transparent sarcasm. 
 It's insult enough to Janice *all by itself*.

 What makes your attack particularly heinous is that this was not enough 
 for you.  You had to twist the blade the other way by *accusing Janice of 
 the being the perpetrator of an anonymous attack on her*!  You want to 
 talk about low?!?  *That's* what I say is low, and what justified pulling 
 a little prank to make a dramatic point.  The fact that I have to spell 
 all this out is, frankly, quite tiresome and a little disturbing.

 I think Janice was treated particularly poorly by someone without the 
 balls to use their real identity, and then others who happened to disagree 
 with her smelled blood in the water and went in for the kill. If I have to 
 make a fool of myself to point this out, so be it.  I can live with that. 
 But don't try to gloss over what you pretty clearly said by equivocating 
 with your weasel words.  You have no moral high ground here, despite the 
 little escape route you think you made for yourself.  It's about as legit 
 as me saying:

     "I accuse Jeff of being a big fat nincompoop!!!...possibly.
     But there is some room for doubt, so don't get mad at me.  Oh,
     and I don't endorse anyone calling Jeff a nincompoop, so that
     makes what I said before OK.  This ad paid for by the committee
     to re-elect David B. Held.  Hi, I'm David B. Held and I endorse
     this message...to the extent that it cannot be 'misconstrued'
     to mean something personally embarrassing."

 Umm...yeah.  I'm not going to offer any apologies, because I don't care if 
 people think I'm a jerk (and I fairly doubt that's a new sentiment, 
 anyhow).  But I do think Janice still deserves one more...

 Dave



Excellent! I don't spend much time on this ng anymore, but recently it's 
been because someone or other has been generating or perpetrating inaccurate 
information about Tango, or has been deriding the library and/or authors 
over some questionable issue. Some of that has reached the dubious level of 
fud-mongering. You may well disagree, yet that's my opinion of it. Knowing 
nothing of value about a particular subject will never stop certain people 
from mouthing off about it, but when they do so over Tango, I'll have 
something to say. Yes, I'm personally tired of hearing that Tango is somehow 
'amateurish' or 'petty' or whatever the other terms have been, since that 
reflects upon all the people involved (and there are many). Not to mention 
that the code and design itself is generally of exceptional quality and 
clarity -- notably more so than a number of well-known libraries.

So, like you, I don't give a rats-ass if my "reputation" is somehow sullied, 
burned or lost over my responses to posts that are "loaded" in this 
manner -- "reputations" are the folly of political poseurs and ego-centric 
fools. Far better to be judged by one's work instead, and there's lots of 
that in Tango, by many people. I suggest those naysayers or 
armchair-quarterbacks with a disposition to rant might perhaps use Tango for 
a while, and ask us or tell us about it in a manner that we can presumably 
respond appropriately to (IRC and tickets). Of course, some people just want 
to vent and have no intent to ask for help at all. I recall one recent 
ranter who adamantly refused to write a ticket for Tango, or discuss it with 
us on IRC, and nor did they even try to or even want to use the library. In 
that particular instance, there wasn't /even/ a tangible problem. The 
instructions go like this: Open packet. Sprinkle fud-crystals into five 
gallon bucket of water, mix well and disperse liberally.

As for this weird thing with the sock-puppet, I admit to being entirely 
bemused until you owned up to it. Then I wondered if that might be a 
double-blind post, but the one above does appear to be you. FWIW, it seems 
sad that anyone would attempt to manipulate or subvert the ng like that ... 
is it /really/ that important? You call that a 'prank', while I have to 
wonder if such behavior isn't grounded in malevolence instead. Trolling is 
bad enough, but what you claim to have done is surely several steps below? 
Yet, here you are chewing out Jeff N over some token semantic distinction. I 
don't get it. That does seem a bit hypocritical doesn't it? Why don't you 
have a go at me instead? Or, did you perhaps think JeffN was me?

Also, I will admit that I have wondered why you made that analogy between 
Boost and Tango, since your message appeared to be saying "Hey, the Tango 
guys say Yo! Put up or Shutup!" which really couldn't be further from the 
truth. Heck, there's even a long recent thread on toString vs toUtf8 in this 
regard. As I pointed out in a reply to your post, Tango is changing in order 
to have some measure of compatibility with phobos (which you no doubt know 
of) and, as a library, it was never intended to be compatible in the first 
place. This aspect was clearly noted in the text immediately above your 
post, so you could hardly miss that either. Both these aspects would tend to 
render the specific analogy worthless. Yet, you didn't bother to respond to 
my query, in order to clarify whether the message you were sending could be 
misconstrued. Thus, your post could be seen as something of a sly strawman, 
with mucho negativity directed towards Tango. I sure hope it wasn't intended 
as such, but now that I'm seeing this weird sock-puppet thing ...... heck, I 
sure /hope/ that was not the case?

To be clear: I'm not trying to take pot-shots at you, Dave. I'm just a bit 
concerned by these two things you're responsible for, and specifically 
because they are both related to Tango. Can you help me understand them 
better?



 Nov 21 2007



 next sibling parent reply "David B. Held" <dheld codelogicconsulting.com>  writes:


Kris wrote:

 [...]
 As for this weird thing with the sock-puppet, I admit to being entirely 
 bemused until you owned up to it. Then I wondered if that might be a 
 double-blind post, but the one above does appear to be you. FWIW, it seems 
 sad that anyone would attempt to manipulate or subvert the ng like that ... 
 is it /really/ that important? You call that a 'prank', while I have to 
 wonder if such behavior isn't grounded in malevolence instead. Trolling is 
 bad enough, but what you claim to have done is surely several steps below? 
 Yet, here you are chewing out Jeff N over some token semantic distinction. I 
 don't get it. That does seem a bit hypocritical doesn't it? Why don't you 
 have a go at me instead? Or, did you perhaps think JeffN was me?


Well, the double-standard here is quite amusing.  Both of you accused 
someone else of deception and trickery when the most obvious reading of 
the "sock puppetry" does not lead to that conclusion.  On the contrary, 
the puppeteer was most likely insulting Janice as well, which means that 
you two were feigning stupidity, adding insult to injury, and then 
making light of it by dismissing your claims as "speculation".  Well, 
obviously, you haven't been a victim of such tricks yet, so it is easy 
for you to blame the victim (which is what you did, let's not mince 
words).  However, I notice that once Jeff was a victim, he had a wholly 
different reaction to the situation and did not sit around waiting for 
someone to accuse *him* of sock puppetry (even though that would be just 
as silly as both of your accusations).  In fact, Jeff highlighted with 
his strong words just how serious an offense it is, and now you, though 
not being a victim, are merely emphasizing Jeff's point: being the 
victim of an anonymous attack really sucks, in the way that a hit-n-run 
sucks...you can't even strike back at your attacker.  How is it that an 
*anonymous* person can attack a member of the community, and you have 
the right to *accuse the victim of being the attacker*, but as soon as 
you have a suspect in sight, it's *obviously wrong to accuse the 
victim*.  *That*, my friend, is a double-standard.

Was it "malevolent" to demonstrate this point?  No more so than it was 
for you two to blame the victim, which is an all-to-common sociological 
reaction to crimes in which the suspects have gotten away scot-free. 
The reason I targeted Jeff and not you is because you at least had the 
decency to retract your accusation after Janice protested innocence, but 
Jeff was not so forgiving, despite having not enough evidence to convict 
a squirrel of burying nuts.  I have participated in enough electronic 
social media to know that false-flag operations are the dirtiest tricks 
of the game.  It *really* sucks to be a victim; and thus, accusing the 
victim of being the perpetrator is what I consider to be particularly 
"malevolent".  Since you seem to not have the taste of being a victim 
yet, I can still pull out my sock puppet; and this time I'll be clever 
enough to post through the web interface...then I'll lay an old 
blame-the-victim trick on you and let you decide which is more 
malevolent...blaming the victim or exposing the hypocrisy of doing so.


 Also, I will admit that I have wondered why you made that analogy between 
 Boost and Tango, since your message appeared to be saying "Hey, the Tango 
 guys say Yo! Put up or Shutup!" which really couldn't be further from the 
 truth. Heck, there's even a long recent thread on toString vs toUtf8 in this 
 regard.


Obviously, Tango is written by more than one developer, not all of whom 
express the same attitude towards commentary on the library.  The 
difference is in challenging critics vs. justifying your design 
decisions to critics.  Good library authors can disarm their critics 
with a good explanation of the design decisions, while authors outside 
of that set don't feel that justification is necessary, because they are 
the ones who put their hard work into it.  Not all criticism is 
justified, and some of it is simply bad, but the way it's responded to 
makes all the difference in the world.

It reminds me of the interviewing process at work.  Some candidates 
simply refuse to answer simple coding questions, because it is "beneath 
them".  Well, maybe it is, but that's all the more reason to give a 
quick answer rather than rejecting the question on principle.  Without 
any answer at all, it's impossible to tell whether the question really 
is beneath the candidate, or they are just stalling because they can't 
answer it.

When a critic says: "You should change X", you can say: "No, you're 
wrong.  That's a matter of taste and I can't please everybody" or you 
can say: "The reason I chose X was because given the alternatives, it 
gave us the most flexibility as library authors.  Here is what I 
mean..."  Maybe "You should change X" is a stupid criticism that isn't 
worth your time to respond to.  Or maybe it's not.  If you have a 
justification at the ready, it makes you look all the more knowledgeable 
than protesting artistic license.  If you present the attitude that the 
criticism is worthless, then other users begin to wonder whether X was 
actually designed or was merely an accident.

My point is not that Tango is bad (though perhaps your 
self-congratulation on it is a bit generous).  I haven't seen enough of 
Tango to say whether it is or not, and the parts I have seen seemed 
reasonable to me.  My point is that some of Tangos authors are more 
diplomatic than others; and whether you feel that is fair or not (to 
have to suffer fools, from your perspective), the reputation of Tango as 
a piece of work is affected by the attitudes of its contributors (the 
point I was trying to make, as delicately as possible).  On the other 
hand, I don't have any user-visible contributions to D, so I'm not 
jeopardizing anything (the man who has nothing to lose is the most 
dangerous of all).  I happen to think that Sean Kelly is a good 
ambassador of Tango, and if everything I knew about Tango came from 
things he said, I would be predisposed to think it's a pretty darned 
good library.  I suspect a lot of other folks might say the same thing.


 As I pointed out in a reply to your post, Tango is changing in order 
 to have some measure of compatibility with phobos (which you no doubt know 
 of) and, as a library, it was never intended to be compatible in the first 
 place.
 [...]


That's not the point.  The point is that it was clearly designed to be a 
standard library, or it would not have defined things like Object.d.  So 
the whole "never intended to be Phobos-compatible" claim ignores the 
fact that users of Tango are necessarily going to expect a feature set 
similar to Phobos, if for no other reason than that Phobos is the 
official standard library.  So whether that was an original design 
intent or not, the Tango developers would have had to be extremely 
short-sighted to not consider that such compatibility issues would 
eventually arise.  I would like to give you that much credit, anyway.

If Tango merely offered an alternative implementation to Phobos' 
features, then your claim would have merit (like OpenGL is an 
alternative to DirectX).  But the fact that Tango offers a significantly 
*disjoint but overlapping* feature set from Phobos makes it inevitable 
that users would want to eat their cake and have it too (in the way that 
both Qt and OpenGL allow you to draw on the display, and thus both 
feature graphics primitives, but one is clearly more than an alternative 
to the other).

Boost overlaps with but is disjoint from the Standard Library in that it 
offers smart pointers, binders, and numerics.  It could easily have 
said: "Well, Boost wasn't designed to be compatible with the Standard 
Libray, so if you want to mix shared_ptr<> with auto_ptr<>, you're SOL." 
  That would have been just as reasonable as Tango taking that position. 
  But if you look at the interface of shared_ptr<>, you'll see that it 
accepts a std::auto_ptr<>.  You're not telling me that the design of 
Tango wasn't forward-looking, are you?  After all, as you say, Tango is 
now changing to *become* compatible with Phobos...

Dave



 Nov 23 2007



  parent reply "Kris" <foo bar.com>  writes:


"David B. Held" <dheld codelogicconsulting.com> wrote in message 
news:fi87no$8h4$1 digitalmars.com...

 Kris wrote:

 [...]
 As for this weird thing with the sock-puppet, I admit to being entirely 
 bemused until you owned up to it. Then I wondered if that might be a 
 double-blind post, but the one above does appear to be you. FWIW, it 
 seems sad that anyone would attempt to manipulate or subvert the ng like 
 that ... is it /really/ that important? You call that a 'prank', while I 
 have to wonder if such behavior isn't grounded in malevolence instead. 
 Trolling is bad enough, but what you claim to have done is surely several 
 steps below? Yet, here you are chewing out Jeff N over some token 
 semantic distinction. I don't get it. That does seem a bit hypocritical 
 doesn't it? Why don't you have a go at me instead? Or, did you perhaps 
 think JeffN was me?


 Well, the double-standard here is quite amusing.  Both of you accused 
 someone else of deception and trickery when the most obvious reading of 
 the "sock puppetry" does not lead to that conclusion.


Which obvious reading? Can you be more specific about that?



 On the contrary, the puppeteer was most likely insulting Janice as well, 
 which means that you two were feigning stupidity, adding insult to injury, 
 and then making light of it by dismissing your claims as "speculation". 
 Well,


You say "most likely", and then draw an extensive conclusion from that. I 
didn't read the post in the manner you have suggested at all, so can happily 
and honestly disagree with your "assertions" in full.


 obviously, you haven't been a victim of such tricks yet, so it is easy for 
 you to blame the victim (which is what you did, let's not mince


Victim? Surely you're making a rather grand assumption that the person you 
call the 'victim' could never have made that post at all? How do you 
actually know that, Dave? The only way you could be /so/ sure is if you'd 
posted it yourself. Right?

Let me ask you: Did you make that post, David? Be honest about it.



 words).  However, I notice that once Jeff was a victim, he had a wholly 
 different reaction to the situation and did not sit around waiting for 
 someone to accuse *him* of sock puppetry (even though that would be just 
 as silly as both of your accusations).  In fact, Jeff highlighted with his 
 strong words just how serious an offense it is, and now you, though not 
 being a victim, are merely emphasizing Jeff's point: being the victim of 
 an anonymous attack really sucks, in the way that a hit-n-run sucks...you 
 can't even strike back at your attacker.  How is it that an


Again, the only way you could be so sure is if you'd posted it yourself. Did 
you make that post, David? If you didn't, then your assertions are surely 
limited in extent and perhaps entirely baseless? If you did post as 
"wantphango" or whatever, then simply own up to it.



 *anonymous* person can attack a member of the community, and you have the 
 right to *accuse the victim of being the attacker*, but as soon as you 
 have a suspect in sight, it's *obviously wrong to accuse the victim*. 
 *That*, my friend, is a double-standard.


I really have no idea of what you're trying to say here. Sorry :)



 Was it "malevolent" to demonstrate this point?  No more so than it was for 
 you two to blame the victim, which is an all-to-common sociological 
 reaction to crimes in which the suspects have gotten away scot-free.


You're still discussing a 'victim', and it's not even clear of what. Are you 
saying that the troll post was somehow 'attacking' Janice? If so, how? I'd 
like to understand that aspect.



 The reason I targeted Jeff and not you is because you at least had the 
 decency to retract your accusation after Janice protested innocence, but 
 Jeff was not so forgiving, despite having not enough evidence to convict a 
 squirrel of burying nuts.  I have participated in enough electronic social 
 media to know that false-flag operations are the dirtiest tricks of the 
 game.  It *really* sucks to be a victim; and thus, accusing the victim of 
 being the perpetrator is what I consider to be particularly


Faceless conclusions based upon your own interprestions? You're projecting 
shared opinion and knowledge here (with yourself), which is certainly 
groundless. And again, how can you be so positive about this?



 "malevolent".  Since you seem to not have the taste of being a victim
 yet, I can still pull out my sock puppet; and this time I'll be clever 
 enough to post through the web interface...then I'll lay an old 
 blame-the-victim trick on you and let you decide which is more 
 malevolent...blaming the victim or exposing the hypocrisy of doing so.


I see. So, you intend to run around posting under false names with the 
intend to cause some kind of malevolent damage within the NG? That really 
doesn't seem appropriate, but if it happens we can all point to this post 
and have a good idea of who is behind the scenes.



 Also, I will admit that I have wondered why you made that analogy between 
 Boost and Tango, since your message appeared to be saying "Hey, the Tango 
 guys say Yo! Put up or Shutup!" which really couldn't be further from the 
 truth. Heck, there's even a long recent thread on toString vs toUtf8 in 
 this regard.


 Good library authors can disarm their critics with a good explanation of 
 the design decisions, while authors outside of that set don't feel that 
 justification is necessary, because they are the ones who put their hard 
 work into it.


The connotation here is that perhaps those who do not "disarm their critics" 
are not "good library authors". Thus, since you're implying elsewhere that 
Tango has at least some such people, then the library itself is somehow not 
"good". It's a silly, groundless, and vague accusation. Seems a bit like 
fud, actually. You don't say anything about trolls either :)



 Not all criticism is justified, and some of it is simply bad, but the way 
 it's responded to makes all the difference in the world.


You're using the term 'criticism' as though we don't deal with it every 
single day. Perhaps you should hang out on IRC sometimes, and watch 
carefully how criticism is most often responded to ... the vast majority of 
such criticism results in a change to the codebase. There are exceptions to 
that rule, but that's generally how criticism is responded to. Go and look 
through the tickets also. Heck, log onto IRC and just ask - you couldn't ask 
for a faster way of getting a reality check :)



 It reminds me of the interviewing process at work.  Some candidates simply 
 refuse to answer simple coding questions, because it is "beneath them". 
 Well, maybe it is, but that's all the more reason to give a quick answer 
 rather than rejecting the question on principle.  Without any answer at 
 all, it's impossible to tell whether the question really is beneath the 
 candidate, or they are just stalling because they can't answer it.


That is indeed silly and, thankfully, I've never met such a person though 
I've interviewed hundreds. Do you refuse to answer code questions?


 When a critic says: "You should change X", you can say: "No, you're wrong. 
 That's a matter of taste and I can't please everybody" or you can say: 
 "The reason I chose X was because given the alternatives, it gave us the 
 most flexibility as library authors.  Here is what I mean..."  Maybe "You 
 should change X" is a stupid criticism that isn't worth your time to 
 respond to.  Or maybe it's not.  If you have a justification at the ready, 
 it makes you look all the more knowledgeable than protesting artistic 
 license.  If you present the attitude that the criticism is worthless, 
 then other users begin to wonder whether X was actually designed or was 
 merely an accident.


Not all good engineers are good politicians. I imagine few good politicians 
make good engineers. That's the truth, and it's just fine.



 My point is not that Tango is bad (though perhaps your self-congratulation 
 on it is a bit generous).  I haven't seen enough of Tango to say whether 
 it is or not, and the parts I have seen seemed reasonable to me.  My point 
 is that some of Tangos authors are more diplomatic than others; and 
 whether you feel that is fair or not (to have to suffer fools, from your 
 perspective), the reputation of Tango as a piece of work is affected by 
 the attitudes of its contributors (the point I was trying to make, as 
 delicately as possible).  On the other hand, I don't have any user-visible 
 contributions to D, so I'm not jeopardizing anything (the man who has 
 nothing to lose is the most


Tango does not rest upon all of us being diplomats (at all, or all the 
time), so let's stop pretending it matters nearly as much as you've been 
trying to make out.



 dangerous of all).  I happen to think that Sean Kelly is a good ambassador 
 of Tango, and if everything I knew about Tango came from things he said, I 
 would be predisposed to think it's a pretty darned good library.  I 
 suspect a lot of other folks might say the same thing.


Indeed, and good for Sean. Having people with different skill-sets is often 
crucial to the success of any project.



 As I pointed out in a reply to your post, Tango is changing in order to 
 have some measure of compatibility with phobos (which you no doubt know 
 of) and, as a library, it was never intended to be compatible in the 
 first place.
 [...]


 That's not the point.  The point is that it was clearly designed to be a 
 standard library, or it would not have defined things like Object.d.  So 
 the whole "never intended to be Phobos-compatible" claim ignores the fact 
 that users of Tango are necessarily going to expect a feature set similar 
 to Phobos, if for no other reason than that Phobos is the official 
 standard library.  So whether that was an original design


Actually, it most certainly is the point, Dave. And it's not a "claim" (as 
you say) about "phobos compatability" -- it is a cold hard fact instead. 
Even if a handful of features *are* similar, the organization is entirely 
different, and is thus wholly incompatible at the package level. That 
decision, along with many others, was a concious and fully intentional one. 
Other details aside, we needed to scale the library beyond the stage where 
you can simply dump everything into one folder and call it good.



 intent or not, the Tango developers would have had to be extremely 
 short-sighted to not consider that such compatibility issues would 
 eventually arise.  I would like to give you that much credit, anyway.


Please don't. We considered a slew of options and eventually decided that 
we'd have to be incompatible in a variety of ways in order to make the 
library operate the way we wanted it to.  Again, there was no intent to be 
compatible, since it was not feasible to do so while at the same time meet 
the goals we had set. That was a choice we made. You can contuinue denying 
that all you like, but it really makes no difference whatsoever :)



 If Tango merely offered an alternative implementation to Phobos' features, 
 then your claim would have merit (like OpenGL is an alternative to 
 DirectX).  But the fact that Tango offers a significantly *disjoint but 
 overlapping* feature set from Phobos makes it inevitable that users would 
 want to eat their cake and have it too (in the way that both Qt and OpenGL 
 allow you to draw on the display, and thus both feature graphics 
 primitives, but one is clearly more than an alternative to the other).


Again, Tango very quickly gave up on all notion of full phobos compatability 
in the early stages.



 Boost overlaps with but is disjoint from the Standard Library in that it 
 offers smart pointers, binders, and numerics.  It could easily have said: 
 "Well, Boost wasn't designed to be compatible with the Standard Libray, so 
 if you want to mix shared_ptr<> with auto_ptr<>, you're SOL." That would 
 have been just as reasonable as Tango taking that position. But if you 
 look at the interface of shared_ptr<>, you'll see that it accepts a 
 std::auto_ptr<>.  You're not telling me that the design of Tango wasn't 
 forward-looking, are you?  After all, as you say, Tango is now changing to 
 *become* compatible with Phobos...


We're changing some trivial things to be compatible at the runtime layer. 
Things like toString() and so on. The upper layers, like I/O are 
incompatible, as is the structure of the library itself and the package 
layout. In fact, the phobos runtime is changing to look like Tango, since 
there is currently an effort under way to use the Tango runtime instead of 
the existing phobos one. Thus, as I already said, phobos is changing to look 
like Tango. You apparently cut that bit out of my post, because it blows 
huge holes in your entirely inaccurate analogy :)

Specifically related to Tango, your analogy is based on entirely false 
assertions. I suspect  you don't know much about the library, or the history 
behind it? If you did, then you'd understand how irrellevant the commentary 
really is. That's to be expected, but I'm surprised at just how many 
"concrete" conclusions you're managing to draw from thin air. I'd encourage 
you to use Tango and draw conclusions based on some solid experience 
instead? I'm sure people would be happy to answer any of those you may have 
once you dig deeper.

In the end it comes down to a simple (reapeated) notion: we made an early 
decision not to conform with phobos in a manner that could be considered 
compatible. Phobos had frozen in time, and patches sent for the library lay 
languishing somewhere for months and even years. There was little point in 
sacrificing better approaches because of that, and we knew it. Those were 
difficult choices, but we made them and moved on. If you want to ignore that 
and draw your conclusions anyway, you are welcome to do so. Read the 
history, as I've suggested, and you'll perhaps get a better feel for how far 
off your analogy has actually been?

- Kris


p.s. Just out of interest, have you written or designed a library on a scale 
similar to Tango?



 Nov 23 2007



 next sibling parent reply "Janice Caron" <caron800 googlemail.com>  writes:


On 11/24/07, Kris <foo bar.com> wrote:

 Surely you're making a rather grand assumption that the person you
 call the 'victim' could never have made that post at all? How do you
 actually know that, Dave?


Because I have stated that fact loudly and clearly. Once again, I,
Janice Caron, do hereby declare that I have made no posts on this
group in any name other than Janice Caron. Can I possibly be more
clear? Now stop making false accusations.

I am /so/ looking forward to the moderated newsgroup!



 Nov 23 2007



  parent  "Kris" <foo bar.com>  writes:


"Janice Caron" <caron800 googlemail.com> wrote in message 
news:mailman.123.1195890481.2338.digitalmars-d puremagic.com...

 On 11/24/07, Kris <foo bar.com> wrote:

 Surely you're making a rather grand assumption that the person you
 call the 'victim' could never have made that post at all? How do you
 actually know that, Dave?


 Because I have stated that fact loudly and clearly. Once again, I,
 Janice Caron, do hereby declare that I have made no posts on this
 group in any name other than Janice Caron. Can I possibly be more
 clear?


Oh, you make that claim, and that's fine. But the point is that David cannot 
know that for sure unless he made that post himself. David has attempted to 
create a notable level of 'fact' based upon knowing exactly who did what. He 
places so much emphasis on it, one surely has to ask the question posed 
above. I am simply asking that question.


 Now stop making false accusations.


There is no accusation there. Period. Instead, there is a question to Dave. 
Perhaps you should stop attempting to create issue where there is none.



 Nov 24 2007



prev sibling  parent reply "David B. Held" <dheld codelogicconsulting.com>  writes:


Kris wrote:

 "David B. Held" <dheld codelogicconsulting.com> wrote in message 
 [...]
 Which obvious reading? Can you be more specific about that?


I believe I spelled it out in my last response to Jeff.  Since you seem 
to be following the thread, I don't really feel it's worth my while to 
repeat the argument in full.


 [...]

 On the contrary, the puppeteer was most likely insulting Janice as well, 
 which means that you two were feigning stupidity, adding insult to injury, 
 and then making light of it by dismissing your claims as "speculation". 
 Well,


 
 You say "most likely", and then draw an extensive conclusion from that. I 
 didn't read the post in the manner you have suggested at all, so can happily 
 and honestly disagree with your "assertions" in full.


Then I would say that either A) you didn't stop and think very carefully 
about the implications, or B) you wrote the posts and they didn't work 
out the way you had hoped.


 obviously, you haven't been a victim of such tricks yet, so it is easy for 
 you to blame the victim (which is what you did, let's not mince


 
 Victim? Surely you're making a rather grand assumption that the person you 
 call the 'victim' could never have made that post at all? How do you 
 actually know that, Dave? The only way you could be /so/ sure is if you'd 
 posted it yourself. Right?
 
 Let me ask you: Did you make that post, David? Be honest about it.


Ok, ok, I admit it!  I did all of it!!!  I just wanted to stir the pot, 
so first, I wrote an anonymous post that I knew would bait people like 
you into responding in exactly the way I predicted.  Then, to avert 
suspicion, I tried it again, but this time, did it in a clumsy way that 
was easily traceable!  You figured it all out!  You are so brilliant!  A 
sincere question deserves a sincere answer.


 [...]

 Good library authors can disarm their critics with a good explanation of 
 the design decisions, while authors outside of that set don't feel that 
 justification is necessary, because they are the ones who put their hard 
 work into it.


 
 The connotation here is that perhaps those who do not "disarm their critics" 
 are not "good library authors". Thus, since you're implying elsewhere that 
 Tango has at least some such people, then the library itself is somehow not 
 "good".


Well, that's a non-sequitur.  Someone who isn't a diplomatic 
representative of a library does not force the library itself to somehow 
be bad.  And yet, that person can cause harm to the library by 
influencing the opinions of prospective users.  However, if the author 
*is* the library, then I agree that bad author == bad library.  Are you 
a D library?


 It's a silly, groundless, and vague accusation.


What's silly is the line of reasoning used to arrive at this putative 
"accusation".


 [...]

 Not all criticism is justified, and some of it is simply bad, but the way 
 it's responded to makes all the difference in the world.


 
 You're using the term 'criticism' as though we don't deal with it every 
 single day. Perhaps you should hang out on IRC sometimes, and watch 
 carefully how criticism is most often responded to ...


Whether you like it or not, the NG is not some kind of static IRC 
channel.  What you say on IRC is not recorded and archived and made 
public in the way this newsgroup is.  It may well be that people who 
talk to you on IRC have a completely different experience than those who 
read this NG.  Whether that is a good thing or a bad thing, I'll let you 
decide.


 [...]
 Tango does not rest upon all of us being diplomats (at all, or all the 
 time), so let's stop pretending it matters nearly as much as you've been 
 trying to make out.


I wonder if you've ever tried to commercialize anything you've written. 
  I've sold software I wrote to put bread on the table, and the way you 
treat your customers, whether they are programmers or businesspeople, 
makes all the difference in the world.  I can especially tell you that 
it makes a difference to companies like Borland, where I saw people 
complain about their products every day (because I was often one of 
them).  Maybe Tango will always be a free product, and that would be 
great.  But if you ever decide that you should get paid for your hard 
work (say, through a dual-licensing scheme, which seems rather popular 
these days), you might find that diplomacy hits the bottom line rather 
directly.


 [...]
 Again, Tango very quickly gave up on all notion of full phobos compatability 
 in the early stages.


There's a difference between full compatibility and gratuitous 
incompatibility.  C++ isn't fully compatible with C, and obviously had 
to do things differently to do them better.  On the other hand, Bjarne 
always had a good reason for doing things differently, and wasn't afraid 
to share it with users (and, I might add, he managed to do so without 
calling them idiots).


 [...]
 p.s. Just out of interest, have you written or designed a library on a scale 
 similar to Tango?


No, Kris, I haven't.  I'm not a brilliant programmer who only writes 
amazing code like you are.  I doubt I could write a 10 line program 
without introducing more than one bug per line.  My judgment and opinion 
are absolutely worthless next to your shining intellect.  May your 
wisdom bless the D community for all of its days!  I've only ever worked 
on toy codebases of a few hundred lines, and never on something that was 
  actually used by other people.  Every night when I go to bed, I think 
to myself: "If only I could one day be as great a h X0r as Kris...that 
would be swell!"  I feel stupid even replying to you, as if I have the 
right to challenge a man who has so profoundly changed the face of D! 
I'm sorry, I won't ever let it happen again.

Dave



 Nov 24 2007



  parent reply "Kris" <foo bar.com>  writes:


"David B. Held" <dheld codelogicconsulting.com> wrote

 Let me ask you: Did you make that post, David? Be honest about it.


 Ok, ok, I admit it!  I did all of it!!!  I just wanted to stir the pot, so 
 first, I wrote an anonymous post that I knew would bait people like you 
 into responding in exactly the way I predicted.  Then, to avert suspicion, 
 I tried it again, but this time, did it in a clumsy way that was easily 
 traceable!  You figured it all out!  You are so brilliant!  A sincere 
 question deserves a sincere answer.


I asked a simply question, and there's really no need to take this attitude. 
I will admit to being saddened by the levels that you claim to stoop to, 
though I guess I should not be surprised given what you've previously 
claimed:

1) that you deliberately subverted the integrity of the ng via your 
sock-puppet spoof
2) that you'd be more than willing to do so again

now you claim:

3) trolling against Tango is fair game for you (phangowant)
4) doing so with the intent to generate a flame fest was your goal ("baiting 
people ... exactly the way I predicted")

Bring on those moderators ...

Given those elements, one could be forgiven for concluding that your 
innacurate analogy regarding Boost and Tango was posted with similar 
malevolent intent. Too bad, since it made for an otherwise interesting read.



 You're using the term 'criticism' as though we don't deal with it every 
 single day. Perhaps you should hang out on IRC sometimes, and watch 
 carefully how criticism is most often responded to ...


 Whether you like it or not, the NG is not some kind of static IRC channel. 
 What you say on IRC is not recorded and archived and made public in the 
 way this newsgroup is.  It may well be that people who talk to you on IRC 
 have a completely different experience than those who read this NG. 
 Whether that is a good thing or a bad thing, I'll let you decide.


Thanks. Well, given the claims you've made so far, I'd say the NG is an 
inappropriate place to conduct any kind of rational discourse. I mean, 
what's the point if people like you are more than willing to (as you've 
described) subvert and/or pervert the environment? I (perhaps ignorantly) 
thought it was a place for D enthusiasts to discuss related topics, rather 
than for those with some kind of twisted agenda. That's too bad.



 Tango does not rest upon all of us being diplomats (at all, or all the 
 time), so let's stop pretending it matters nearly as much as you've been 
 trying to make out.


 Maybe Tango will always be a free product, and that would be great.  But 
 if you ever decide that you should get paid for your hard work (say, 
 through a dual-licensing scheme, which seems rather popular these days), 
 you might find that diplomacy hits the bottom line rather directly.


Yes, I'm aware how the business environment operates. And yes, Tango will 
always be a free product as far as I'm concerned. Why would it not be? Tango 
exists because we are D enthusiasts.



 p.s. Just out of interest, have you written or designed a library on a 
 scale similar to Tango?


 No, Kris, I haven't.  I'm not a brilliant programmer who only writes 
 amazing code like you are.  I doubt I could write a 10 line program 
 without introducing more than one bug per line.  My judgment and opinion 
 are absolutely worthless next to your shining intellect.  May your wisdom 
 bless the D community for all of its days!  I've only ever worked on toy 
 codebases of a few hundred lines, and never on something that was actually 
 used by other people.  Every night when I go to bed, I think to myself: 
 "If only I could one day be as great a h X0r as Kris...that would be 
 swell!"  I feel stupid even replying to you, as if I have the right to 
 challenge a man who has so profoundly changed the face of D! I'm sorry, I 
 won't ever let it happen again.


There's really no need to utterly wig-out, is there? I asked a perfectly 
innocent, and what I thought to be reasonable, question. I mean, you might 
have had far more experience in that arena than all of Tango put together, 
and could thus be in a position to offer lots of solid advice on technical 
concerns too. I asked only because you seemed to be hinting in that 
direction.. However, I'll take your reply to be an affirmation in the 
negative sense.

Thank you for clarifying my original two questions regarding your posts over 
Tango.



 Nov 24 2007



  parent reply "David B. Held" <dheld codelogicconsulting.com>  writes:


Kris wrote:

 "David B. Held" <dheld codelogicconsulting.com> wrote

 Let me ask you: Did you make that post, David? Be honest about it.


 Ok, ok, I admit it!  I did all of it!!!  I just wanted to stir the pot, so 
 first, I wrote an anonymous post that I knew would bait people like you 
 into responding in exactly the way I predicted.  Then, to avert suspicion, 
 I tried it again, but this time, did it in a clumsy way that was easily 
 traceable!  You figured it all out!  You are so brilliant!  A sincere 
 question deserves a sincere answer.


 
 I asked a simply question, and there's really no need to take this attitude. 


You asked a simple question, but I didn't see one ounce of sincerity in 
it.  I just got done writing several long posts about the evils of 
anonymous posting, and now you want to accuse *me* of being the poster?? 
  Obviously, the original poster was far more sophisticated in the ways 
of evading detection than I was, so let me ask you this...what would be 
my reward for then making a clumsy *not-so-anonymous* post??  There are 
only two conclusions to be made here:

1) you didn't take 5 seconds to think this through and realize that only 
an utter moron would perform the sequence of events:

   a) post as phango 
   b) post as dheld , "anonymously"
   c) admit that b) was a ruse

2) you were not being sincere

Now, you are saying that 2) is not the case, so you are basically 
calling me a complete idiot for trying to pull off 1).  Your faux 
"sincerity" is extremely annoying and does you no credit, and I take the 
insult quite personally.


 I will admit to being saddened by the levels that you claim to stoop to, 
 though I guess I should not be surprised given what you've previously 
 claimed:


You're "saddened"?  Oh, poor, poor crocodile...look at those big tears...


 1) that you deliberately subverted the integrity of the ng via your 
 sock-puppet spoof
 2) that you'd be more than willing to do so again


At least I'm honest.  You've never disclaimed being phango .  Since you 
seem to want a straight declaration, here it is: I AM NOT THE PERSON 
POSTING AS phango .  Let me ask you: Did you make that post, Kris? Be 
honest about it (because if I didn't add this clause, you wouldn't be).


 now you claim:
 
 3) trolling against Tango is fair game for you (phangowant)


Ok, since you seem to lack the basic comprehension of literary devices, 
I'll spell this one out for you in excruciating detail: my "admission" 
above is something called "sarcasm".  Here's a good reference: 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarcasm.  I think it's ok for me to quote 
an excerpt:

     Sarcasm[A] is the sneering, sly, jesting, or mocking of a
     person, situation or thing.

I felt that was all that your "sincere" query deserved as a response. 
So to be perfectly explicit (since that seems to be what you need, in 
your I'm-playing-literal-and-naive mode), this is a false conclusion 
because I am not phango , I do not endorse anything phango  says, I am 
opposed to trolling, and I have nothing against Tango the library, nor 
do I endorse attacking the library.  On the other hand, I think every 
piece of work is open for criticism (certainly including anything I've 
written), but that is different from an attack in that a criticism has 
technical merit and an attack does not.


 4) doing so with the intent to generate a flame fest was your goal ("baiting 
 people ... exactly the way I predicted")


Kris, if this is really a sincere interpretation of my words, I have to 
wonder if you simply have a hard time communicating with other people 
via idioms and expressions and forms of speech which are not literal?  I 
understand that there are specific cognitive defects which can lead to 
this situation, but usually the are the result of some developmental 
disability that is more systemic in nature.  You don't seem to merely be 
a high-functioning autistic or Aspberger's patient, but I don't get to 
see you in your normal milieu, so I can't make any kind of guess as to 
your condition.


 [...]
 Given those elements, one could be forgiven for concluding that your 
 innacurate analogy regarding Boost and Tango was posted with similar 
 malevolent intent. Too bad, since it made for an otherwise interesting read.


Yes, by comparing Boost to Tango, I wanted to heap aspersions on Tango. 
  Clearly, Boost is a simmering pile of dung, and by association, I'm 
saying that Tango is crap.  It's a totally unflattering comparison, and 
one for which Tango is most undeserving.  You have persuaded me to 
retract my comparison and say that Tango is nothing at all like Boost in 
any way, shape, or form.  In fact, it's more like the opposite of Boost. 
  Are you happy?


 [...]
 Thanks. Well, given the claims you've made so far, I'd say the NG is an 
 inappropriate place to conduct any kind of rational discourse. I mean, 
 what's the point if people like you are more than willing to (as you've 
 described) subvert and/or pervert the environment? I (perhaps ignorantly) 
 thought it was a place for D enthusiasts to discuss related topics, rather 
 than for those with some kind of twisted agenda. That's too bad.


Yes, it is too bad.  Apparently, all the "rational" discourse goes on in 
IRC, which is clearly where the D newsgroup should migrate (not the 
least of all because *you* are there).  If only the perverts and the 
subverts would go away, the D newsgroup would become a playground of 
rational discourse by D enthusiasts.  My "twisted agenda" has rained 
down hellfire and brimstone on the face of D, and everything has come 
grinding to a halt.  Oh, woe is we!  Woe is we!  Let us put on sackcloth 
and ashes and mourn for the death of our beloved newsgroup...

Kris, let me remind you that the instigator of this thread was that 
anonymous coward posting as phango .  And what fanned the flames was 
when you and Jeff accused Janice of being that coward (though you 
yourself still have not disclaimed being phango ).  At that point, the 
thread left the realm of "rational discourse" and ceased being about D 
at all.  Trying to impute the nature of the subsequent posts to the rest 
of the newsgroup is about as irrational as one can get (and you have 
shown me just how irrational one can get).  For instance, I invite you 
to show how I have "subverted" or "perverted" the environment outside of 
this thread.  Go ahead and try.  I'm calling you out.


 [...]
 Yes, I'm aware how the business environment operates. And yes, Tango will 
 always be a free product as far as I'm concerned. Why would it not be? Tango 
 exists because we are D enthusiasts.


Oh, that's interesting.  Do all the other Tango contributors agree with 
you, or are you the official spokesman for the library?  What if someone 
else tried to sell Tango with a license?  What would you do?


 [...]
 There's really no need to utterly wig-out, is there? I asked a perfectly 
 innocent, and what I thought to be reasonable, question.


I'm sorry, Kris.  I thought your question was as "sincere" as the others 
in your last post and I reacted accordingly.  We obviously have a major 
disagreement over what constitutes "sincerity".  Since your definition 
seems to flip-flop between reading sarcastic things literally and taking 
them as they were intended, it's very hard to tell which statements you 
make are sincere, and which are not.  Perhaps you could do me a small 
favor and mark different passages that you write and respond to as 
[literal] or [figurative].  Then we would be on the same page.


 I mean, you might have had far more experience in that arena than all of
 Tango put together, and could thus be in a position to offer lots of
 solid advice on technical concerns too.


I see...and you would accept my criticisms with the same level of 
respect you afford Janice?  I'm not sure I know of any library author 
willing to take you up on your "offer".


 I asked only because you seemed  to be hinting in that direction.. However,
 I'll take your reply to be an  affirmation in the negative sense.


Oh, interesting...here you seem to be able to read between the lines 
after all!  Amazing!!!  Mr. Literal was able to properly detect sarcasm! 
  It's a miracle!  Notice how selectively you do it, though.  When you 
read one sarcastic passage literally and another figuratively, it casts 
serious doubts over your "sincerity".

Unlike you, Kris, I feel no need to trumpet my credentials or declare 
how magnificent my work is.  It's easy enough for someone to find 
different things that I've worked on, if for some reason that interests 
them.  But you won't ever see me spell it out here, as a matter of 
principle.  I've always felt that if you need to say how great your work 
is, it's because there aren't enough other people saying it for you.


 Thank you for clarifying my original two questions regarding your posts over 
 Tango.


Oh, you're most welcome, Mr. Literal-When-It's-Convenient.  You think 
you are so clever what with your faux innocence and crocodile tears, and 
yet you freely admit that you are a prickly person that does not always 
play well with others.  Why pretend some of the time and not others?  I 
would respect you a lot more if you didn't play these "I'm going to be 
naive and innocent and literal now because it suits me" games and just 
stuck to your "I don't care what people think" line.

Dave



 Nov 25 2007



  parent reply "Kris" <foo bar.com>  writes:


"David B. Held" <dheld codelogicconsulting.com> wrote in message 
news:fick79$u53$1 digitalmars.com...

 Kris wrote:

 "David B. Held" <dheld codelogicconsulting.com> wrote

 Let me ask you: Did you make that post, David? Be honest about it.


 Ok, ok, I admit it!  I did all of it!!!  I just wanted to stir the pot, 
 so first, I wrote an anonymous post that I knew would bait people like 
 you into responding in exactly the way I predicted.  Then, to avert 
 suspicion, I tried it again, but this time, did it in a clumsy way that 
 was easily traceable!  You figured it all out!  You are so brilliant!  A 
 sincere question deserves a sincere answer.


 I asked a simply question, and there's really no need to take this 
 attitude.


 You asked a simple question, but I didn't see one ounce of sincerity in 
 it.  I just got done writing several long posts about the evils of 
 anonymous posting, and now you want to accuse *me* of being the poster??



Huh? Perhaps you should remind yourself that you are the one who's been 
playing sock-puppet games? As an anonymous poster?



  Obviously, the original poster was far more sophisticated in the ways of 
 evading detection than I was, so let me ask you this...what would be my 
 reward for then making a clumsy *not-so-anonymous* post??  There are only 
 two conclusions to be made here:



Oh, it was perfectly sincere. You made all the implications that you knew 
exactly who the poster was, and it seemed the only way you could know for 
sure is if it had been you. I noted that and thus asked the question, to 
which you appeared to answer honestly. Have you been digging a hole for 
yourself?




 1) you didn't take 5 seconds to think this through and realize that only 
 an utter moron would perform the sequence of events:

   a) post as phango 
   b) post as dheld , "anonymously"
   c) admit that b) was a ruse



There's little point in trying to second-guess you. Instead, I've merely 
been accepting what you admit to, or otherwise claim, as being the truth. 
You can't fault anyone for that.



 2) you were not being sincere

 Now, you are saying that 2) is not the case, so you are basically calling 
 me a complete idiot for trying to pull off 1).  Your faux "sincerity" is 
 extremely annoying and does you no credit, and I take the insult quite 
 personally.



I asked a simple question and you answered it, noting it as being sincere. I 
can accept your answer or assume you are lying about it. I chose the former, 
since you had been honest about your sock-puppetry actions (though, in 
retrospect, perhaps your honesty there was due to being 'outed' ?).  The 
rest has been entirely in your hands.



 I will admit to being saddened by the levels that you claim to stoop to, 
 though I guess I should not be surprised given what you've previously 
 claimed:


 You're "saddened"?  Oh, poor, poor crocodile...look at those big tears...



Again, I chose to assume you were being honest. You specifically said you 
were being sincere.



 1) that you deliberately subverted the integrity of the ng via your 
 sock-puppet spoof
 2) that you'd be more than willing to do so again


 At least I'm honest.  You've never disclaimed being phango .  Since you 
 seem to want a straight declaration, here it is: I AM NOT THE PERSON 
 POSTING AS phango .  Let me ask you: Did you make that post, Kris? Be 
 honest about it (because if I didn't add this clause, you wouldn't be).



You claimed earler that it was actually you, and there was no reason to 
assume you meant otherwise. No, it wasn't me who posted that, either. It 
would be great if Walter would check the logs and find out who it was.



 now you claim:

 3) trolling against Tango is fair game for you (phangowant)


 Ok, since you seem to lack the basic comprehension of literary devices, 
 I'll spell this one out for you in excruciating detail: my "admission" 
 above is something called "sarcasm".  Here's a good reference: 
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarcasm.  I think it's ok for me to quote an 
 excerpt:



Then you should drop the sarcasm?



 I felt that was all that your "sincere" query deserved as a response. So 
 to be perfectly explicit (since that seems to be what you need, in your 
 I'm-playing-literal-and-naive mode), this is a false conclusion because I 
 am not phango , I do not endorse anything phango  says, I am opposed to 
 trolling, and I have nothing against Tango the library, nor do I endorse 
 attacking the library.  On the other hand, I think every piece of work is 
 open for criticism (certainly including anything I've written), but that 
 is different from an attack in that a criticism has technical merit and an 
 attack does not.



We completely agree on the criticism aspect.



 4) doing so with the intent to generate a flame fest was your goal 
 ("baiting people ... exactly the way I predicted")


 Kris, if this is really a sincere interpretation of my words, I have to 
 wonder if you simply have a hard time communicating with other people via 
 idioms and expressions and forms of speech which are not literal?  I 
 understand that there are specific cognitive defects which can lead to 
 this situation, but usually the are the result of some developmental 
 disability that is more systemic in nature.  You don't seem to merely be a 
 high-functioning autistic or Aspberger's patient, but I don't get to see 
 you in your normal milieu, so I can't make any kind of guess as to your 
 condition.



Again, there was no reason to believe you were not being sincere. After all, 
you don't find sock-puppetry to be distasteful. Trolling is the lesser evil 
in my book.




 [...]
 Thanks. Well, given the claims you've made so far, I'd say the NG is an 
 inappropriate place to conduct any kind of rational discourse. I mean, 
 what's the point if people like you are more than willing to (as you've 
 described) subvert and/or pervert the environment? I (perhaps ignorantly) 
 thought it was a place for D enthusiasts to discuss related topics, 
 rather than for those with some kind of twisted agenda. That's too bad.


 Yes, it is too bad.  Apparently, all the "rational" discourse goes on in 
 IRC, which is clearly where the D newsgroup should migrate (not the least 
 of all because *you* are there).  If only the perverts and the subverts 
 would go away, the D newsgroup would become a playground of rational 
 discourse by D enthusiasts.  My "twisted agenda" has rained down hellfire 
 and brimstone on the face of D, and everything has come grinding to a 
 halt.  Oh, woe is we!  Woe is we!  Let us put on sackcloth and ashes and 
 mourn for the death of our beloved newsgroup...



You had claimed to be both a puppeteer and a troll. I would say that 
represents a twisted agenda. The drama you're making out of this just makes 
you look a bit silly, imo



 Kris, let me remind you that the instigator of this thread was that 
 anonymous coward posting as phango .  And what fanned the flames was



To which you had claimed was you.



 when you and Jeff accused Janice of being that coward (though you yourself 
 still have not disclaimed being phango ).  At that point, the thread left 
 the realm of "rational discourse" and ceased being about D at all.  Trying 
 to impute the nature of the subsequent posts to the rest of the newsgroup 
 is about as irrational as one can get (and you have shown me just how 
 irrational one can get).  For instance, I invite you to show how I have 
 "subverted" or "perverted" the environment outside of this thread.  Go 
 ahead and try.  I'm calling you out.



Did I say you did?

Instead, I've simply noted what you claimed to have done. You deliberately 
manipulated the ng with your sock-puppetry - that's subversion. You were 
quite explicit that you'd happily do so again (perhaps /threatened/ is more 
appropriate?). You then claimed to be the "phangowant" troll, and explicitly 
noted how you were trying to manipulate other posters. Did you expect a pat 
on the back for this?



 [...]
 Yes, I'm aware how the business environment operates. And yes, Tango will 
 always be a free product as far as I'm concerned. Why would it not be? 
 Tango exists because we are D enthusiasts.


 Oh, that's interesting.  Do all the other Tango contributors agree with 
 you, or are you the official spokesman for the library?



Did I say I was? You asked my opinon, and I replied "as far as I am 
concerned". End of story.



 What if someone else tried to sell Tango with a license?  What would you 
 do?



No idea. How is this relevant to your sock-puppetry?




 [...]
 There's really no need to utterly wig-out, is there? I asked a perfectly 
 innocent, and what I thought to be reasonable, question.


 I'm sorry, Kris.  I thought your question was as "sincere" as the others 
 in your last post and I reacted accordingly.  We obviously have a major 
 disagreement over what constitutes "sincerity".



I've tried to be clear and sincere toward you. If you find you cannot 
respond in kind, that is your choice.



 I asked only because you seemed  to be hinting in that direction.. 
 However,
 I'll take your reply to be an  affirmation in the negative sense.


 Oh, interesting...here you seem to be able to read between the lines after 
 all!  Amazing!!!  Mr. Literal was able to properly detect sarcasm! It's a 
 miracle!  Notice how selectively you do it, though.  When you read one 
 sarcastic passage literally and another figuratively, it casts serious 
 doubts over your "sincerity".



What I saw resembled a meltdown. I doubt anyone needed to read between any 
lines there?



 Unlike you, Kris, I feel no need to trumpet my credentials or declare how 
 magnificent my work is.  It's easy enough for someone to find different 
 things that I've worked on, if for some reason that interests them.  But 
 you won't ever see me spell it out here, as a matter of principle.  I've 
 always felt that if you need to say how great your work is, it's because 
 there aren't enough other people saying it for you.



Strawman. I don't actually trumpet my own work. If you're talking about 
Tango, my contribution is just that: a contribution. As you know, there are 
lots of people involved, and it is that collection of skills and ideas that 
make Tango the great peice of work that it is. Even Tango detractors have 
nice things to say about it.



 Thank you for clarifying my original two questions regarding your posts 
 over Tango.


 Oh, you're most welcome, Mr. Literal-When-It's-Convenient.  You think you 
 are so clever what with your faux innocence and crocodile tears, and yet 
 you freely admit that you are a prickly person that does not always play 
 well with others.  Why pretend some of the time and not others?  I would 
 respect you a lot more if you didn't play these "I'm going to be naive and 
 innocent and literal now because it suits me" games and just stuck to your 
 "I don't care what people think" line.



Sad. 



 Nov 25 2007



  parent  Regan Heath <regan netmail.co.nz>  writes:


Kris wrote:

 1) that you deliberately subverted the integrity of the ng via your 
 sock-puppet spoof
 2) that you'd be more than willing to do so again


 At least I'm honest.  You've never disclaimed being phango .  Since you 
 seem to want a straight declaration, here it is: I AM NOT THE PERSON 
 POSTING AS phango .  Let me ask you: Did you make that post, Kris? Be 
 honest about it (because if I didn't add this clause, you wouldn't be).


 
 
 You claimed earler that it was actually you, and there was no reason to 
 assume you meant otherwise. No, it wasn't me who posted that, either. It 
 would be great if Walter would check the logs and find out who it was.


I think you must have missunderstood something here Kris, or perhaps I 
did.  David didn't claim the original phango posting was him, he claimed 
this one was:
http://www.digitalmars.com/webnews/newsgroups.php?art_group=digitalmars.D&article_id=61861

I don't know about you but when I read that it was pretty obvious that 
it wasn't Jeff but someone playing a prank.  At least, that was my 
interpretation.

I don't want to fan the flames which seem to have died down, just to 
point out there may be some areas where one or the other of you have 
missunderstood the situation somewhat.

Regan



 Nov 26 2007



prev sibling  parent reply Daniel Keep <daniel.keep.lists gmail.com>  writes:


It's a month until Christmas, and I think this thread isn't doing anyone
any good.  In the spirit of the season (forgiveness, good-will, etc.)
how about we just let this thread die now?

	-- Daniel



 Nov 25 2007



 next sibling parent  "Kris" <foo bar.com>  writes:


"Daniel Keep" <daniel.keep.lists gmail.com> wrote in message 
news:fidjbn$2ah2$1 digitalmars.com...

 It's a month until Christmas, and I think this thread isn't doing anyone
 any good.  In the spirit of the season (forgiveness, good-will, etc.)
 how about we just let this thread die now?

 -- Daniel



Gladly. No further comment. 



 Nov 25 2007



prev sibling next sibling parent  Bill Baxter <dnewsgroup billbaxter.com>  writes:


Daniel Keep wrote:

 It's a month until Christmas, and I think this thread isn't doing anyone
 any good.  In the spirit of the season (forgiveness, good-will, etc.)
 how about we just let this thread die now?
 
 	-- Daniel


Here here!  /Raises glass of eggnog/

--bb



 Nov 25 2007



prev sibling  parent  Clay Smith <clayasaurus gmail.com>  writes:


Daniel Keep wrote:

 It's a month until Christmas, and I think this thread isn't doing anyone
 any good.  In the spirit of the season (forgiveness, good-will, etc.)
 how about we just let this thread die now?
 
 	-- Daniel


Please, just let it rest in peace.



 Nov 25 2007



prev sibling  parent reply Jeff Nowakowski <jeff dilacero.org>  writes:


David B. Held wrote:

 In case you haven't noticed, I haven't been working especially hard to 
 win friends or standing in the D community.


Your posts are almost always thoughtful and refraining from animosity. 
Numerous times you have implored others to do the same.  Your personal 
attack/forgery was totally out of character.  No matter how wrong you 
think I was, you have no excuse for acting worse.


 Well, your backpedaling and equivocation is pretty transparent, in my 
 book.  First you say:
 
     "By the way, the charge that one of the posts following yours
     was a sock puppet was legitimate."
 
 Here, there is no "misconstruing" going on.  You clearly said: "Somebody 
 accused you of creating a sock puppet, and that accusation was valid, 
 not baseless."  I don't think it takes a lawyer to read it that way. You 
 made it about as unambiguous as could be.


Your interpretation is wrong.  When I said the charge was "legitimate", 
I meant as in http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/legitimate:

4. in accordance with the laws of reasoning; logically inferable; 
logical: a legitimate conclusion.


 Then, you followed up with:
 
     "It was the first thing that crossed my mind."
 
 Here, you say: "And I tend to agree with the accuser."  How do I draw 
 that conclusion?  Well, it's simple.  The first thing that crossed *my* 
 mind was: "Someone is playing a dirty trick on Janice, and then 
 exploiting it."  Which means that if you had a different first 
 impression, it must have been because you had already decided that 
 Janice was guilty until proven innocent.


Your analysis is wrong.  It "crossed my mind".  That's all.  It looked 
fishy, and an obvious possibility was a sock puppet.  There are other 
possibilities, and I reached no firm conclusions.  I filed it away in 
the back of my mind and continued reading the newsgroup.


 But you realized you had gone 
 too far, so you decided to try to smooth things over with a CYA clause:
 
     "Doesn't mean you did it, but it's a valid suspicion."


Wrong again, Mr. Holmes.  I'm trying to make it clear that there is no 
confirmed guilt, only suspicion. I think I'll stop here.  Believe what 
you want to believe.

-Jeff



 Nov 21 2007



  parent reply "David B. Held" <dheld codelogicconsulting.com>  writes:


Jeff Nowakowski wrote:

 David B. Held wrote:

 In case you haven't noticed, I haven't been working especially hard to 
 win friends or standing in the D community.


 
 Your posts are almost always thoughtful and refraining from animosity. 
 Numerous times you have implored others to do the same.  Your personal 
 attack/forgery was totally out of character.  No matter how wrong you 
 think I was, you have no excuse for acting worse.


No matter how wrong you think I was, you have no excuse for claiming my 
actions were worse.  If you feel strongly offended (and yes, that was 
the intent), then imagine how Janice felt 1) when some coward posted as 
"phango phangowant.com", and 2) when two other people then had the gall 
to accuse her of being the trickster.  I didn't even get the luxury of 
calling you the perpetrator to complete the recreation, or justice would 
have truly been served.  It's all about you, you, you, isn't it?  My 
whole point here was about Janice, and that fact that *she* is the only 
true victim here.  And yet you continue to insist that *you* are the 
only victim, even after personally experiencing a bit of the situation 
that Janice was placed in.  I'm glad you got to sit in the victim-chair 
for a few minutes.  It's too bad it didn't increase your empathy one iota.


 Well, your backpedaling and equivocation is pretty transparent, in my 
 book.  First you say:

     "By the way, the charge that one of the posts following yours
     was a sock puppet was legitimate."

 Here, there is no "misconstruing" going on.  You clearly said: 
 "Somebody accused you of creating a sock puppet, and that accusation 
 was valid, not baseless."  I don't think it takes a lawyer to read it 
 that way. You made it about as unambiguous as could be.


 
 Your interpretation is wrong.  When I said the charge was "legitimate", 
 I meant as in http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/legitimate:
 
 4. in accordance with the laws of reasoning; logically inferable; 
 logical: a legitimate conclusion.


I already deconstructed this bit of hogwash.  The only way for you to 
make this defense is to claim stupidity: "Yes, I really was swayed by 
the phango phangowant.com endorsement...until I realized it could only 
have been Janice in disguise!!!"  Either that, or you are gravely 
insulting Janice's intelligence, which would be your third offence: 
"Yes, I really think Janice is stupid enough to post a sock puppet as 
phango phangowant.com...in fact, I think she's a blazing idiot!!!" 
Neither of those positions is particularly flattering.


 [...]

 But you realized you had gone too far, so you decided to try to smooth 
 things over with a CYA clause:

     "Doesn't mean you did it, but it's a valid suspicion."


 
 Wrong again, Mr. Holmes.  I'm trying to make it clear that there is no 
 confirmed guilt, only suspicion. I think I'll stop here.  Believe what 
 you want to believe.


You know what's wrong with defence?  If you had really stopped for two 
seconds to think about the implications of Janice writing those 
anonymous posts, you would have come to the same conclusion that I did: 
Completely bogus hypothesis.  When *you* were the victim, all of the 
sudden is was worth your time to not only consider the implications of 
person X being the author, you made a concerted effort to find out who X 
was!  And still, you lack the ability to put yourself in Janice's shoes 
and imagine that *perhaps she felt the same way you did when you accused 
her of being her own attacker*.  This isn't about what I believe...it's 
about the behavior I observed.  Actions speak louder than words.

Dave



 Nov 23 2007



  parent reply Jeff Nowakowski <jeff dilacero.org>  writes:


David B. Held wrote:

 No matter how wrong you think I was, you have no excuse for claiming my 
 actions were worse.


You crossed the line from debate to taking an underhanded action.  You 
made a fraudulent post and used the opportunity to make a personal 
attack of a nature that I've never seen you do under your own name.  The 
end does not justify the means.

I wasn't going to continue this thread, but I have additional context to 
offer, and a response to the nature of the original anonymous poster. 
You seem to be coming at this from a Tango vs Phobos angle, to the point 
that you think I'm attacking Janice from the Tango side.  That's not the 
case, and I hope you read the following with an open mind.

First, what were my motives for entering this thread?  Here's what 
happened.  I saw the personal animosity between Kris and Janice go up a 
notch when Kris accused Janice of being a sock puppet ("There's a fair 
chance the poster below is actually Janice").  Kris later retracted his 
statement ("Honest mistake, Janice. Really."), but still felt upset 
about an "amateurish" charge that Janice made earlier ("I recall not so 
long ago you accused people involved with Tango as being "amateurs", or 
something like that. I'm not sure how that meshes with your sudden rash 
of indignation?")

To which Janice replied "Consider the possibility that you may have 
misunderstood? Alas, I don't recall the quote you mention, but I'm sure 
that if you drag up exactly what I said word for word, I can either 
clarify the quote or change my mind or whatever."

It seems better to argue about what was actually said if possible (as an 
aside, this is why I hate the idea of forums where you can edit your 
posts). After it was clear that neither Kris nor Janice would supply the 
quote and Janice didn't see any injustice, I found the quote and posted 
it. I even made sure to quote the part that softened Janice's statement 
in an effort to be fair, for which Janice thanked me.

It was only after Janice still felt that nothing was wrong with the 
original "amateurish/petty" statement that I tried to convey that Kris 
was upset for the same underlying reason that upset Janice.  It was not 
my intention at all to further the accusation against Janice, and that I 
did so I completely apologize for.  I only meant to show it was a 
reasonable suspicion (not probable), and that it should not have been 
publically aired, and neither should have the "amateur/petty" charge.

So, in light of all that, I never claimed that *I* was the only victim, 
nor do I agree that Janice is the only "true victim".  As is usual in 
these kinds of disagreements, everybody involved is damaged in some 
respects.


 I already deconstructed this bit of hogwash.  The only way for you to 
 make this defense is to claim stupidity: "Yes, I really was swayed by 
 the phango phangowant.com endorsement...until I realized it could only 
 have been Janice in disguise!!!"


You're exaggerating my position by saying "it could only have been". 
Personally, my Occam's razor point of view is that the post was made 
earnestly by somebody who chose to be anonymous.  I don't see it as an 
attack against Janice at all -- if the very same post was made by a 
regular, you would have no problem with it.  The "phango phangowant.com" 
identity is no worse than an "I <heart> New York" t-shirt. My "hmm" view 
is that *maybe* it was Janice.

Now you claim that this is stupid.  Your view, that this was an attack 
against Janice, I find just as unreasonable as you find mine.  Asking 
for a fork of Tango that many might find appealing would be a really bad 
idea from Tango's perspective, one that nobody pro-Tango would ask for 
even as a false flag attack.

Are you willing to admit to being wrong?  Ask Walter to check the logs 
of the web forum.  The date of the post was Sat, 17 Nov 2007 17:23:45 
-0500.  Find the IP address associated with that post and I bet you'll 
find the same IP belongs to a regular poster, either via the news server 
or via the web interface.


 Either that, or you are gravely insulting Janice's intelligence,
 which would be your third offence: "Yes, I really think Janice is
 stupid enough to post a sock puppet as phango phangowant.com...in
 fact, I think she's a blazing idiot!!!"


As already stated, I don't see the email address as incriminating.  It's 
only the fact that the poster is anonymous and not a regular that raised 
a flag for me.

By the way, smart people do stupid things all the time.  For reference, 
see the story of the CEO of Whole Foods, who posted under a pseudonym 
based on an anagram of his wife's name.  He said things of himself like 
"I like Mackey's haircut. I think he looks cute!":

http://valleywag.com/tech/john-mackey/whole-foods-ceo-proud-to-be-an-internet-blowhard-277793.php


 When *you* were the victim, all of the sudden is was worth your time
 to not only consider the implications of person X being the author,
 you made a concerted effort to find out who X was!


For the record, your outing is the 4th time I have uncovered an 
anonymous attacker.  I find the practice despicable, to the point that 
the previous three times all involved an anonymous person attacking 
people I personally disliked.  I'll provide archive references if you 
wish.  I checked the original phango ... post and only saw that it came 
from the web, so I was blocked.

So it wasn't that it was about me that got me upset.  It was the action 
itself.  It's totally out of bounds for newsgroup ethics, even given all 
the usual flamewars that go on.


 And still, you lack the ability to put yourself in Janice's shoes and
 imagine that *perhaps she felt the same way you did when you accused 
 her of being her own attacker*.


I completely understand and empathize with Janice's perspective, and 
your actions had nothing to do with it.  I also understand Kris's 
perspective, and that's why I tried to relate the two to Janice.  By the 
way, I've also been publically accused of making an anonymous attack 
before, and I responded calmly.  I can provide an archival reference for 
that too.

I'm not trying to toot my own horn, but to show that your portrayal of 
my motives and character is completely wrong.

-Jeff



 Nov 24 2007



  parent  "David B. Held" <dheld codelogicconsulting.com>  writes:


Jeff Nowakowski wrote:

 David B. Held wrote:

 No matter how wrong you think I was, you have no excuse for claiming 
 my actions were worse.


 
 You crossed the line from debate to taking an underhanded action.


 From my perspective, the thread had left the realm of "debate" long 
before I joined it.  And as far as I'm concerned, taking something as 
dirty as an anonymous post and accusing the victim of being the 
perpetrator is as underhanded as it gets (in a way analogous to blaming 
rape victims, though I don't want to trivialize the issue of rape).  So 
I didn't think I was muddying the waters any more than they already were.


 [...]
 You seem to be coming at this from a Tango vs Phobos angle, to the point 
 that you think I'm attacking Janice from the Tango side.


This isn't about Tango or Phobos at all, except to the extent that 
comments about those libraries happened to be at the beginning of the 
thread.  This is about playing dirty tricks with anonymity (which is the 
double-edged sword of the internet).


 [...]
 You're exaggerating my position by saying "it could only have been". 
 Personally, my Occam's razor point of view is that the post was made 
 earnestly by somebody who chose to be anonymous.  I don't see it as an 
 attack against Janice at all -- if the very same post was made by a 
 regular, you would have no problem with it.


Right, because the poster would obviously not be afraid of putting their 
name on the idea.  The fact that it was *anonymous* is what tips me off 
that it isn't sincere...and if we look at folks who are not always 
sincere...


 The "phango phangowant.com" identity is no worse than an "I <heart>
 New York" t-shirt. My "hmm" view is that *maybe* it was Janice.


I think it's ridiculous, because if that were an honest sentiment, you 
wouldn't be afraid to put your name on it.  You generally don't wear 
shirts with your name on them, but you regularly put your name on NG 
posts, so I don't buy the analogy.


 Now you claim that this is stupid.  Your view, that this was an attack 
 against Janice, I find just as unreasonable as you find mine.  Asking 
 for a fork of Tango that many might find appealing would be a really bad 
 idea from Tango's perspective, one that nobody pro-Tango would ask for 
 even as a false flag attack.


It would make the perfect setup for an accusation of sock puppetry to 
discredit someone you disagree with and don't like.


 Are you willing to admit to being wrong?  Ask Walter to check the logs 
 of the web forum.  The date of the post was Sat, 17 Nov 2007 17:23:45 
 -0500.  Find the IP address associated with that post and I bet you'll 
 find the same IP belongs to a regular poster, either via the news server 
 or via the web interface.


Oh, it seems almost certain that phango  is a regular poster.  I think 
it would be great if we knew who it was, and I wish we tried to do that 
before this thread went anywhere.  I wish Walter had a policy of outing 
any anonymous posters, but he's a busy man and doesn't have the time for 
such petty things.


 [...]
 For the record, your outing is the 4th time I have uncovered an 
 anonymous attacker.  I find the practice despicable, to the point that 
 the previous three times all involved an anonymous person attacking 
 people I personally disliked.  I'll provide archive references if you 
 wish.  I checked the original phango ... post and only saw that it came 
 from the web, so I was blocked.
 
 So it wasn't that it was about me that got me upset.  It was the action 
 itself.  It's totally out of bounds for newsgroup ethics, even given all 
 the usual flamewars that go on.


If you find it so despicable, why did you think it was ok to point fingers?


 [...]
 I'm not trying to toot my own horn, but to show that your portrayal of 
 my motives and character is completely wrong.


I'm willing to agree with that, and I think the context you provide is 
very helpful.  I'm sorry I resorted to posting anonymously against you, 
and I won't do it again (for the obvious reason that I think one 
demonstration is well more than enough).  I do find it incongruent that 
you seem to be so opposed to anonymous posting, but were willing to 
point fingers anyway; but I think we can agree that it's an ugly 
practice that ought not to be tolerated.

Dave



 Nov 25 2007



prev sibling  parent reply Regan Heath <regan netmail.co.nz>  writes:


Jeff Nowakowski wrote:

 By the way, the charge that one of the posts following yours was a sock 
 puppet was legitimate.  It was the first thing that crossed my mind. 
 Doesn't mean you did it, but it's a valid suspicion.


I prefer to assume the best of people, it generally turns out to be true 
and it helps avoid things like this from happening.

I would like to point out that there is a difference between thinking 
something might be the case and posting your suspician where it can be 
taken the wrong way (as an accusation) as I'm about to show...

I've read Kris's explanation of what happened and I have formed my own 
thoughts/opinions as to his motives but I'm certainly not going to post 
them here.

Regan



 Nov 19 2007



  parent  Jeff Nowakowski <jeff dilacero.org>  writes:


Regan Heath wrote:

 
 I would like to point out that there is a difference between thinking 
 something might be the case and posting your suspician where it can be 
 taken the wrong way (as an accusation)


I agree, and that was my point.  Calling somebody a sock puppet in 
public, while a legitimate *suspicion*, is wrong if it's only based on 
superficial evidence.  Same goes for calling somebody's design decisions 
amateurish or petty without first asking why they made the decision.

-Jeff



 Nov 19 2007



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


Janice Caron wrote:

 (...) the /decision/ to ignore the
 style guide was petty. Note that the criticism was of the decision,
 not the people making it. And actually, I do that to deliberately go
 against the style guide was somewhat petty. (...)


And you realize that by stating that the decision was amateurish, you 
put yourself above the ones who made it? Thus, being a newbie, accused 
the Tango team of being amateurish.

Tango is seen by most of its users as a replacement for Phobos, so it 
doesn't have to be compatible with it, or use its naming conventions. 
What Walter states in the 'official style guide' has to be taken with a 
grain of salt. With all due respect, Walter is a single programmer as 
well, not an oracle or a religious guru whose words have to be followed 
exactly. Someone creates another lib for D - they may use whatever they 
like. I recommend a shock therapy - looking at this code: 
http://dsource.org/projects/scrapple/browser/trunk/tools/tools ;)

Anyway, as far as I remember, there was a deeper reason for having 
distinct casing conventions for module and package names. /* This might 
have been even before Tango (possibly in Mango) */ If lowercase was used 
for both module and package names, you could not have a module with the 
same (logical) name as a package.
About two or three years ago, I still used alllowercase for modules and 
packages and ran into this problem a few times. I took the idea of using 
MixedCase for module names from Kris. And it works very well. For 
instance, I have a module 'OpenGL' in my code and a package 'opengl', 
which exist in the same directory. opengl/*.d are implementations of 
specific components of the OpenGL module. Had I used lowercase for 
everything, both would be just 'opengl' and 'opengl.foo' would be a 
conflict between a module in the 'opengl' package and a symbol in the 
'opengl' module. See? A practical reason. Not to mention that 
MixedCaseNames are easier to read than mixedcasenames.

On the other hand, there is no practical reason not to use MixedCase, 
except the dubious case sensitivity issue of certain file systems ( I 
use Windows and Linux / Solaris with D interchangeably and don't 
experience said problems with MixedCase ).

If all it boils down to is personal preference and this is the main 
reason of this flamewar... Excuse me, but nothing is more amateurish or 
petty than that.

But since we're all enjoying the party of expressing our preferences... 
I think that Tango's style is much better than the official guide, plus 
I consider the guide flawed for ever suggesting UPPER_CASE_NAMES for 
consts and enum values.

I also know for a fact, that many Tango users simply agree with its 
design conventions, but find this entire discussion too silly and 
irrelevant to participate in.


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



 Nov 18 2007



  parent  Frank Benoit <keinfarbton googlemail.com>  writes:


Tom S schrieb:

 I also know for a fact, that many Tango users simply agree with its
 design conventions, but find this entire discussion too silly and
 irrelevant to participate in.


very well said tom

Frank



 Nov 18 2007



prev sibling  parent reply Bill Baxter <dnewsgroup billbaxter.com>  writes:


Kris wrote:

 "Janice Caron" <caron800 googlemail.com> wrote

 On 11/18/07, Kris <foo bar.com> wrote:

 Dash it all. This is what I meant to write:


 Phew! OK, I'm happy now. :-)
 Thanks for clearing things up.


 
 Sure, no problem. Now, perhaps you will address the questions asked 
 previously? I'll list them here for your convenience:
 

 Seriously - Tango's stylistic issues are a big turn-off. Tango
 folk,when you complete your integration with Phobos, please, please
 fix them.


 
 Please suggest an alternate formatting style and explain why it is better.
 
 

 So Tango should really follow convention used by Walter in Phobos.


 
 What if that convention proves insufficient for a library that is much
 larger than Phobos?


It seems to me the burden should be on the Tango developers here, as the 
newcomers, to explain to the world why the Tango convention is better, 
rather than asking everyone else to justify why the pre-existing and 
already established convention is better.

The Tango convention may be better for all I know, but I don't recall 
hearing any compelling arguments in favor of why a change was needed. 
If they were given and I just forgot them, then sorry.  I do recall 
hearing unsubstantiated claims like "we found it was better" or "we 
found the phobos convention to be insufficient" etc, but I don't recall 
any actual good arguments that made me go "hmm ah, yes indeed".  Anyway 
given that this topic continues to come up, it seems it would be a good 
idea to collect all these reasons on a page over at tango.dsource.org.

--bb



 Nov 18 2007



 next sibling parent reply "Kris" <foo bar.com>  writes:


"Bill Baxter" <dnewsgroup billbaxter.com> wrote


 It seems to me the burden should be on the Tango developers here, as the 
 newcomers, to explain to the world why the Tango convention is better, 
 rather than asking everyone else to justify why the pre-existing and 
 already established convention is better.


Newcomers? Tango has been in development for almost 4 years, Bill. As for 
conventions, it is my opinion that Tango doesn't have to justify the choices 
made to anyone at this point. It's water under the bridge, just as the some 
minor stylistic choices in phobos or D are now just water under the bridge. 
As Walter already noted: Tango can use whatever style it wants.

moving along, I believe Sean's two questions (posted much earlier, which I 
repeated on his behalf) were intended to elicit some positive feedback?



 Nov 18 2007



  parent reply Bill Baxter <dnewsgroup billbaxter.com>  writes:


Kris wrote:

 "Bill Baxter" <dnewsgroup billbaxter.com> wrote
 

 It seems to me the burden should be on the Tango developers here, as the 
 newcomers, to explain to the world why the Tango convention is better, 
 rather than asking everyone else to justify why the pre-existing and 
 already established convention is better.


 
 Newcomers? Tango has been in development for almost 4 years, Bill. 


Yes, newcomers.  4 is less than 10.  That makes you newcomers relative 
to phobos and the D style guide Walter has had posted up on 
digitalmars.com that I presume is about as old as phobos.  That's all I 
meant.


 As for 
 conventions, it is my opinion that Tango doesn't have to justify the choices 
 made to anyone at this point. It's water under the bridge, just as the some 
 minor stylistic choices in phobos or D are now just water under the bridge. 
 As Walter already noted: Tango can use whatever style it wants.


Yes, Tango can use whatever style it wants, but obviously some choices 
are better than others.  Nobody here is arguing that RanDoM CaSE for 
module names would be a good thing, for instance.


 moving along, I believe Sean's two questions (posted much earlier, which I 
 repeated on his behalf) were intended to elicit some positive feedback?


Yes.  I do wish certain parties would stick to the issues here.
Elsewhere in this thread some constructive points have been mentioned 
pro and con lowercase module names.  I'll try to summarize without 
injecting any biases:

In favor of lower case module names:
* It's a de-facto standard established by Walter
* OS Case sensitivity (or lack thereof)
* Redundancy in fully qualified names (package.ClassName.ClassName)

In favor of mixed case module names:
* Easier to remember module names when there's a one-to-one 
correspondence with the class name.



--bb



 Nov 18 2007



  parent reply "Kris" <foo bar.com>  writes:


"Bill Baxter" <dnewsgroup billbaxter.com>

 Yes, newcomers.  4 is less than 10.  That makes you newcomers relative to 
 phobos and the D style guide Walter has had posted up on digitalmars.com 
 that I presume is about as old as phobos.  That's all I meant.


Oh that's easy to answer: we understood those to be guidelines only, and 
felt that some minor details would need adjustment for our purposes. I 
recall there was some technical difficulty regarding module names at the 
time, but don't recall the specifics right now.



 As for conventions, it is my opinion that Tango doesn't have to justify 
 the choices made to anyone at this point. It's water under the bridge, 
 just as the some minor stylistic choices in phobos or D are now just 
 water under the bridge. As Walter already noted: Tango can use whatever 
 style it wants.


 Yes, Tango can use whatever style it wants, but obviously some choices are 
 better than others.  Nobody here is arguing that RanDoM CaSE for module 
 names would be a good thing, for instance.


Are you sure about that? :p



 moving along, I believe Sean's two questions (posted much earlier, which 
 I repeated on his behalf) were intended to elicit some positive feedback?


 Yes.  I do wish certain parties would stick to the issues here.
 Elsewhere in this thread some constructive points have been mentioned pro 
 and con lowercase module names.  I'll try to summarize without injecting 
 any biases:


The effort is appreciated Bill, but realistically, Tango is not going to 
change in this manner. As has been noted several times prior, one persons 
stylistic meat is another's stylistic poison. There's no resolving that, and 
we have no wish to attempt to. It's a dilemma, and the kind of religious 
distinction that people would kill each other for in the past (and still do, 
actually).

Certain individuals cannot see past that, and find bitter resentment in the 
use of the shift-key here and there. Yet, the same folks are staying quiet 
about toString() and so on. Let's face it, function/method names are used 
more often than import names for example. So, I feel (a) this issue is daft 
and/or myopic to begin with (b) there's nothing that could be done without 
upsetting the stylistic preferences of others (c) there's little value in 
paying heed to the opinion of those who "refuse" to use a library simply 
because it doesn't adhere to one tiny stylistic notion, which couldn't in 
practice be changed anyway. Better for us to listen to people who are 
willing to be a little flexible.

Cheers;



 Nov 18 2007



 next sibling parent reply Alix Pexton <_a_l_i_x_._p_e_x_t_o_n_ _g_m_a_i_l_._c_o_m_>  writes:


Kris wrote:

 "Bill Baxter" <dnewsgroup billbaxter.com>

 Yes, newcomers.  4 is less than 10.  That makes you newcomers relative to 
 phobos and the D style guide Walter has had posted up on digitalmars.com 
 that I presume is about as old as phobos.  That's all I meant.


 
 Oh that's easy to answer: we understood those to be guidelines only, and 
 felt that some minor details would need adjustment for our purposes. I 
 recall there was some technical difficulty regarding module names at the 
 time, but don't recall the specifics right now.
 
 

 As for conventions, it is my opinion that Tango doesn't have to justify 
 the choices made to anyone at this point. It's water under the bridge, 
 just as the some minor stylistic choices in phobos or D are now just 
 water under the bridge. As Walter already noted: Tango can use whatever 
 style it wants.


 Yes, Tango can use whatever style it wants, but obviously some choices are 
 better than others.  Nobody here is arguing that RanDoM CaSE for module 
 names would be a good thing, for instance.


 
 Are you sure about that? :p
 
 

 moving along, I believe Sean's two questions (posted much earlier, which 
 I repeated on his behalf) were intended to elicit some positive feedback?


 Yes.  I do wish certain parties would stick to the issues here.
 Elsewhere in this thread some constructive points have been mentioned pro 
 and con lowercase module names.  I'll try to summarize without injecting 
 any biases:


 
 The effort is appreciated Bill, but realistically, Tango is not going to 
 change in this manner. As has been noted several times prior, one persons 
 stylistic meat is another's stylistic poison. There's no resolving that, and 
 we have no wish to attempt to. It's a dilemma, and the kind of religious 
 distinction that people would kill each other for in the past (and still do, 
 actually).
 
 Certain individuals cannot see past that, and find bitter resentment in the 
 use of the shift-key here and there. Yet, the same folks are staying quiet 
 about toString() and so on. Let's face it, function/method names are used 
 more often than import names for example. So, I feel (a) this issue is daft 
 and/or myopic to begin with (b) there's nothing that could be done without 
 upsetting the stylistic preferences of others (c) there's little value in 
 paying heed to the opinion of those who "refuse" to use a library simply 
 because it doesn't adhere to one tiny stylistic notion, which couldn't in 
 practice be changed anyway. Better for us to listen to people who are 
 willing to be a little flexible.
 
 Cheers;
 
 


Why aren't you listening? it's not "simply stylistic"!

A...



 Nov 18 2007



  parent reply "Kris" <foo bar.com>  writes:


"Alix Pexton"  wrote in message

 Why aren't you listening? it's not "simply stylistic"!


Then I suggest you hop onto IRC and explain it better, please Alix, because 
I'm honestly not getting your point ,and neither are others :(



 Nov 18 2007



  parent reply Alix Pexton <_a_l_i_x_._p_e_x_t_o_n_ _g_m_a_i_l_._c_o_m_>  writes:


Kris wrote:

 "Alix Pexton"  wrote in message

 Why aren't you listening? it's not "simply stylistic"!


 
 Then I suggest you hop onto IRC and explain it better, please Alix, because 
 I'm honestly not getting your point ,and neither are others :(
 
 


I think it would be better if you just answered your critics concerns openly
here where it is on record.

Time and again you have been invited to explain exactly why you chose to adopt
a new convention, what you believe the benefits are and enter a mature debate
of its merits and flaws, but we hear again and again "sorry, don't get it",
"try irc/our forum" and "well, you have a choice", and regretfully perhaps,
personal attacks on the motives of other users.

A...



 Nov 18 2007



  parent reply "Kris" <foo bar.com>  writes:


Er, why don't you give us some examples, Alix? That's what we'd be asking 
you for on IRC.



"Alix Pexton" <_a_l_i_x_._p_e_x_t_o_n_ _g_m_a_i_l_._c_o_m_> wrote in message 
news:fhqs6k$bi2$1 digitalmars.com...

 Kris wrote:

 "Alix Pexton"  wrote in message

 Why aren't you listening? it's not "simply stylistic"!


 Then I suggest you hop onto IRC and explain it better, please Alix, 
 because I'm honestly not getting your point ,and neither are others :(


 I think it would be better if you just answered your critics concerns 
 openly here where it is on record.

 Time and again you have been invited to explain exactly why you chose to 
 adopt a new convention, what you believe the benefits are and enter a 
 mature debate of its merits and flaws, but we hear again and again "sorry, 
 don't get it", "try irc/our forum" and "well, you have a choice", and 
 regretfully perhaps, personal attacks on the motives of other users.

 A... 





 Nov 18 2007



  parent reply Christopher Wright <dhasenan gmail.com>  writes:


Kris wrote:

 Er, why don't you give us some examples, Alix? That's what we'd be asking 
 you for on IRC.


I'll bite. Why do you use mixedCamelCase for both member variables and 
methods, and the same style for both private and public fields? This is 
a stylistic topic that almost no one touches, probably because Tango 
conventions seem to be lifted wholesale from Java and that's how Java 
does it, but I find it a bit confusing and annoying when I'm reading 
someone else's code.

Just curious.

I would at least prefix private variables with an underscore, if I were 
setting the style. But if I want to muck about with Tango's internals, I 
can suck it up.


 "Alix Pexton" <_a_l_i_x_._p_e_x_t_o_n_ _g_m_a_i_l_._c_o_m_> wrote in message 
 news:fhqs6k$bi2$1 digitalmars.com...

 Kris wrote:

 "Alix Pexton"  wrote in message

 Why aren't you listening? it's not "simply stylistic"!


 Then I suggest you hop onto IRC and explain it better, please Alix, 
 because I'm honestly not getting your point ,and neither are others :(


 I think it would be better if you just answered your critics concerns 
 openly here where it is on record.

 Time and again you have been invited to explain exactly why you chose to 
 adopt a new convention, what you believe the benefits are and enter a 
 mature debate of its merits and flaws, but we hear again and again "sorry, 
 don't get it", "try irc/our forum" and "well, you have a choice", and 
 regretfully perhaps, personal attacks on the motives of other users.

 A... 


 
 





 Nov 19 2007



  parent reply Sean Kelly <sean f4.ca>  writes:


Christopher Wright wrote:

 Kris wrote:

 Er, why don't you give us some examples, Alix? That's what we'd be 
 asking you for on IRC.


 
 I'll bite. Why do you use mixedCamelCase for both member variables and 
 methods, and the same style for both private and public fields?


This is what the D style guide suggests.


 This is
 a stylistic topic that almost no one touches, probably because Tango 
 conventions seem to be lifted wholesale from Java and that's how Java 
 does it, but I find it a bit confusing and annoying when I'm reading 
 someone else's code.


For member variables, I personally prefix the non-public variables with 
"m_" and non-public static member variables with "sm_".


 I would at least prefix private variables with an underscore, if I were 
 setting the style. But if I want to muck about with Tango's internals, I 
 can suck it up.


I avoid leading underscore prefixes because they are reserved for C/C++ 
standard library use.  It's easiest to just avoid this format entirely 
than risk the rare chance of a collision.


Sean



 Nov 19 2007



 next sibling parent  Christopher Wright <dhasenan gmail.com>  writes:


Sean Kelly wrote:

 Christopher Wright wrote:

 Kris wrote:

 Er, why don't you give us some examples, Alix? That's what we'd be 
 asking you for on IRC.


 I'll bite. Why do you use mixedCamelCase for both member variables and 
 methods, and the same style for both private and public fields?


 
 This is what the D style guide suggests.
 
  > This is

 a stylistic topic that almost no one touches, probably because Tango 
 conventions seem to be lifted wholesale from Java and that's how Java 
 does it, but I find it a bit confusing and annoying when I'm reading 
 someone else's code.


 
 For member variables, I personally prefix the non-public variables with 
 "m_" and non-public static member variables with "sm_".
 

 I would at least prefix private variables with an underscore, if I 
 were setting the style. But if I want to muck about with Tango's 
 internals, I can suck it up.


 
 I avoid leading underscore prefixes because they are reserved for C/C++ 
 standard library use.  It's easiest to just avoid this format entirely 
 than risk the rare chance of a collision.
 
 
 Sean


Groovy, thanks.



 Nov 19 2007



prev sibling  parent reply Bill Baxter <dnewsgroup billbaxter.com>  writes:


Sean Kelly wrote:

 Christopher Wright wrote:
  > This is

 a stylistic topic that almost no one touches, probably because Tango 
 conventions seem to be lifted wholesale from Java and that's how Java 
 does it, but I find it a bit confusing and annoying when I'm reading 
 someone else's code.


 
 For member variables, I personally prefix the non-public variables with 
 "m_" and non-public static member variables with "sm_".
 

 I would at least prefix private variables with an underscore, if I 
 were setting the style. But if I want to muck about with Tango's 
 internals, I can suck it up.


 
 I avoid leading underscore prefixes because they are reserved for C/C++ 
 standard library use.  It's easiest to just avoid this format entirely 
 than risk the rare chance of a collision.


I used to be a big 'm_' guy, but I recently started using trailing 
underscores for private members.  Started doing that after porting 
OpenMesh from C++, which uses that convention.  I was amazed at how much 
more readable all the code looked with the garbage characters appended 
as a suffix rather than a prefix.  Apparently this style is used some by 
Boost as well as the ACE library.  Trying to find out where it came from 
I ran across a quote from someone saying (in 2004) that it's "the de 
facto cool kids' C++ style".  :-) 
http://discuss.joelonsoftware.com/default.asp?joel.3.49438.14

I asked the original OpenMesh devs about it and one responded that he 
used to be in typography before computer science, and from what he 
learned doing that about how humans read he could say the suffix version 
is definitely going to be more readable.

Just some food for thought.

--bb



 Nov 19 2007



 next sibling parent reply Robert Fraser <fraserofthenight gmail.com>  writes:


Bill Baxter Wrote:


 Sean Kelly wrote:

 Christopher Wright wrote:
  > This is

 a stylistic topic that almost no one touches, probably because Tango 
 conventions seem to be lifted wholesale from Java and that's how Java 
 does it, but I find it a bit confusing and annoying when I'm reading 
 someone else's code.


 
 For member variables, I personally prefix the non-public variables with 
 "m_" and non-public static member variables with "sm_".
 

 I would at least prefix private variables with an underscore, if I 
 were setting the style. But if I want to muck about with Tango's 
 internals, I can suck it up.


 
 I avoid leading underscore prefixes because they are reserved for C/C++ 
 standard library use.  It's easiest to just avoid this format entirely 
 than risk the rare chance of a collision.


 
 I used to be a big 'm_' guy, but I recently started using trailing 
 underscores for private members.  Started doing that after porting 
 OpenMesh from C++, which uses that convention.  I was amazed at how much 
 more readable all the code looked with the garbage characters appended 
 as a suffix rather than a prefix.  Apparently this style is used some by 
 Boost as well as the ACE library.  Trying to find out where it came from 
 I ran across a quote from someone saying (in 2004) that it's "the de 
 facto cool kids' C++ style".  :-) 
 http://discuss.joelonsoftware.com/default.asp?joel.3.49438.14
 
 I asked the original OpenMesh devs about it and one responded that he 
 used to be in typography before computer science, and from what he 
 learned doing that about how humans read he could say the suffix version 
 is definitely going to be more readable.
 
 Just some food for thought.
 
 --bb


Why do private members need to be differentiated typographically?



 Nov 19 2007



 next sibling parent  Christopher Wright <dhasenan gmail.com>  writes:


Robert Fraser wrote:

 Bill Baxter Wrote:
 

 Sean Kelly wrote:

 Christopher Wright wrote:
  > This is

 a stylistic topic that almost no one touches, probably because Tango 
 conventions seem to be lifted wholesale from Java and that's how Java 
 does it, but I find it a bit confusing and annoying when I'm reading 
 someone else's code.


 For member variables, I personally prefix the non-public variables with 
 "m_" and non-public static member variables with "sm_".


 I would at least prefix private variables with an underscore, if I 
 were setting the style. But if I want to muck about with Tango's 
 internals, I can suck it up.


 I avoid leading underscore prefixes because they are reserved for C/C++ 
 standard library use.  It's easiest to just avoid this format entirely 
 than risk the rare chance of a collision.


 I used to be a big 'm_' guy, but I recently started using trailing 
 underscores for private members.  Started doing that after porting 
 OpenMesh from C++, which uses that convention.  I was amazed at how much 
 more readable all the code looked with the garbage characters appended 
 as a suffix rather than a prefix.  Apparently this style is used some by 
 Boost as well as the ACE library.  Trying to find out where it came from 
 I ran across a quote from someone saying (in 2004) that it's "the de 
 facto cool kids' C++ style".  :-) 
 http://discuss.joelonsoftware.com/default.asp?joel.3.49438.14

 I asked the original OpenMesh devs about it and one responded that he 
 used to be in typography before computer science, and from what he 
 learned doing that about how humans read he could say the suffix version 
 is definitely going to be more readable.

 Just some food for thought.

 --bb


 
 Why do private members need to be differentiated typographically?


More that they should be differentiated from locals. It's a reminder 
that you should be careful to modify the variable, and it means you 
don't have to read as much or search as much to find the scope of a 
variable.

The extremes are Java and Hungarian notation. Hungarian, from the few 
examples I've seen, tends to be complex and opaque. Java style only 
takes a couple extra seconds to parse, but that's multiplied by the 
number of times you have to read the code. Using a prefix and 
associating it with a simple property is relatively clear and marks out 
those variables.

The question is, does it actually improve readability to any appreciable 
degree?



 Nov 19 2007



prev sibling next sibling parent  Sean Kelly <sean f4.ca>  writes:


Robert Fraser wrote:

 
 Why do private members need to be differentiated typographically?


It can increase the clarity of member functions, as a variable prefix 
avoids the need to place constraints on function parameter names.  Also, 
I find it useful for operations on member data vs. local data to be 
obvious by inspection.  I feel that doing so reduces the chance of bugs 
and improves readability for maintenance.


Sean



 Nov 19 2007



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


Robert Fraser wrote:

 Why do private members need to be differentiated typographically?


I kinda wonder the same thing. Private members are limited in scope, 
and the more limited in scope a name is, the less important it is to 
follow a special naming convention.



 Nov 20 2007



 next sibling parent  Bill Baxter <dnewsgroup billbaxter.com>  writes:


Walter Bright wrote:

 Robert Fraser wrote:

 Why do private members need to be differentiated typographically?


 
 I kinda wonder the same thing. Private members are limited in scope, and 
 the more limited in scope a name is, the less important it is to follow 
 a special naming convention.


Yes they're limited in scope, but that scope can be pretty much an 
entire file.  If the scope of a class is bigger than one or two 
screenfuls, then flagging members can be helpful.  If it's a tiny class 
where you can see the whole thing on one page, then I agree, 
differentiating members from parameters and locals is less useful.

--bb



 Nov 20 2007



prev sibling next sibling parent  Sean Kelly <sean f4.ca>  writes:


Walter Bright wrote:

 Robert Fraser wrote:

 Why do private members need to be differentiated typographically?


 
 I kinda wonder the same thing. Private members are limited in scope, and 
 the more limited in scope a name is, the less important it is to follow 
 a special naming convention.


Class implementations occupy more than one screen's worth of text, while 
functions (typically) do not.  Labeling member data indicates at a 
glance that the data is at class scope and not module or global scope. 
I find that doing so serves as a useful indicator for determining 
function side-effects and indicating whether mutexes and such are 
required.  I label static members separately for the same reason.


Sean



 Nov 20 2007



prev sibling  parent  =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Julio_C=E9sar_Carrascal_Urquijo?=  writes:


Walter Bright wrote:

 Robert Fraser wrote:

 Why do private members need to be differentiated typographically?


 
 I kinda wonder the same thing. Private members are limited in scope, and 
 the more limited in scope a name is, the less important it is to follow 
 a special naming convention.


I'm in the m_ camp but I use it to flag the intent not the scope. I want 
a visual clue when I'm modifying the state of the object because I'm 
terrible at following state changes in my head (Specially with events 
and multi-threading).

For static members I use g_ because they're simply global variables.

Stating the scope is (IMHO) a pretty lame reason to add a prefix. The 
compiler is better at that than I am. It's the same difference between 
Apps Hungarian and Systems Hungarian: One it's quite useful the other is 
just silly.

-- 
Julio César Carrascal Urquijo
http://jcesar.artelogico.com/



 Nov 20 2007



prev sibling next sibling parent reply Sean Kelly <sean f4.ca>  writes:


Bill Baxter wrote:

 
 I used to be a big 'm_' guy, but I recently started using trailing 
 underscores for private members.  Started doing that after porting 
 OpenMesh from C++, which uses that convention.  I was amazed at how much 
 more readable all the code looked with the garbage characters appended 
 as a suffix rather than a prefix.  Apparently this style is used some by 
 Boost as well as the ACE library.  Trying to find out where it came from 
 I ran across a quote from someone saying (in 2004) that it's "the de 
 facto cool kids' C++ style".  :-) 
 http://discuss.joelonsoftware.com/default.asp?joel.3.49438.14
 
 I asked the original OpenMesh devs about it and one responded that he 
 used to be in typography before computer science, and from what he 
 learned doing that about how humans read he could say the suffix version 
 is definitely going to be more readable.


I prefer the "m_" prefix specifically because it is more visible than a 
suffix.  Perhaps I simply haven't spent enough time with the suffix 
form, but I feel that it's easier to miss a trailing underscore.  I am 
also not sure of how I would indicate static member data with a 
suffix... perhaps myVar_M and myVar_SM?


Sean



 Nov 19 2007



  parent  Bill Baxter <dnewsgroup billbaxter.com>  writes:


Sean Kelly wrote:

 Bill Baxter wrote:

 I used to be a big 'm_' guy, but I recently started using trailing 
 underscores for private members.  Started doing that after porting 
 OpenMesh from C++, which uses that convention.  I was amazed at how 
 much more readable all the code looked with the garbage characters 
 appended as a suffix rather than a prefix.  Apparently this style is 
 used some by Boost as well as the ACE library.  Trying to find out 
 where it came from I ran across a quote from someone saying (in 2004) 
 that it's "the de facto cool kids' C++ style".  :-) 
 http://discuss.joelonsoftware.com/default.asp?joel.3.49438.14

 I asked the original OpenMesh devs about it and one responded that he 
 used to be in typography before computer science, and from what he 
 learned doing that about how humans read he could say the suffix 
 version is definitely going to be more readable.


 
 I prefer the "m_" prefix specifically because it is more visible than a 
 suffix.  Perhaps I simply haven't spent enough time with the suffix 
 form, but I feel that it's easier to miss a trailing underscore.  


That's exactly why it's so great.  It feels like you're using regular 
variables instead of ugly hungarian notation, but you still get the 
benefit of the notation when you're confused or trying to figure out 
what's what in a function.


 I am also not sure of how I would indicate static member data with a 
 suffix... perhaps myVar_M and myVar_SM?


I guess.  I used to do the ms_ for static variables but never found 
myself confused over whether a variable was static or not.  So I dropped 
it.  I guess I just don't use static variables enough or do enough 
multithreaded programming for it to be an important distinction.
If I wasn't clear the convention I was talking about is to use "foo_" 
for private member vars.  So if I wanted to annotate statics, I'd 
probably try "_s".

--bb



 Nov 19 2007



prev sibling  parent  Brian Hay <bhay construct3d.com>  writes:


Bill Baxter wrote:

 I used to be a big 'm_' guy, but I recently started using trailing 
 underscores for private members.  Started doing that after porting 
 OpenMesh from C++, which uses that convention.  I was amazed at how much 
 more readable all the code looked with the garbage characters appended 
 as a suffix rather than a prefix.


FWIW I've grown to appreciate the "my" prefix for member variables. 
There's simply nothing more readable and by that I mean that the 
ultimate test of code readability is being able to read it ALOUD and 
have it make perfect sense. Reading "m" or "underscore" or "member" in 
place of the former two just doesn't cut it for me.

:-)



 Nov 19 2007



prev sibling next sibling parent reply Bill Baxter <dnewsgroup billbaxter.com>  writes:


Kris wrote:

 "Bill Baxter" <dnewsgroup billbaxter.com>

 Yes, newcomers.  4 is less than 10.  That makes you newcomers relative to 
 phobos and the D style guide Walter has had posted up on digitalmars.com 
 that I presume is about as old as phobos.  That's all I meant.


 
 Oh that's easy to answer: we understood those to be guidelines only, 


Yes, I agree.  But if the established guidelines work, you might as well 
use them...


 and 
 felt that some minor details would need adjustment for our purposes. I 
 recall there was some technical difficulty regarding module names at the 
 time, but don't recall the specifics right now.


.. and if they don't work out then you should have some good reasons 
why.  I just want to know what those reasons are so I can decide if I 
agree or not.  And I think that's what others are really after too, even 
if they prefix their requests with "You silly tango developers! your 
keyboard was a hamster and your library smells of elderberries!".


 As for conventions, it is my opinion that Tango doesn't have to justify 
 the choices made to anyone at this point. It's water under the bridge, 
 just as the some minor stylistic choices in phobos or D are now just 
 water under the bridge. As Walter already noted: Tango can use whatever 
 style it wants.


 Yes, Tango can use whatever style it wants, but obviously some choices are 
 better than others.  Nobody here is arguing that RanDoM CaSE for module 
 names would be a good thing, for instance.


 
 Are you sure about that? :p


Well maybe downs would be if he were participating. :-)

Personally, I'd really like to see Tango catch on in a big way.  The 
more of a standard it becomes the more pressure there is on Walter to 
make sure DMD integrates with it well, and the less library writers have 
to worry about depending on it in their code.

That being the case, I think every nay-sayer needs to have their 
concerns addressed in a convincing manner.  Saying "we had our reasons 
but I don't recall right now -- and besides your concern is trivial" 
doesn't convince anyone.

Here's another reason to spend some time convincing people to use Tango. 
  My dad is in a much more sales-oriented field than I am and he told me 
one time about how there are different kinds of customers.  Some 
customers walk in and will take anything you try to sell them.  But 
they'll also just as happily go down the street next week to the other 
guy and buy from him instead.  Other customers ask a lot of questions 
and require a lot of hand holding -- they're harder to get an initial 
sale out of, but once you've convinced them, often they're yours for 
life.  They'll even go out of their way to convince *other* people to go 
to your shop, and ignore things like price differences, just because 
you've earned their trust.

So, I think Sean's doing a good job building up that kind of trust for 
Tango.  When I read his posts I think, "ok these guys have thought 
through these things, I see the reasoning, and I kind of agree with it. 
  Hmm, maybe I can trust the other decisions Sean has been a part of as 
well."


 moving along, I believe Sean's two questions (posted much earlier, which 
 I repeated on his behalf) were intended to elicit some positive feedback?


 Yes.  I do wish certain parties would stick to the issues here.
 Elsewhere in this thread some constructive points have been mentioned pro 
 and con lowercase module names.  I'll try to summarize without injecting 
 any biases:


 
 The effort is appreciated Bill, but realistically, Tango is not going to 
 change in this manner. 


That's cute.  You re-post Sean's questions asking for arguments about 
why to change, then when you get an answer you say "actually we don't 
care what you answer, Tango's not changing".

Well, I'd still like to suss out what the best practices are for D 
coding so that we can all use them and recommend them unequivocally and 
with solid reasons to all D coders.  Those practices may precisely be 
the ones used in Tango already.  I hope so.

As has been noted several times prior, one persons

 stylistic meat is another's stylistic poison. 


The point here that you keep ignoring is that there's more involved than 
just style or personal preference.  The tidbit about module/package name 
conflicts that Tom S brings up is another good objective reason for 
using Tango's convention.

--bb



 Nov 18 2007



  parent reply "Kris" <foo bar.com>  writes:


"Bill Baxter" <dnewsgroup billbaxter.com> wrote ...

 felt that some minor details would need adjustment for our purposes. I 
 recall there was some technical difficulty regarding module names at the 
 time, but don't recall the specifics right now.




See the post from h3 ...



 .. and if they don't work out then you should have some good reasons why. 
 I just want to know what those reasons are so I can decide if I agree or 
 not.  And I think that's what others are really after too, even if they 
 prefix their requests with "You silly tango developers! your keyboard was 
 a hamster and your library smells of elderberries!".


Tired of it, Bill. Some people will always latch onto something because 
that's just the way they are.



 Here's another reason to spend some time convincing people to use Tango. 
 My dad is in a much more sales-oriented field than I am and he told me one 
 time about how there are different kinds of customers.  Some customers 
 walk in and will take anything you try to sell them.  But they'll also 
 just as happily go down the street next week to the other guy and buy from 
 him instead.  Other customers ask a lot of questions and require a lot of 
 hand holding -- they're harder to get an initial sale out of, but once 
 you've convinced them, often they're yours for life.  They'll even go out 
 of their way to convince *other* people to go to your shop, and ignore 
 things like price differences, just because you've earned their trust.


There's perhaps also a case where some people are just not worth the 
trouble? Strangely enough, some people would prefer to have no choice, and 
for Tango to die a horrible death. There's little point in trying to reason 
with such people. I'm sure you'd agree?



 So, I think Sean's doing a good job building up that kind of trust for 
 Tango.  When I read his posts I think, "ok these guys have thought through 
 these things, I see the reasoning, and I kind of agree with it. Hmm, maybe 
 I can trust the other decisions Sean has been a part of as well."


Good.



 The effort is appreciated Bill, but realistically, Tango is not going to 
 change in this manner.


 That's cute.  You re-post Sean's questions asking for arguments about why 
 to change, then when you get an answer you say "actually we don't care 
 what you answer, Tango's not changing".


For what is being asked and the reasons given, no. I explained why also (for 
the fourth time), but you chopped that part off :)




 Well, I'd still like to suss out what the best practices are for D coding 
 so that we can all use them and recommend them unequivocally and with 
 solid reasons to all D coders.  Those practices may precisely be the ones 
 used in Tango already.  I hope so.


That's great! I certainly wish you well and would be mor than happy to 
participate. I'm not interested in using Tango as some kind of whipping-boy 
for this exercise though :)




 As has been noted several times prior, one persons

 stylistic meat is another's stylistic poison.


 The point here that you keep ignoring is that there's more involved than 
 just style or personal preference.


Please spell them out so that it's clear?



 The tidbit about module/package name conflicts that Tom S brings up is 
 another good objective reason for using Tango's convention.


That's one of the reasons I noted at the beginning, but didn't recall the 
specifics of.



 Nov 18 2007



  parent reply Bill Baxter <dnewsgroup billbaxter.com>  writes:


Kris wrote:


 Here's another reason to spend some time convincing people to use Tango. 
 My dad is in a much more sales-oriented field than I am and he told me one 
 time about how there are different kinds of customers.  Some customers 
 walk in and will take anything you try to sell them.  But they'll also 
 just as happily go down the street next week to the other guy and buy from 
 him instead.  Other customers ask a lot of questions and require a lot of 
 hand holding -- they're harder to get an initial sale out of, but once 
 you've convinced them, often they're yours for life.  They'll even go out 
 of their way to convince *other* people to go to your shop, and ignore 
 things like price differences, just because you've earned their trust.


 
 There's perhaps also a case where some people are just not worth the 
 trouble? Strangely enough, some people would prefer to have no choice, and 
 for Tango to die a horrible death. There's little point in trying to reason 
 with such people. I'm sure you'd agree?


Yep.  There are those.  But every cogent, well-reasoned argument you 
make in the face of blustering just makes you and Tango look better to 
everyone watching from the sidelines.

--bb



 Nov 18 2007



  parent reply "Kris" <foo bar.com>  writes:


Reply to Bill:

"Bill Baxter" <dnewsgroup billbaxter.com>

Bill, you may not have seen this response to one of your questions? I'd like 
to hear what it is that I'm supposed to be ignoring, so am copying it here 
again:


 The point here that you keep ignoring is that there's more involved than 
 just style or personal preference.


Please spell them out so that it's clear?



 Nov 18 2007



  parent reply Bill Baxter <dnewsgroup billbaxter.com>  writes:


Kris wrote:

 Reply to Bill:
 
 "Bill Baxter" <dnewsgroup billbaxter.com>
 
 Bill, you may not have seen this response to one of your questions? I'd like 
 to hear what it is that I'm supposed to be ignoring, so am copying it here 
 again:
 

 The point here that you keep ignoring is that there's more involved than 
 just style or personal preference.


 
 Please spell them out so that it's clear?
 
 


Look for a thread called "Module naming conventions".
There I tried to list the arguments for and against the two conventions 
that have nothing to do with style or personal preference.

I listed all the arguments that I was able to pick out from the Phango 
thread and solicited for any further arguments if there were any.

--bb



 Nov 18 2007



  parent reply "Kris" <foo bar.com>  writes:


Hrm ... I did look and, apart from some very recent ones from Sean, they 
seem to be style related?



"Bill Baxter" <dnewsgroup billbaxter.com> wrote in message 
news:fhra2o$rbf$1 digitalmars.com...

 Kris wrote:

 Reply to Bill:

 "Bill Baxter" <dnewsgroup billbaxter.com>

 Bill, you may not have seen this response to one of your questions? I'd 
 like to hear what it is that I'm supposed to be ignoring, so am copying 
 it here again:


 The point here that you keep ignoring is that there's more involved than 
 just style or personal preference.


 Please spell them out so that it's clear?


 Look for a thread called "Module naming conventions".
 There I tried to list the arguments for and against the two conventions 
 that have nothing to do with style or personal preference.

 I listed all the arguments that I was able to pick out from the Phango 
 thread and solicited for any further arguments if there were any.

 --bb 





 Nov 18 2007



  parent reply Bill Baxter <dnewsgroup billbaxter.com>  writes:


Kris wrote:

 Hrm ... I did look and, apart from some very recent ones from Sean, they 
 seem to be style related?


So would you like for me to spell it out for you line by line, then?

--bb


 "Bill Baxter" <dnewsgroup billbaxter.com> wrote in message 
 news:fhra2o$rbf$1 digitalmars.com...

 Kris wrote:

 Reply to Bill:

 "Bill Baxter" <dnewsgroup billbaxter.com>

 Bill, you may not have seen this response to one of your questions? I'd 
 like to hear what it is that I'm supposed to be ignoring, so am copying 
 it here again:


 The point here that you keep ignoring is that there's more involved than 
 just style or personal preference.


 Please spell them out so that it's clear?


 Look for a thread called "Module naming conventions".
 There I tried to list the arguments for and against the two conventions 
 that have nothing to do with style or personal preference.

 I listed all the arguments that I was able to pick out from the Phango 
 thread and solicited for any further arguments if there were any.

 --bb 







 Nov 18 2007



  parent reply "Kris" <foo bar.com>  writes:


Please do, Bill. Frankly, I'm tired and weary, and it's entirely possible 
that I've missed something really important. You'd be doing me a favour by 
spelling it out:

- Kris


"Bill Baxter" <dnewsgroup billbaxter.com> wrote in message 
news:fhrbsb$td7$1 digitalmars.com...

 Kris wrote:

 Hrm ... I did look and, apart from some very recent ones from Sean, they 
 seem to be style related?


 So would you like for me to spell it out for you line by line, then?

 --bb


 "Bill Baxter" <dnewsgroup billbaxter.com> wrote in message 
 news:fhra2o$rbf$1 digitalmars.com...

 Kris wrote:

 Reply to Bill:

 "Bill Baxter" <dnewsgroup billbaxter.com>

 Bill, you may not have seen this response to one of your questions? I'd 
 like to hear what it is that I'm supposed to be ignoring, so am copying 
 it here again:


 The point here that you keep ignoring is that there's more involved 
 than just style or personal preference.


 Please spell them out so that it's clear?


 Look for a thread called "Module naming conventions".
 There I tried to list the arguments for and against the two conventions 
 that have nothing to do with style or personal preference.

 I listed all the arguments that I was able to pick out from the Phango 
 thread and solicited for any further arguments if there were any.

 --bb




 





 Nov 18 2007



  parent reply Bill Baxter <dnewsgroup billbaxter.com>  writes:


Kris wrote:

 Please do, Bill. Frankly, I'm tired and weary, and it's entirely possible 
 that I've missed something really important. You'd be doing me a favour by 
 spelling it out:
 
 - Kris


Ok.  Will do.  Maybe part of what you're not getting is that I'm trying 
to be impartial here.  I want the lowercase defenders to spell out their 
arguments just as much as I want Tango folks to.  I made the list, so 
that everyone could see the actual arguments side by side, stripped of 
rhetoric and judge for themselves which convention makes the most sense 
for D.  I tried to characterize both sides best I could.

--bb


 
 
 "Bill Baxter" <dnewsgroup billbaxter.com> wrote in message 
 news:fhrbsb$td7$1 digitalmars.com...

 Kris wrote:

 Hrm ... I did look and, apart from some very recent ones from Sean, they 
 seem to be style related?


 So would you like for me to spell it out for you line by line, then?

 --bb


 "Bill Baxter" <dnewsgroup billbaxter.com> wrote in message 
 news:fhra2o$rbf$1 digitalmars.com...

 Kris wrote:

 Reply to Bill:

 "Bill Baxter" <dnewsgroup billbaxter.com>

 Bill, you may not have seen this response to one of your questions? I'd 
 like to hear what it is that I'm supposed to be ignoring, so am copying 
 it here again:


 The point here that you keep ignoring is that there's more involved 
 than just style or personal preference.


 Please spell them out so that it's clear?


 Look for a thread called "Module naming conventions".
 There I tried to list the arguments for and against the two conventions 
 that have nothing to do with style or personal preference.

 I listed all the arguments that I was able to pick out from the Phango 
 thread and solicited for any further arguments if there were any.

 --bb






 
 





 Nov 18 2007



  parent  "Kris" <foo bar.com>  writes:


Thanks! I see your list, Bill, and I'll just keep my opinion to myself. 
After all, you're just trying to figure out the right style for you, as you 
had noted earlier.

- Kris


"Bill Baxter" <dnewsgroup billbaxter.com> wrote in message 
news:fhrdfv$vfh$1 digitalmars.com...

 Kris wrote:

 Please do, Bill. Frankly, I'm tired and weary, and it's entirely possible 
 that I've missed something really important. You'd be doing me a favour 
 by spelling it out:

 - Kris


 Ok.  Will do. 





 Nov 18 2007



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


Kris wrote:

 "Bill Baxter" <dnewsgroup billbaxter.com>

 Yes, newcomers.  4 is less than 10.  That makes you newcomers relative to 
 phobos and the D style guide Walter has had posted up on digitalmars.com 
 that I presume is about as old as phobos.  That's all I meant.


 
 Oh that's easy to answer: we understood those to be guidelines only, and 
 felt that some minor details would need adjustment for our purposes. I 
 recall there was some technical difficulty regarding module names at the 
 time, but don't recall the specifics right now.
 
 

 As for conventions, it is my opinion that Tango doesn't have to justify 
 the choices made to anyone at this point. It's water under the bridge, 
 just as the some minor stylistic choices in phobos or D are now just 
 water under the bridge. As Walter already noted: Tango can use whatever 
 style it wants.


 Yes, Tango can use whatever style it wants, but obviously some choices are 
 better than others.  Nobody here is arguing that RanDoM CaSE for module 
 names would be a good thing, for instance.


 
 Are you sure about that? :p
 
 

 moving along, I believe Sean's two questions (posted much earlier, which 
 I repeated on his behalf) were intended to elicit some positive feedback?


 Yes.  I do wish certain parties would stick to the issues here.
 Elsewhere in this thread some constructive points have been mentioned pro 
 and con lowercase module names.  I'll try to summarize without injecting 
 any biases:


 
 The effort is appreciated Bill, but realistically, Tango is not going to 
 change in this manner. As has been noted several times prior, one persons 
 stylistic meat is another's stylistic poison. There's no resolving that, and 
 we have no wish to attempt to. It's a dilemma, and the kind of religious 
 distinction that people would kill each other for in the past (and still do, 
 actually).
 
 Certain individuals cannot see past that, and find bitter resentment in the 
 use of the shift-key here and there. Yet, the same folks are staying quiet 
 about toString() and so on. Let's face it, function/method names are used 
 more often than import names for example. So, I feel (a) this issue is daft 
 and/or myopic to begin with (b) there's nothing that could be done without 
 upsetting the stylistic preferences of others (c) there's little value in 
 paying heed to the opinion of those who "refuse" to use a library simply 
 because it doesn't adhere to one tiny stylistic notion, which couldn't in 
 practice be changed anyway. Better for us to listen to people who are 
 willing to be a little flexible.
 
 Cheers;


Kris -
I think there's a legitimate concern here which you've been ignoring. It would 
be helpful to give some background as to why Tango uses the conventions it
does. 
And my guess is that the primary reason Tango uses the conventions it does, is 
that you have a Java background!

Ultimately, I suspect that the underlying conflict arises because Tango has 
heavy Java influence, whereas Phobos is mostly modelled on the C standard
library.

Incidentally, one stylistic change between Phobos and Tango which hasn't been 
mentioned, is that Phobos uses a flat structure (except for a couple of things 
like std.c.windows.windows!). IMHO, the flat structure is decidedly inferior.

As Andrei said before, D can expect a flood of refugees from C++ over the next 
couple of years. To be hospitable to them, we need to recognize that they'll be 
suffering from culture shock. This doesn't necessarily mean that Tango needs to 
change anything, but a more sympathetic attitude is really important. The major 
stumbling blocks deserve a little explanation.

-Don.



 Nov 19 2007



 next sibling parent reply "Kris" <foo bar.com>  writes:


"Don Clugston" <dac nospam.com.au> wrote in message


 Kris -
 I think there's a legitimate concern here which you've been ignoring. It 
 would be helpful to give some background as to why Tango uses the 
 conventions it does. And my guess is that the primary reason Tango uses 
 the conventions it does, is that you have a Java background!


Sure I'm familiar with Java, Don. But I'm also familiar with Simula, Pascal, 

being more than a tad superficial :)

Now I'm interested: where did you get that notion from, Don? Perhaps because 
I used it as an example at the conference? 



 Nov 19 2007



 next sibling parent  Regan Heath <regan netmail.co.nz>  writes:


Kris wrote:

 "Don Clugston" <dac nospam.com.au> wrote in message
 

 Kris -
 I think there's a legitimate concern here which you've been ignoring. It 
 would be helpful to give some background as to why Tango uses the 
 conventions it does. And my guess is that the primary reason Tango uses 
 the conventions it does, is that you have a Java background!


 
 Sure I'm familiar with Java, Don. But I'm also familiar with Simula, Pascal, 

 being more than a tad superficial :)
 
 Now I'm interested: where did you get that notion from, Don? Perhaps because 
 I used it as an example at the conference? 


You may recall I made the same assumption a few years back until you put 
me right :)

I think it's the (what I would call) heavy use of classes and 
interfaces, a very OO style if you will, which to my mind (and I may be 
strange) says "Java" to me.  In actual fact C++ code can be written in 
the same fashion but it can also be written in what I would call a "C 
with classes" style.

It's hard to put ones finger on the reasons but that is the impression I 
got and it seems Don had the same impression so there must be something 
to it... even if that something is that both of us had the same weird 
and random thought.

Regan



 Nov 19 2007



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


Kris wrote:

 "Don Clugston" <dac nospam.com.au> wrote in message
 

 Kris -
 I think there's a legitimate concern here which you've been ignoring. It 
 would be helpful to give some background as to why Tango uses the 
 conventions it does. And my guess is that the primary reason Tango uses 
 the conventions it does, is that you have a Java background!


 
 Sure I'm familiar with Java, Don. But I'm also familiar with Simula, Pascal, 

 being more than a tad superficial :)


Perhaps it's not Java at all, but rather "curly brace languages other than 
C/C++". For a C++ programmer, the Tango style looks very foreign, and (to me, a 
non-Java programmer) feels like Java. And the Phobos style feels much more
familiar.

(and similarly foreign).

This isn't a criticism in any way (as an expat, I spend most of my life feeling 
foreign!), just an observation. Most of the unfavourable comments about the 
Tango style seem to be coming from C++ programmers, and I think it's related to 
what they (we) are used to.


 Now I'm interested: where did you get that notion from, Don? Perhaps because 
 I used it as an example at the conference? 


Long before that. You've mentioned Java a fair bit over the years. I remember 
that you didn't come from C++, anyway.



 Nov 19 2007



 next sibling parent  Lars Ivar Igesund <larsivar igesund.net>  writes:


Don Clugston wrote:


 Kris wrote:

 "Don Clugston" <dac nospam.com.au> wrote in message
 

 Kris -
 I think there's a legitimate concern here which you've been ignoring. It
 would be helpful to give some background as to why Tango uses the
 conventions it does. And my guess is that the primary reason Tango uses
 the conventions it does, is that you have a Java background!


 
 Sure I'm familiar with Java, Don. But I'm also familiar with Simula,

 background is being more than a tad superficial :)


 
 Perhaps it's not Java at all, but rather "curly brace languages other than
 C/C++". For a C++ programmer, the Tango style looks very foreign, and (to
 me, a non-Java programmer) feels like Java. And the Phobos style feels

 looks similar to Java (and similarly foreign).
 
 This isn't a criticism in any way (as an expat, I spend most of my life
 feeling foreign!), just an observation. Most of the unfavourable comments
 about the Tango style seem to be coming from C++ programmers, and I think
 it's related to what they (we) are used to.


I used to be a C++ programmer, and based on the styles I used then (not
invented by me, btw), would end up very close to what Tango has now.

-- 
Lars Ivar Igesund
blog at http://larsivi.net
DSource, #d.tango & #D: larsivi
Dancing the Tango



 Nov 19 2007



prev sibling next sibling parent  "Kris" <foo bar.com>  writes:


"Don Clugston" <dac nospam.com.au> wrote ...

 Kris wrote:

 "Don Clugston" <dac nospam.com.au> wrote in message


 Kris -
 I think there's a legitimate concern here which you've been ignoring. It 
 would be helpful to give some background as to why Tango uses the 
 conventions it does. And my guess is that the primary reason Tango uses 
 the conventions it does, is that you have a Java background!


 Sure I'm familiar with Java, Don. But I'm also familiar with Simula, 

 background is being more than a tad superficial :)


 Perhaps it's not Java at all, but rather "curly brace languages other than 
 C/C++". For a C++ programmer, the Tango style looks very foreign, and (to 
 me, a non-Java programmer) feels like Java. And the Phobos style feels 
 much more familiar.

 Java (and similarly foreign).


FWIW, I have written mountains of C, so it's not at all unfamiliar to me. At 
the time I'd encourage people to write structs of pointers to encapsulate 
library functionality, and place those structs within other in order to gain 
some better degree of maintainability in very large systems (for 15 years. 
Actually more than that, but who's counting). It worked for us.

Anyway, here's the thing: we decided that the style of Tango would have a 
somewhat OO flavour, rather than like a C library. This seems to be a common 
approach with 'modern' libraries so, as I recall, we were quite comfortable 
making that choice. Perhaps that's the aspect that you're seeing? I don't 
think it's a Java style per se, although the containers do originate there. 
Is it perhaps an OO style distinction?



 This isn't a criticism in any way (as an expat, I spend most of my life 
 feeling foreign!), just an observation. Most of the unfavourable comments 
 about the Tango style seem to be coming from C++ programmers, and I think 
 it's related to what they (we) are used to.


(I'm an expat also, so may be used to "feeling foreign" also)

You may well have a point there. Yet, this thread is not about the fact that 
Tango uses some decorator patterns here or there, or that the I/O system is 
different to C++ (phobos does that also, I expect?). Or that it has a Text 
class, or FilePath, or whatever. It's not about OO at all. Instead, it is 
about module names, of all things. I'd really like to say this is wholly 
relevant to being sympathetic to C++ developers, but it's hard to see the 
connection. Maybe you can help out there?

Let me ask: how does the matter of module names significantly help a C or 
C++ programmer get used to all the differences in D and any D library? I 
would have though any significance would be in the language and library 
design, rather than whether the module names are lowercase, uppercase or 
camelcase? Isn't this a minor stylistic point instead?



 Now I'm interested: where did you get that notion from, Don? Perhaps 
 because I used it as an example at the conference?


 Long before that. You've mentioned Java a fair bit over the years. I 
 remember that you didn't come from C++, anyway.


Ah, well the C++ part is true. It's related to why I've been such a D 
advocate. 



 Nov 19 2007



prev sibling next sibling parent  "Kris" <foo bar.com>  writes:


"Don Clugston" <dac nospam.com.au> wrote in message ...


 Long before that. You've mentioned Java a fair bit over the years. I 
 remember that you didn't come from C++, anyway.


Pardon, Don ... I switched subject lines on you. Replied under "Tango 
Influences" instead, since that seemed to be a more relevent heading. 



 Nov 19 2007



prev sibling next sibling parent  Sean Kelly <sean f4.ca>  writes:


Don Clugston wrote:

 
 This isn't a criticism in any way (as an expat, I spend most of my life 
 feeling foreign!), just an observation. Most of the unfavourable 
 comments about the Tango style seem to be coming from C++ programmers, 
 and I think it's related to what they (we) are used to.


I think this is probably true.  I am a C++ person myself, and required 
some convincing before I accepted the Tango style being discussed.


 Now I'm interested: where did you get that notion from, Don? Perhaps 
 because I used it as an example at the conference? 


 
 Long before that. You've mentioned Java a fair bit over the years. I 
 remember that you didn't come from C++, anyway.


In all honesty, I've always felt Kris has a Java approach as well, and 
have said as much before.  But that may simply be because I have little 
experience with Ada, Simula, etc.


Sean



 Nov 19 2007



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


Don Clugston wrote:

 This isn't a criticism in any way (as an expat, I spend most of my life 
 feeling foreign!), just an observation. Most of the unfavourable 
 comments about the Tango style seem to be coming from C++ programmers, 
 and I think it's related to what they (we) are used to.


I think you've touched on a larger issue. Languages tend to have a look 
and feel, and if a programmer doesn't like a particular language, 
they'll tend to associate those bad feelings with that look and feel.

For example, in the 80's, the big divide was the C camp and the Pascal 
camp. The two groups were distinct, and they argued with each other a 
lot about which was better. Each had a distinct look and feel to their 
language (and their respective derivative languages).

I don't like Pascal. I've deliberately resisted imbuing D with elements 
that resemble Pascal's look and feel, not only because of my own 
preference, but because I know that the C camp does not like Pascal and 
if D adopts a Pascal look, they will be turned off from D. D is 
deliberately designed so that C/C++ users will quickly feel at home with it.



 Nov 19 2007



  parent  Lars Ivar Igesund <larsivar igesund.net>  writes:


Walter Bright wrote:


 Don Clugston wrote:

 This isn't a criticism in any way (as an expat, I spend most of my life
 feeling foreign!), just an observation. Most of the unfavourable
 comments about the Tango style seem to be coming from C++ programmers,
 and I think it's related to what they (we) are used to.


 
 I think you've touched on a larger issue. Languages tend to have a look
 and feel, and if a programmer doesn't like a particular language,
 they'll tend to associate those bad feelings with that look and feel.
 
 For example, in the 80's, the big divide was the C camp and the Pascal
 camp. The two groups were distinct, and they argued with each other a
 lot about which was better. Each had a distinct look and feel to their
 language (and their respective derivative languages).
 
 I don't like Pascal. I've deliberately resisted imbuing D with elements
 that resemble Pascal's look and feel, not only because of my own
 preference, but because I know that the C camp does not like Pascal and
 if D adopts a Pascal look, they will be turned off from D. D is
 deliberately designed so that C/C++ users will quickly feel at home with
 it.


And I have to say again - the C++ libraries I have used all make me more
comfortable with Tango's style than Phobos' style. And they are darn
popular C++ libraries too.

-- 
Lars Ivar Igesund
blog at http://larsivi.net
DSource, #d.tango & #D: larsivi
Dancing the Tango



 Nov 19 2007



prev sibling  parent reply Christopher Wright <dhasenan gmail.com>  writes:


Don Clugston wrote:

 Kris wrote:

 "Bill Baxter" <dnewsgroup billbaxter.com>

 Yes, newcomers.  4 is less than 10.  That makes you newcomers 
 relative to phobos and the D style guide Walter has had posted up on 
 digitalmars.com that I presume is about as old as phobos.  That's all 
 I meant.


 Oh that's easy to answer: we understood those to be guidelines only, 
 and felt that some minor details would need adjustment for our 
 purposes. I recall there was some technical difficulty regarding 
 module names at the time, but don't recall the specifics right now.



 As for conventions, it is my opinion that Tango doesn't have to 
 justify the choices made to anyone at this point. It's water under 
 the bridge, just as the some minor stylistic choices in phobos or D 
 are now just water under the bridge. As Walter already noted: Tango 
 can use whatever style it wants.


 Yes, Tango can use whatever style it wants, but obviously some 
 choices are better than others.  Nobody here is arguing that RanDoM 
 CaSE for module names would be a good thing, for instance.


 Are you sure about that? :p



 moving along, I believe Sean's two questions (posted much earlier, 
 which I repeated on his behalf) were intended to elicit some 
 positive feedback?


 Yes.  I do wish certain parties would stick to the issues here.
 Elsewhere in this thread some constructive points have been mentioned 
 pro and con lowercase module names.  I'll try to summarize without 
 injecting any biases:


 The effort is appreciated Bill, but realistically, Tango is not going 
 to change in this manner. As has been noted several times prior, one 
 persons stylistic meat is another's stylistic poison. There's no 
 resolving that, and we have no wish to attempt to. It's a dilemma, and 
 the kind of religious distinction that people would kill each other 
 for in the past (and still do, actually).

 Certain individuals cannot see past that, and find bitter resentment 
 in the use of the shift-key here and there. Yet, the same folks are 
 staying quiet about toString() and so on. Let's face it, 
 function/method names are used more often than import names for 
 example. So, I feel (a) this issue is daft and/or myopic to begin with 
 (b) there's nothing that could be done without upsetting the stylistic 
 preferences of others (c) there's little value in paying heed to the 
 opinion of those who "refuse" to use a library simply because it 
 doesn't adhere to one tiny stylistic notion, which couldn't in 
 practice be changed anyway. Better for us to listen to people who are 
 willing to be a little flexible.

 Cheers;


 
 Kris -
 I think there's a legitimate concern here which you've been ignoring. It 
 would be helpful to give some background as to why Tango uses the 
 conventions it does. And my guess is that the primary reason Tango uses 
 the conventions it does, is that you have a Java background!
 
 Ultimately, I suspect that the underlying conflict arises because Tango 
 has heavy Java influence, whereas Phobos is mostly modelled on the C 
 standard library.
 
 Incidentally, one stylistic change between Phobos and Tango which hasn't 
 been mentioned, is that Phobos uses a flat structure (except for a 
 couple of things like std.c.windows.windows!). IMHO, the flat structure 
 is decidedly inferior.


Why is that?


from a deep hierarchy to a shallow one -- it's less typing, and we don't 
see any advantages in the deeper structure.

If you point out a reasonable advantage, then I can probably work quicker.

The documentation should be hierarchical or task-oriented, of course, so 
you can find what you're looking for easily. I'm not so certain that 
encountering three nested packages before a module is an advantage in 
itself, even if those packages are well organized (for instance, NOT 
lumping collections in with a whole bunch of random date/time and 
logging stuff -- I think Tango might benefit from dumping all the 
packages under util into the tango package).

You might be able to find the file you're working on more easily with 
deeper structure. It might be a frequent issue when you're working with 
a GUI that doesn't allow you to type a file name to select and open that 
file. That's the best argument I see at the moment.

You've more experience than I, I'm sure, so you probably have good 
arguments in favor of a deeper hierarchy for your code. I'd like to hear 
them. And please, if I go on to argue with you about it, point me to 
this paragraph saying that I'm only looking for information, not a flamewar.


 As Andrei said before, D can expect a flood of refugees from C++ over 
 the next couple of years. To be hospitable to them, we need to recognize 
 that they'll be suffering from culture shock. This doesn't necessarily 
 mean that Tango needs to change anything, but a more sympathetic 
 attitude is really important. The major stumbling blocks deserve a 
 little explanation.
 
 -Don.





 Nov 19 2007



 next sibling parent reply Sean Kelly <sean f4.ca>  writes:


Christopher Wright wrote:

 Don Clugston wrote:

 Incidentally, one stylistic change between Phobos and Tango which 
 hasn't been mentioned, is that Phobos uses a flat structure (except 
 for a couple of things like std.c.windows.windows!). IMHO, the flat 
 structure is decidedly inferior.


 
 Why is that?
 

 from a deep hierarchy to a shallow one -- it's less typing, and we don't 
 see any advantages in the deeper structure.
 
 If you point out a reasonable advantage, then I can probably work quicker.
 
 The documentation should be hierarchical or task-oriented, of course, so 
 you can find what you're looking for easily.


This is why I like deeper hierarchies.  I tend to look at the code 
itself for reference more often than the documentation itself, so it's 
nice to have the code grouped in a manner that matches the documentation.


Sean



 Nov 19 2007



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


Sean Kelly wrote:

 This is why I like deeper hierarchies.  I tend to look at the code 
 itself for reference more often than the documentation itself, so it's 
 nice to have the code grouped in a manner that matches the documentation.


I like flatter ones, probably because I'm too lazy to type out the long 
names.



 Nov 20 2007



prev sibling  parent reply Christopher Wright <dhasenan gmail.com>  writes:


Sean Kelly wrote:

 Christopher Wright wrote:

 Don Clugston wrote:

 Incidentally, one stylistic change between Phobos and Tango which 
 hasn't been mentioned, is that Phobos uses a flat structure (except 
 for a couple of things like std.c.windows.windows!). IMHO, the flat 
 structure is decidedly inferior.


 Why is that?


 from a deep hierarchy to a shallow one -- it's less typing, and we 
 don't see any advantages in the deeper structure.

 If you point out a reasonable advantage, then I can probably work 
 quicker.

 The documentation should be hierarchical or task-oriented, of course, 
 so you can find what you're looking for easily.


 
 This is why I like deeper hierarchies.  I tend to look at the code 
 itself for reference more often than the documentation itself, so it's 
 nice to have the code grouped in a manner that matches the documentation.


One could argue that you just need better documentation.

Also, this hierarchical documentation could be as simple as "if you want 
to accomplish this task, you should look at this module", and then it's 
O(1) to get to the file in the flat structure, not O(log n) as with the 
hierarchical one.

And again, you only have to write a module once, but you read it many 
times. When you're reading it, you know exactly which modules it 
references, so a flat structure is faster.

Also, a documentation hierarchy can be entirely independent of the code 
hierarchy, so you would put your collection documentation in the 
collections folder, not util/collections, so it's more easily 
discovered. Or other things like that, where the structure of your 
packages is not desirable but you can't change it immediately due to 
legacy code.

I don't recall ever having browsed through the source of a library in 
search of some functionality; it's always been a particular module. The 
documentation is where I search first.

I guess I'll be using Tango more when it has a stable D2 release and I 
have a good IDE that can auto-import for me.



 Nov 20 2007



 next sibling parent  Lars Ivar Igesund <larsivar igesund.net>  writes:


Christopher Wright wrote:


 Sean Kelly wrote:

 Christopher Wright wrote:

 Don Clugston wrote:

 Incidentally, one stylistic change between Phobos and Tango which
 hasn't been mentioned, is that Phobos uses a flat structure (except
 for a couple of things like std.c.windows.windows!). IMHO, the flat
 structure is decidedly inferior.


 Why is that?


 from a deep hierarchy to a shallow one -- it's less typing, and we
 don't see any advantages in the deeper structure.

 If you point out a reasonable advantage, then I can probably work
 quicker.

 The documentation should be hierarchical or task-oriented, of course,
 so you can find what you're looking for easily.


 
 This is why I like deeper hierarchies.  I tend to look at the code
 itself for reference more often than the documentation itself, so it's
 nice to have the code grouped in a manner that matches the documentation.





 
 And again, you only have to write a module once, but you read it many
 times. When you're reading it, you know exactly which modules it
 references, so a flat structure is faster.


I think an open source project have it's code browsed very often, and even
modified/mantained regularly - so I do think Sean has a point. As with
everything else, there are many opinions though. I tend to like deep more
than flat, even if I see pros for the flat hierarchy.

-- 
Lars Ivar Igesund
blog at http://larsivi.net
DSource, #d.tango & #D: larsivi
Dancing the Tango



 Nov 20 2007



prev sibling next sibling parent reply Matti Niemenmaa <see_signature for.real.address>  writes:


Christopher Wright wrote:

 Also, this hierarchical documentation could be as simple as "if you want
 to accomplish this task, you should look at this module", and then it's
 O(1) to get to the file in the flat structure, not O(log n) as with the
 hierarchical one.


Ah, but consider the task of finding the right part of the module. :-)

For the flat structure, it's O(l) where l is the length of the file.

For the hierarchical structure, it's O(L + d) where L is the length of the right
file in the hierarchy and d is the depth of the hierarchy.

Taking L as the average length of a file in the hierarchical structure, it's l/n
where n is the total number of modules into which the l-length module has been
split. Thus the hierarchical one is O(l/n + d) where d is O(n), so it comes down
to O(l) versus O(l/n + n), of which the former grows faster.

And of course, you still need to find the documentation first, too... ;-)

-- 
E-mail address: matti.niemenmaa+news, domain is iki (DOT) fi



 Nov 20 2007



 next sibling parent  Sean Kelly <sean f4.ca>  writes:


Matti Niemenmaa wrote:

 Christopher Wright wrote:

 Also, this hierarchical documentation could be as simple as "if you want
 to accomplish this task, you should look at this module", and then it's
 O(1) to get to the file in the flat structure, not O(log n) as with the
 hierarchical one.


 
 Ah, but consider the task of finding the right part of the module. :-)
 
 For the flat structure, it's O(l) where l is the length of the file.
 
 For the hierarchical structure, it's O(L + d) where L is the length of the
right
 file in the hierarchy and d is the depth of the hierarchy.


I just woke up and your math is confusing me :-)  I like two things 
about hierarchical structures: first, logically grouped things are 
typically grouped in a directory, and second, if I have a rough idea 
where to look then I get fewer false hits with grep.  In large code 
bases, this can be a real time-saver.


Sean



 Nov 20 2007



prev sibling  parent reply Christopher Wright <dhasenan gmail.com>  writes:


Matti Niemenmaa wrote:

 Christopher Wright wrote:

 Also, this hierarchical documentation could be as simple as "if you want
 to accomplish this task, you should look at this module", and then it's
 O(1) to get to the file in the flat structure, not O(log n) as with the
 hierarchical one.


 
 Ah, but consider the task of finding the right part of the module. :-)
 
 For the flat structure, it's O(l) where l is the length of the file.
 
 For the hierarchical structure, it's O(L + d) where L is the length of the
right
 file in the hierarchy and d is the depth of the hierarchy.
 
 Taking L as the average length of a file in the hierarchical structure, it's
l/n
 where n is the total number of modules into which the l-length module has been
 split. Thus the hierarchical one is O(l/n + d) where d is O(n), so it comes
down
 to O(l) versus O(l/n + n), of which the former grows faster.


You're saying that having fewer large modules is a direct consequence of 
having a flat structure and having many modules is a direct consequence 
of having a hierarchical structure. I disagree with that.


 And of course, you still need to find the documentation first, too... ;-)
 





 Nov 20 2007



  parent  Matti Niemenmaa <see_signature for.real.address>  writes:


Christopher Wright wrote:

 You're saying that having fewer large modules is a direct consequence of
 having a flat structure and having many modules is a direct consequence
 of having a hierarchical structure. I disagree with that.


You're right, of course. Sorry, don't know where I got that from.

However, I still think the speed of finding a file given that you know where it
is is at least approximately the same. Informally, I find it quicker to browse
through 4 directories and then pick the right file out of 8, than to find the
right file out of 32, for instance. YMMV.

-- 
E-mail address: matti.niemenmaa+news, domain is iki (DOT) fi



 Nov 20 2007



prev sibling  parent  Sean Kelly <sean f4.ca>  writes:


Christopher Wright wrote:

 Sean Kelly wrote:

 Christopher Wright wrote:

 Don Clugston wrote:

 Incidentally, one stylistic change between Phobos and Tango which 
 hasn't been mentioned, is that Phobos uses a flat structure (except 
 for a couple of things like std.c.windows.windows!). IMHO, the flat 
 structure is decidedly inferior.


 Why is that?


 moving from a deep hierarchy to a shallow one -- it's less typing, 
 and we don't see any advantages in the deeper structure.

 If you point out a reasonable advantage, then I can probably work 
 quicker.

 The documentation should be hierarchical or task-oriented, of course, 
 so you can find what you're looking for easily.


 This is why I like deeper hierarchies.  I tend to look at the code 
 itself for reference more often than the documentation itself, so it's 
 nice to have the code grouped in a manner that matches the documentation.


 
 One could argue that you just need better documentation.


Certainly.  But I've come to accept that the existence of any 
documentation at all is a rare thing, and its accuracy is equally rare. 
   Documentation also assumes the documented code is bug-free.


Sean



 Nov 20 2007



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


Christopher Wright wrote:

 Don Clugston wrote:

 Incidentally, one stylistic change between Phobos and Tango which 
 hasn't been mentioned, is that Phobos uses a flat structure (except 
 for a couple of things like std.c.windows.windows!). IMHO, the flat 
 structure is decidedly inferior.


 
 Why is that?
 

 from a deep hierarchy to a shallow one -- it's less typing, and we don't 
 see any advantages in the deeper structure.
 
 If you point out a reasonable advantage, then I can probably work quicker.


Actually, I agree. I advocate shallow heirachies, not deep ones. But a 
completely flat heirarchy is not the same as a shallow one.

I think it's perfectly reasonable to have a fairly large number (say twenty, 
maybe many more) entries on each level.
That gives 20*20*20 = 8000 modules with just a three-level structure.
But 8000 modules in one directory would be insane. Pretty soon, all the good 
names are taken. For the more obscure things, you find yourself wanting to 
include the root name inside the module name. Two examples in Phobos are 
'socketstream' and 'metastrings'. As Phobos expands, it will get worse.

Personally, parts of Tango's structure are a bit too deep for my liking. (I 
don't think frequently used stuff should be more that a couple of levels deep;
I hope I never have to use tango.net.cluster.tina.util.model.IServer; I think 
tango.util.collection.HashMap is way too much to type for something so 
fundamental). But it has room to expand.



 Nov 26 2007



 next sibling parent reply Aarti_pl <aarti interia.pl>  writes:


Don Clugston pisze:

 Personally, parts of Tango's structure are a bit too deep for my liking. 
 (I don't think frequently used stuff should be more that a couple of 
 levels deep;
 I hope I never have to use tango.net.cluster.tina.util.model.IServer; I 
 think tango.util.collection.HashMap is way too much to type for 
 something so fundamental). But it has room to expand.
 


Yup. First one is definitely too deep.

In case of second one I really don't like Java approach of putting 
collections into util package. IMHO collections are too fundamental in 
language for being threated just as part of util. It would be much nicer 
to have:

tango.collection

package instead.

BR
Marcin Kuszczak
(aarti_pl)



 Nov 26 2007



  parent  Aarti_pl <aarti interia.pl>  writes:


Aarti_pl pisze:

 Don Clugston pisze:

 Personally, parts of Tango's structure are a bit too deep for my 
 liking. (I don't think frequently used stuff should be more that a 
 couple of levels deep;
 I hope I never have to use tango.net.cluster.tina.util.model.IServer; 
 I think tango.util.collection.HashMap is way too much to type for 
 something so fundamental). But it has room to expand.


 
 Yup. First one is definitely too deep.
 
 In case of second one I really don't like Java approach of putting 
 collections into util package. IMHO collections are too fundamental in 
 language for being threated just as part of util. It would be much nicer 
 to have:
 
 tango.collection
 
 package instead.
 


And:

tango.util.time --> tango.time
tango.util.Convert --> tango.convert.Convert

(after quick look into tango.util).

Above are too fundamental to exist in util. These are basic concepts in 
every programming language.

BR
Marcin Kuszczak
(aarti_pl)



 Nov 26 2007



prev sibling  parent reply darrylb <noemail example.com>  writes:


Don Clugston Wrote:


 Christopher Wright wrote:

 Don Clugston wrote:

 Incidentally, one stylistic change between Phobos and Tango which 
 hasn't been mentioned, is that Phobos uses a flat structure (except 
 for a couple of things like std.c.windows.windows!). IMHO, the flat 
 structure is decidedly inferior.


 
 Why is that?
 

 from a deep hierarchy to a shallow one -- it's less typing, and we don't 
 see any advantages in the deeper structure.
 
 If you point out a reasonable advantage, then I can probably work quicker.


 
 Actually, I agree. I advocate shallow heirachies, not deep ones. But a 
 completely flat heirarchy is not the same as a shallow one.
 
 Personally, parts of Tango's structure are a bit too deep for my liking. (I 
 don't think frequently used stuff should be more that a couple of levels deep;


Ok, I usually just lurk and sit back and eat popcorn while reading the flames
her e but I just had to comment...

Are you serious? You're worried about typing out a few extra characters in your
import? Seriously, how much extra time is typing out maybe 10-20 characters
going to cost you, as compared to say, writing the actual code for the module?

I'm not meaning to pick here but.. this just seems so inconsequential as to not
even be worthy of mentioning.

If a slightly deeper structure leads to all sorts of benefits (logical
separation, better segmentation of generated documentation, future-proofing
expansion, etc) I really don't mind the extra 5 seconds to type out a bit more
at the top of a module that I'll probably be working on for _much_ longer. Less
typing? Sure, but the act of physically pressing keys and getting characters on
the screen is _not_ the 'work' of the programmer... and 'tango.HashMap' versus
'tango.util.stuff.otherthings.collections.HashMap' .. who cares, as long as it
works. After you're finished the 'pain' of typing that out once, you can always
cut & paste it into other modules if it's that big of a deal :P



 Nov 26 2007



 next sibling parent reply "David Wilson" <dw botanicus.net>  writes:


On 11/26/07, darrylb <noemail example.com> wrote:


 Actually, I agree. I advocate shallow heirachies, not deep ones. But a
 completely flat heirarchy is not the same as a shallow one.

 Personally, parts of Tango's structure are a bit too deep for my liking. (I
 don't think frequently used stuff should be more that a couple of levels deep;





 Are you serious? You're worried about typing out a few extra characters in
your import? Seriously, how much extra time is typing out maybe 10-20
characters going to cost you, as compared to say, writing the actual code for
the module?



 I'm not meaning to pick here but.. this just seems so inconsequential as to
not even be worthy of mentioning.



I doubt this has anything to do with number of characters typed, at
least not in my case. My problem with deep nestings is that I simply
do not remember them. When you have on average a single word per
module ala. Python or Phobos, remembering where a class lives involves
recalling a single english-sounding word, which my brain is
excellently geared for.

There are variations of this theme, but that is basically it. I know
that any filesystem functions in Phobos lives in std.path, std.file,
std.stream, std.stdio. If I had to guess the same about Tango, I might
go searching the docs for words like "conduit" which bare no
resemblance to what I'm actually trying to achieve.

Just suggesting that for some people, this issue has more substance to
it than merely a matter of style.


David.


 If a slightly deeper structure leads to all sorts of benefits (logical
separation, better segmentation of generated documentation, future-proofing
expansion, etc) I really don't mind the extra 5 seconds to type out a bit more
at the top of a module that I'll probably be working on for _much_ longer. Less
typing? Sure, but the act of physically pressing keys and getting characters on
the screen is _not_ the 'work' of the programmer... and 'tango.HashMap' versus
'tango.util.stuff.otherthings.collections.HashMap' .. who cares, as long as it
works. After you're finished the 'pain' of typing that out once, you can always
cut & paste it into other modules if it's that big of a deal :P





 Nov 26 2007



  parent  darrylb <noemail example.com>  writes:


David Wilson Wrote:

 I doubt this has anything to do with number of characters typed, at
 least not in my case. My problem with deep nestings is that I simply
 do not remember them. When you have on average a single word per
 module ala. Python or Phobos, remembering where a class lives involves
 recalling a single english-sounding word, which my brain is
 excellently geared for.
 
 There are variations of this theme, but that is basically it. I know
 that any filesystem functions in Phobos lives in std.path, std.file,
 std.stream, std.stdio. If I had to guess the same about Tango, I might
 go searching the docs for words like "conduit" which bare no
 resemblance to what I'm actually trying to achieve.
 
 Just suggesting that for some people, this issue has more substance to
 it than merely a matter of style.


Ok, I hear what you're saying, but I think it becomes much less relevant as the
library grows. Memorizing a list of 10 items isn't so bad, but when that grows
to 100, or 1000, there needs to be some sort of mechanism in place to make
coherant sense of said items. That's mostly what the module pathing is for. So
that, when you aren't sure exactly what you want, but you know that you need
some sort of X that is itself some sort of Y, that you are likely to find it in
library.Y.X, which you can look in (and look for the documentation in) rather
than some libraryYX module that's mixed in with 900 others.

For smaller libs that you are mostly going to keep in your head, then maybe a
flatter structure would work. But I think it's forward-thinking of a lib that
will become larger to be slighly extended. And the cluster example is very
extreme, for the most part, we're talking about adding one layer, in rare
cases, possibly two. I think that's a very acceptable trade off for being able
to keep some semblance of sanity via logical separations.

I suppose perhaps on another level, this discussion is more akin to, the more
complex things get, the more complex they are. :). The (mildly) extended
structure is in place simply to manage complexity, If it helps there, and the
adversion to typing a few extra characters is only a psychological block to a
solution for a real problem, while I agree that the imaginary issue can
entirely be present (for some more than others), I don't think it should trump
an otherwise fine solution to a very real problem (managing present and future
complexity).

I mean, I don't like dialing area codes for long distance either, but hey, it
sure helps to manage the complexity of phone numbers, and my complaints about
hitting a few extra buttons to call someplace are far outweighed by other
benefits. :). Ok, it's a questionable analogy, but I just thought I'd throw it
in anyway :). I still think 'tango.collection' versus 'tango.util.collection'
is quite nitpicky.



 Nov 26 2007



prev sibling  parent  Oskar Linde <oskar.lindeREM OVEgmail.com>  writes:


darrylb wrote:

 Don Clugston Wrote:
 

 Christopher Wright wrote:

 Don Clugston wrote:

 Incidentally, one stylistic change between Phobos and Tango which 
 hasn't been mentioned, is that Phobos uses a flat structure (except 
 for a couple of things like std.c.windows.windows!). IMHO, the flat 
 structure is decidedly inferior.


 Why is that?


 from a deep hierarchy to a shallow one -- it's less typing, and we don't 
 see any advantages in the deeper structure.

 If you point out a reasonable advantage, then I can probably work quicker.


 Actually, I agree. I advocate shallow heirachies, not deep ones. But a 
 completely flat heirarchy is not the same as a shallow one.

 Personally, parts of Tango's structure are a bit too deep for my liking. (I 
 don't think frequently used stuff should be more that a couple of levels deep;


 
 Ok, I usually just lurk and sit back and eat popcorn while reading the flames
her e but I just had to comment...
 
 Are you serious? You're worried about typing out a few extra characters in
your import? Seriously, how much extra time is typing out maybe 10-20
characters going to cost you, as compared to say, writing the actual code for
the module?
 
 I'm not meaning to pick here but.. this just seems so inconsequential as to
not even be worthy of mentioning.
 
 If a slightly deeper structure leads to all sorts of benefits (logical
separation, better segmentation of generated documentation, future-proofing
expansion, etc) I really don't mind the extra 5 seconds to type out a bit more
at the top of a module that I'll probably be working on for _much_ longer. Less
typing? Sure, but the act of physically pressing keys and getting characters on
the screen is _not_ the 'work' of the programmer... and 'tango.HashMap' versus
'tango.util.stuff.otherthings.collections.HashMap' .. who cares, as long as it
works. After you're finished the 'pain' of typing that out once, you can always
cut & paste it into other modules if it's that big of a deal :P


You are probably 100 % right that for a fully rational person those few 
extra seconds you spend typing a longer module name won't make any 
difference at all in the long run when it comes to productivity, but we 
humans are irrational. I'd say there are at least three more or less 
rational reasons why excessively long names are bad:

First, there is probably a psychological drive to minimize the effort we 
spend on doing things. We seem to have a bias towards overestimating the 
effort required for non-stimulating tasks while often underestimating 
the stimulating ones. Typing out a longer module name will feel like it 
would require much more effort than it actually would. For example, I'm 
betting that the number of uses for delegate literals in D increased 
quite tremendously when the short form (purely syntactical sugar) was 
introduced a while ago -- and that for very irrational reasons.

Secondly, thinking about a longer and more complex name requires greater 
cognitive effort, wasting resources better spent elsewhere. There are 
actually very few things we (or at least I :) ) can keep in mind at the 
same time. Lowering the apparent complexity of something makes it more 
likely to be used.

Thirdly, recalling a deeply nested name is much harder. Short names can 
be recalled as a single unit, while a name such as 
tango.net.cluster.tina.util.model.IServer probably requires several 
recursive memory fetch calls, flushing valuable caches in the process.

:)

-- 
Oskar



 Nov 26 2007



prev sibling  parent reply Sean Kelly <sean f4.ca>  writes:


Bill Baxter wrote:

 
 The Tango convention may be better for all I know, but I don't recall 
 hearing any compelling arguments in favor of why a change was needed. If 
 they were given and I just forgot them, then sorry.  I do recall hearing 
 unsubstantiated claims like "we found it was better" or "we found the 
 phobos convention to be insufficient" etc, but I don't recall any actual 
 good arguments that made me go "hmm ah, yes indeed".  Anyway given that 
 this topic continues to come up, it seems it would be a good idea to 
 collect all these reasons on a page over at tango.dsource.org.


I think some of the reasons may be there already, but the page is broken 
(for me anyway) so I can't tell you where to look.  I'm not sure if it 
helps, but I resisted the idea of CamelCase module names when we began 
working on Tango, possibly because I come from a C/C++ background.  But 
as Tango has grown I've come to appreciate the readability that the 
scheme provides.  For example, many of the module names in Tango are 
multi-word combinations: DeviceConduit, MemoryConduit, EndianProtocol, 
VirtualFolder, etc.  I feel that eliminating the caps in these names 
would render them largely unreadable: deviceconduit, memoryconduit, 
endianprotocol, virtualfolder...  The C/C++ way would be to find some 
abbreviated form instead, but I hesitate to think that such names would 
be more clear.

I suppose one could argue that following the Java approach in Tango 
results in unneeded redundancies, such as the DeviceConduit module 
containing a DeviceConduit class, but again, I would argue that choosing 
an arbitrary name to avoid these redundancies would reduce clarity.  As 
it is, I know that if I want to use a DeviceConduit in my app, I just 
have to import tango.io.DeviceConduit.  There is no need to remember 
that the class actually lives in tango.io.blah instead.

As for capitalization being confusing for people using case-sensitive 
vs. case-insensitive filesystems, I suppose this is a problem I have 
simply never been exposed to.  D is a case-sensitive language, so I 
would expect people using D to not make mistakes regarding 
capitalization, particularly when the capitalization in this case 
follows a simple and established convention (even if that convention 
doesn't match what is in the D style guide).  Has this truly been a problem?

Finally, I'll admit to being a bit baffled about what the big deal is 
anyway.  The C/C++ standard library uses lowercase for /everything/, 
type names included, and I've yet to see someone complain to the various 
committees about this, even when third party libraries for the same 
language follow a different convention.  And things are even worse in 
C++ because the library relies on specifically named typedefs to 
operate, so the convention there is viral by necessity.

Regarding D, Phobos, and Tango, I think the differences between the 
Phobos and the Tango convention are small potatoes.  Import lines may 
look a bit different, but /that's it/.  The only other difference in 
style concerns global objects, of which Tango has perhaps 3-4, all of 
which could be aliased to something else or wrapped in about ten 
seconds.  How can such an issue possibly be enough to discuss so much, 
let alone to use as grounds to reject a library entirely?  Frankly, if 
this is the worst thing that people have to say about Tango then I think 
the project has succeeded beyond my wildest expectations.


Sean



 Nov 18 2007



  parent reply Bill Baxter <dnewsgroup billbaxter.com>  writes:


Sean Kelly wrote:

 Bill Baxter wrote:


Excellent flame-free technical post addressing the issues Sean.  Thanks.


 The Tango convention may be better for all I know, but I don't recall 
 hearing any compelling arguments in favor of why a change was needed. 
 If they were given and I just forgot them, then sorry.  I do recall 
 hearing unsubstantiated claims like "we found it was better" or "we 
 found the phobos convention to be insufficient" etc, but I don't 
 recall any actual good arguments that made me go "hmm ah, yes 
 indeed".  Anyway given that this topic continues to come up, it seems 
 it would be a good idea to collect all these reasons on a page over at 
 tango.dsource.org.


 
 I think some of the reasons may be there already, but the page is broken 
 (for me anyway) so I can't tell you where to look.  I'm not sure if it 
 helps, but I resisted the idea of CamelCase module names when we began 
 working on Tango, possibly because I come from a C/C++ background.  But 
 as Tango has grown I've come to appreciate the readability that the 
 scheme provides.  For example, many of the module names in Tango are 
 multi-word combinations: DeviceConduit, MemoryConduit, EndianProtocol, 
 VirtualFolder, etc.  I feel that eliminating the caps in these names 
 would render them largely unreadable: deviceconduit, memoryconduit, 
 endianprotocol, virtualfolder...  The C/C++ way would be to find some 
 abbreviated form instead, but I hesitate to think that such names would 
 be more clear.


I agree that deviceconduit is atrocious.
But the official C++/STL/Boost way is to use underscores:
    #include <hash_map>
    #include <boost/shared_ptr.hpp>
    etc..

So it could be device_conduit.

But then again as you mention below, in C++/STL/Boost the naming 
convention for files *and* classes *and* methods is lowercase w/ 
underscores.  So you could say the file names are just being consistent 
with the class names.


 I suppose one could argue that following the Java approach in Tango 
 results in unneeded redundancies, such as the DeviceConduit module 
 containing a DeviceConduit class, but again, I would argue that choosing 
 an arbitrary name to avoid these redundancies would reduce clarity.  As 
 it is, I know that if I want to use a DeviceConduit in my app, I just 
 have to import tango.io.DeviceConduit.  There is no need to remember 
 that the class actually lives in tango.io.blah instead.


That does seem useful.  But is that true for every public class?  It may 
be working in Tango, but generally D doesn't really lend itself to 
Java's one-file==one-class.  (because D's only way to achieve 'friends' 
is to put two classes in the same file).  Also in Tango I see you have 
tango.math.Math which doesn't contain any class called "Math".


 As for capitalization being confusing for people using case-sensitive 
 vs. case-insensitive filesystems, I suppose this is a problem I have 
 simply never been exposed to.  D is a case-sensitive language, so I 
 would expect people using D to not make mistakes regarding 
 capitalization, particularly when the capitalization in this case 
 follows a simple and established convention (even if that convention 
 doesn't match what is in the D style guide).  Has this truly been a 
 problem?


Yeh, I don't really understand the fuss either.  I use C++ libraries 
that have mixed case headers all the time on Windows, and the exact same 
issues apply as far as I know.  A lot of big, well-respected libraries 
use this, such as Qt and OpenSceneGraph.  On the other hand wxWidgets 
doesn't.  They use the randomized compression algorithm you speak of to 
make a short name out of a long name.  Oooh I hate that.


 Finally, I'll admit to being a bit baffled about what the big deal is 
 anyway.  The C/C++ standard library uses lowercase for /everything/, 
 type names included, and I've yet to see someone complain to the various 
 committees about this, even when third party libraries for the same 
 language follow a different convention.  And things are even worse in 
 C++ because the library relies on specifically named typedefs to 
 operate, so the convention there is viral by necessity.


I've heard complaining.  I've even been a complainer (before I started 
liking lower_case names :-P).  But I never felt there was any hope in my 
complaints leading to a change.  That's where D and Tango are different. 
  :-)


 Regarding D, Phobos, and Tango, I think the differences between the 
 Phobos and the Tango convention are small potatoes.  Import lines may 
 look a bit different, but /that's it/.  The only other difference in 
 style concerns global objects, of which Tango has perhaps 3-4, all of 
 which could be aliased to something else or wrapped in about ten 
 seconds.  How can such an issue possibly be enough to discuss so much, 
 let alone to use as grounds to reject a library entirely?  Frankly, if 
 this is the worst thing that people have to say about Tango then I think 
 the project has succeeded beyond my wildest expectations.


I agree with you there.  I find that as long as something is consistent, 
you can get used to it, and maybe even like it after you get past your 
initial revulsion.  But I don't actually find Tangos module naming 
disagreeable.  I'd prefer coarser granularity than one-file-one-class, 
but that can be fixed easily with a few public import modules.

I'm more interested in figuring what convention really makes the most 
sense for D overall.  Since what ever it is I'd like to follow it in my 
own libraries too.  I'm not sure what it is yet.  But it doesn't seem to 
me that just using what language X uses turns out so well.  C++ has a 
more flexible mapping of files to namespaces than D, so C++ conventions 
don't work so well.   Java with one-file-per-class and every file named 
after the class doesn't work so well with D where there are legitimate 
reasons to put two major classes in one file (or maybe no classes at 
all).  And there's also the redundancy issue with using the Java naming 
convention.

Here's an example from my porting of OpenMesh from C++ to D.  OpenMesh 
has a class OpenMesh::IO::Options defined in the file 
OpenMesh/Core/IO/Options.hh.  Trying to make as few changes as possible, 
I named the module OpenMesh.Core.IO.Options.  But it's been annoying me 
to no end because "Options" is such a generic name I never want to 
import that into my main namespace.  But I think that as an FQN it's a 
great name, except that the actual class is called ...IO.Options.Options.


--bb



 Nov 18 2007



 next sibling parent reply Sean Kelly <sean f4.ca>  writes:


Bill Baxter wrote:

 Sean Kelly wrote:
 

 I suppose one could argue that following the Java approach in Tango 
 results in unneeded redundancies, such as the DeviceConduit module 
 containing a DeviceConduit class, but again, I would argue that 
 choosing an arbitrary name to avoid these redundancies would reduce 
 clarity.  As it is, I know that if I want to use a DeviceConduit in my 
 app, I just have to import tango.io.DeviceConduit.  There is no need 
 to remember that the class actually lives in tango.io.blah instead.


 
 That does seem useful.  But is that true for every public class?  It may 
 be working in Tango, but generally D doesn't really lend itself to 
 Java's one-file==one-class.  (because D's only way to achieve 'friends' 
 is to put two classes in the same file).  Also in Tango I see you have 
 tango.math.Math which doesn't contain any class called "Math".


It's not true of every module, because as you say, not every module 
contains any classes at all.  But for the classes that do exist in 
Tango, in the vast majority of cases they live in a module of the same 
name.  The most obvious exception being modules with one 'primary' class 
and a number of related classes.  tango.core.Thread, for example, 
contains Thread, ThreadLocal, and ThreadGroup.

I'll admit that I find this correspondence most useful when dealing with 
Tango's IO package however, because it is so heavily modular.  In fact, 
this modularity is the reason there are few aggregate modules.  Tango is 
designed in a manner that largely avoids unused code being linked into 
an application by spreading it across multiple modules.  One may argue 
that block-level linking would mostly solve this problem as well, but it 
currently does not work with D, and things like static data, module 
ctors, etc, would not be omitted even with this feature.


 Finally, I'll admit to being a bit baffled about what the big deal is 
 anyway.  The C/C++ standard library uses lowercase for /everything/, 
 type names included, and I've yet to see someone complain to the 
 various committees about this, even when third party libraries for the 
 same language follow a different convention.  And things are even 
 worse in C++ because the library relies on specifically named typedefs 
 to operate, so the convention there is viral by necessity.


 
 I've heard complaining.  I've even been a complainer (before I started 
 liking lower_case names :-P).  But I never felt there was any hope in my 
 complaints leading to a change.  That's where D and Tango are different. 
  :-)


Touche. :-)


 Regarding D, Phobos, and Tango, I think the differences between the 
 Phobos and the Tango convention are small potatoes.  Import lines may 
 look a bit different, but /that's it/.  The only other difference in 
 style concerns global objects, of which Tango has perhaps 3-4, all of 
 which could be aliased to something else or wrapped in about ten 
 seconds.  How can such an issue possibly be enough to discuss so much, 
 let alone to use as grounds to reject a library entirely?  Frankly, if 
 this is the worst thing that people have to say about Tango then I 
 think the project has succeeded beyond my wildest expectations.


 
 I agree with you there.  I find that as long as something is consistent, 
 you can get used to it, and maybe even like it after you get past your 
 initial revulsion.  But I don't actually find Tangos module naming 
 disagreeable.  I'd prefer coarser granularity than one-file-one-class, 
 but that can be fixed easily with a few public import modules.


In my experience, nearly every project has slightly different demands 
and it is impossible for a single library to exactly meet all of those 
demands.  However, I feel that it is the mark of a good library if it 
can be adapted to every project with little effort, little undesired 
overhead, and by not imposing design restrictions on the application by 
virtue of the library's own design.

Tango is intended to provide a framework and style guide for application 
programming more than to include a tool for every job.  This is the true 
reason for all the interface modules--they allow the user to build upon 
the library in a way which will most likely be portable to other 
applications.  At the same time, Tango avoids hidden costs wherever 
possible.  Almost no memory allocations are performed behind the scenes, 
exceptions are not used as a means of flow control, and so on.  And 
finally, the library is divided into a very granular set of modules to 
allow the user to link only the code she actually intends to use.

However, this aim towards customizability does increase the learning 
curve associated with Tango.  Often it is not obvious just what to 
import to perform simple operations, and it is often necessary to import 
quite a few modules for an average task.  Also, some users find the lack 
of convenience functions somewhat daunting.  These are all areas where 
we are trying to improve Tango, but I personally feel that such an 
effort can only ever be moderately successful.  This is because, as I 
said earlier, every application has slightly different requirements, and 
such convenience functions must necessarily assume a specific set of 
requirements.  So I would expect such functions to be most useful to a 
novice programmer and for one-off projects rather than for 
industrial-grade applications.

Sorry for being so long winded, but this is the basic rationale behind 
Tango's current design.  Given this, I think our greatest challenge is 
probably making the library more accessible to new users.  If you or 
anyone else has suggestions for this or anything else, then please let 
us know either here or in the Tango forums.  I deal almost exclusively 
with rather obscure parts of the library, so I tend to forget about the 
high-level issues people face with Tango.


 Here's an example from my porting of OpenMesh from C++ to D.  OpenMesh 
 has a class OpenMesh::IO::Options defined in the file 
 OpenMesh/Core/IO/Options.hh.  Trying to make as few changes as possible, 
 I named the module OpenMesh.Core.IO.Options.  But it's been annoying me 
 to no end because "Options" is such a generic name I never want to 
 import that into my main namespace.  But I think that as an FQN it's a 
 great name, except that the actual class is called ...IO.Options.Options.


I'll admit that the double name "Options.Options" thing drives me crazy 
sometimes.  But I haven't come up with any language feature to improve 
on that.  So far, I just use selective imports, aliasing, etc, to make 
my code more compact.


Sean



 Nov 18 2007



  parent reply Bill Baxter <dnewsgroup billbaxter.com>  writes:


Sean Kelly wrote:


 However, this aim towards customizability does increase the learning 
 curve associated with Tango.  Often it is not obvious just what to 
 import to perform simple operations, and it is often necessary to import 
 quite a few modules for an average task.  Also, some users find the lack 
 of convenience functions somewhat daunting.  These are all areas where 
 we are trying to improve Tango, but I personally feel that such an 
 effort can only ever be moderately successful.  This is because, as I 
 said earlier, every application has slightly different requirements, and 
 such convenience functions must necessarily assume a specific set of 
 requirements.  So I would expect such functions to be most useful to a 
 novice programmer and for one-off projects rather than for 
 industrial-grade applications.
 
 Sorry for being so long winded, but this is the basic rationale behind 
 Tango's current design.  Given this, I think our greatest challenge is 
 probably making the library more accessible to new users.  If you or 
 anyone else has suggestions for this or anything else, then please let 
 us know either here or in the Tango forums.  I deal almost exclusively 
 with rather obscure parts of the library, so I tend to forget about the 
 high-level issues people face with Tango.



 I'll admit that the double name "Options.Options" thing drives me crazy 
 sometimes.  But I haven't come up with any language feature to improve 
 on that.  So far, I just use selective imports, aliasing, etc, to make 
 my code more compact.


Asking for a feature where class package.Options.Options can be accessed 
as just package.Options seems a decent idea at first -- the same trick 
works for templates after all -- but I don't think it would pan out. 
Other than that I don't see any other obvious language-level changes 
that would fix it.  So maybe we're stuck with Options.Options.

One thing that might help make long package names seem less annoying 
generally would be aliases for packages, or a package "with".

    alias tango.util.collection TUC;
    import TUC.ArrayBag;
    import TUC.LinkSeq;

Or

    with (tango.util.collection) {
       import ArrayBag;
       import LinkSeq;
    }

Or
    import tango.util.collection : ArrayBag, LinkSeq


Given that you _can_ have "Net.d" and "net/" in the same directory, 
thanks to Tango's naming convention, maybe tango could provide some 
coarser granularity imports via up-cased directory names.  So "import 
tango.Net" would give you all the commonly needed net stuff.   "import 
tango.net.Cluster" would give you the important stuff from cluster/*.d

I guess it's not so different from the "all.d"  But I think it has more 
legs than all.d.  With all.d you're pretty much promising that it's 
going to have everything, and it better be everything or people will be 
confused why "import tango.net.all" doesn't really import *everything* 
from tango.net.  If you need variations, you're stuck.  And making a 
convention of other "all"-like modules gets you into a wierd area of 
violating your own style conventions whereby modules should be 
uppercase.   Whereas you could easily have variations with what I'm 
suggesting: "import tango.Net" -- all major tango.net stuff, "import 
tango.NetBase" just the fundamental net stuff without all the subdirs.

Just an idea.  Not sure how much I like it not having used Tango much.

--bb



 Nov 18 2007



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


Bill Baxter wrote:

 Asking for a feature where class package.Options.Options can be accessed 
 as just package.Options seems a decent idea at first -- the same trick 
 works for templates after all -- but I don't think it would pan out. 


You're right, templates do that, but it's a risky feature because it's 
essentially a special case hack. Anytime you do something like that, it 
can have subtle, unintended consequences.

My dislike of it has been one of the motivators for changing the syntax:

template Foo(T)
{
     class Foo
     {
	...
     }
}

has become:

class Foo(T)
{
     ...
}

where the hack is not necessary.



 Nov 19 2007



  parent  Jari-Matti =?ISO-8859-1?Q?M=E4kel=E4?= <jmjmak utu.fi.invalid>  writes:


Walter Bright wrote:


 Bill Baxter wrote:

 Asking for a feature where class package.Options.Options can be accessed
 as just package.Options seems a decent idea at first -- the same trick
 works for templates after all -- but I don't think it would pan out.


 
 You're right, templates do that, but it's a risky feature because it's
 essentially a special case hack. Anytime you do something like that, it
 can have subtle, unintended consequences.
 
 My dislike of it has been one of the motivators for changing the syntax:
 
 template Foo(T)
 {
      class Foo
      {
 ...
      }
 }
 
 has become:
 
 class Foo(T)
 {
      ...
 }
 
 where the hack is not necessary.


You could have made class Foo(T) {} a synonym for anonym template + class
declaration. Still there's the problem that you may sometimes want to
change the nested symbol type based on template parameters so the special
case trick is still needed:

template Sacrifice(int i) {
  static if (i == 666)
    class Virgin {}
  else
    class Goat {}
}

The c++ way would avoid the special case, but I guess the reason for static
if was that it's "easier". What can you do, templates are damn verbose a
language for doing functional stuff.. I personally don't like the static if
since it tends to add redundancy - you need to write the same alias/const
foo = blahblah several times. You could loan syntax from functional
languages, but it might be hard to accommodate to a C-like language.



 Nov 19 2007



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


Bill Baxter wrote:

 Sean Kelly wrote:

 Bill Baxter wrote:


 
 Excellent flame-free technical post addressing the issues Sean.  Thanks.
 

 I suppose one could argue that following the Java approach in Tango 
 results in unneeded redundancies, such as the DeviceConduit module 
 containing a DeviceConduit class, but again, I would argue that 
 choosing an arbitrary name to avoid these redundancies would reduce 
 clarity.  As it is, I know that if I want to use a DeviceConduit in my 
 app, I just have to import tango.io.DeviceConduit.  There is no need 
 to remember that the class actually lives in tango.io.blah instead.


 
 That does seem useful.  But is that true for every public class?  It may 
 be working in Tango, but generally D doesn't really lend itself to 
 Java's one-file==one-class.  (because D's only way to achieve 'friends' 
 is to put two classes in the same file).  Also in Tango I see you have 
 tango.math.Math which doesn't contain any class called "Math".


Quite true -- the fact that D allows free functions means that Java styles are 
not sufficient.
BTW - it used to be called tango.math.Core, the idea being that any library 
could have its basic functions in a file called 'Core.d', but unfortunately 
there were linker issues (can't have two obj files both called core.obj).



 Nov 19 2007



 next sibling parent  Bill Baxter <dnewsgroup billbaxter.com>  writes:


Don Clugston wrote:

 Bill Baxter wrote:

 Sean Kelly wrote:

 Bill Baxter wrote:


 Excellent flame-free technical post addressing the issues Sean.  Thanks.


 I suppose one could argue that following the Java approach in Tango 
 results in unneeded redundancies, such as the DeviceConduit module 
 containing a DeviceConduit class, but again, I would argue that 
 choosing an arbitrary name to avoid these redundancies would reduce 
 clarity.  As it is, I know that if I want to use a DeviceConduit in 
 my app, I just have to import tango.io.DeviceConduit.  There is no 
 need to remember that the class actually lives in tango.io.blah instead.


 That does seem useful.  But is that true for every public class?  It 
 may be working in Tango, but generally D doesn't really lend itself to 
 Java's one-file==one-class.  (because D's only way to achieve 
 'friends' is to put two classes in the same file).  Also in Tango I 
 see you have tango.math.Math which doesn't contain any class called 
 "Math".


 
 Quite true -- the fact that D allows free functions means that Java 
 styles are not sufficient.
 BTW - it used to be called tango.math.Core, the idea being that any 
 library could have its basic functions in a file called 'Core.d', but 
 unfortunately there were linker issues (can't have two obj files both 
 called core.obj).


Oh dang, I've been using dsss for so long now that I had blissfully 
forgotten about that particular D issue.  :-)

--bb



 Nov 19 2007



prev sibling  parent  Sean Kelly <sean f4.ca>  writes:


Don Clugston wrote:

 
 Quite true -- the fact that D allows free functions means that Java 
 styles are not sufficient.
 BTW - it used to be called tango.math.Core, the idea being that any 
 library could have its basic functions in a file called 'Core.d', but 
 unfortunately there were linker issues (can't have two obj files both 
 called core.obj).


Technically, you can, so long as the files are not in the same 
directory.  But I'll grant that the errors can be confusing.  It 
certainly complicated the Ares build process.


Sean



 Nov 19 2007



prev sibling  parent reply Alix Pexton <_a_l_i_x_._p_e_x_t_o_n_ _g_m_a_i_l_._c_o_m_>  writes:


Janice Caron wrote:

 On 11/17/07, Kris <foo bar.com> wrote:

 There's a fair chance the poster below is actually Janice,


 
 Who? What?
 
 Don't insult me.
 
 My opinions - sure - you can insult those. Not a problem there. But
 don't insult /me/. Ad hominem is just downright offensive.


I'll say this here, for want of a better place.

If there were 2 versions of Tango, the current "Offical" version and one like
Janice's that comes closer to my own stylistic preferences, and that all the
fuctionality was the same, only the identifiers changed, I'd use Janice's
version, even if it was a few steps behind in development.

I don't know how many people find the case issue a sticking point, but I do,
and I am reluctant to use a library with such a different style not because it
is ugly in its self, but because it clashes with my own style, making my code
ugly and unreadable.

Keep up the good work Janice!

A...



 Nov 18 2007



 next sibling parent  "Janice Caron" <caron800 googlemail.com>  writes:


On 11/18/07, Alix Pexton <_a_l_i_x_._p_e_x_t_o_n_ _g_m_a_i_l_._c_o_m_> wrote:

 If there were 2 versions of Tango, the current "Offical" version and one like
Janice's


To be honest, I never actually intended to make this version public -
I just wanted it for myself, so that I could use Tango's streams and
collection classes and cryptographic hash functions, without having to
ditch D2.007 or Phobos. So far I've got it working with about half of
the examples that interest me, and it took three or four days, so give
it another week and I'll be done.

But that said, I guess I could let other people see it if they want.
All the original copyright notices are still in there intact so the
original programmers get their due credit. But my version isn't really
"professional". I mean, it's not been tested on Mac or Linux, for a
start. I also don't promise to maintain it, except to make it work
with D2.008+ with the new const syntax.



 Nov 18 2007



prev sibling next sibling parent reply "Janice Caron" <caron800 googlemail.com>  writes:


On 11/18/07, Janice Caron <caron800 googlemail.com> wrote:

 To be honest, I never actually intended to make this version public -
 I just wanted it for myself, so that I could use Tango's streams and
 collection classes and cryptographic hash functions, without having to
 ditch D2.007 or Phobos. So far I've got it working with about half of
 the examples that interest me, and it took three or four days, so give
 it another week and I'll be done.


In fact, to be absolutely clear, I didn't start doing this because I
didn't like the style stuff - I started this because I wanted to use
it. Or at least, bits of it. (without having to give up D2.007 or
Phobos).

I changed the module names /because/ it was just for me. I figured, if
no one else is ever going to see it, who was going to care? Might as
well use a style I like. That's all.

I posted about it here in the spirit of "Ooh this is cool. Look what
you can do".



 Nov 18 2007



  parent  Alix Pexton <_a_l_i_x_._p_e_x_t_o_n_ _g_m_a_i_l_._c_o_m_>  writes:


Janice Caron wrote:

 On 11/18/07, Janice Caron <caron800 googlemail.com> wrote:

 To be honest, I never actually intended to make this version public -
 I just wanted it for myself, so that I could use Tango's streams and
 collection classes and cryptographic hash functions, without having to
 ditch D2.007 or Phobos. So far I've got it working with about half of
 the examples that interest me, and it took three or four days, so give
 it another week and I'll be done.


 
 In fact, to be absolutely clear, I didn't start doing this because I
 didn't like the style stuff - I started this because I wanted to use
 it. Or at least, bits of it. (without having to give up D2.007 or
 Phobos).
 
 I changed the module names /because/ it was just for me. I figured, if
 no one else is ever going to see it, who was going to care? Might as
 well use a style I like. That's all.
 
 I posted about it here in the spirit of "Ooh this is cool. Look what
 you can do".


Regardless of your motivations, I'm sill interested in the results.

A...



 Nov 18 2007



prev sibling next sibling parent  Phango <Phango Phango.com>  writes:


yup - i'd do that too

Alix Pexton Wrote:


 Janice Caron wrote:

 On 11/17/07, Kris <foo bar.com> wrote:

 There's a fair chance the poster below is actually Janice,


 
 Who? What?
 
 Don't insult me.
 
 My opinions - sure - you can insult those. Not a problem there. But
 don't insult /me/. Ad hominem is just downright offensive.


 
 I'll say this here, for want of a better place.
 
 If there were 2 versions of Tango, the current "Offical" version and one like
Janice's that comes closer to my own stylistic preferences, and that all the
fuctionality was the same, only the identifiers changed, I'd use Janice's
version, even if it was a few steps behind in development.
 
 I don't know how many people find the case issue a sticking point, but I do,
and I am reluctant to use a library with such a different style not because it
is ugly in its self, but because it clashes with my own style, making my code
ugly and unreadable.
 
 Keep up the good work Janice!
 
 A...





 Nov 18 2007



prev sibling  parent  Christopher Wright <dhasenan gmail.com>  writes:


Alix Pexton wrote:

 Janice Caron wrote:

 On 11/17/07, Kris <foo bar.com> wrote:

 There's a fair chance the poster below is actually Janice,


 Who? What?

 Don't insult me.

 My opinions - sure - you can insult those. Not a problem there. But
 don't insult /me/. Ad hominem is just downright offensive.


 
 I'll say this here, for want of a better place.
 
 If there were 2 versions of Tango, the current "Offical" version and one 
 like Janice's that comes closer to my own stylistic preferences, and 
 that all the fuctionality was the same, only the identifiers changed, 
 I'd use Janice's version, even if it was a few steps behind in development.


I think it shouldn't be too difficult to arrange an automated system for 
doing that. It could support any number of coding styles. The issue is 
fragmentation: you're using Tango-(phobos style), and I'm using 

compile each others' code.

The solution would be using lots of aliases. To some extent, this can be 
accomplished via some CTFE/mixin-based plating, something like:

string phobosAliases(T)() {
    string ret = "";
    foreach (methodName; __traits(allMembers, T)) {
       ret ~= "alias " ~ methodName ~ " " ~ toPhobosCase(methodName) ~ ";\n"
    }
    return ret;
}

class HashMap {
    ...
    mixin phobosAliases!(HashMap);
}


Well, that would be if phobos didn't use the java style for class 
members. Given that the matter is just module-level variables, the 
aliasing will have to be manual. (And case-insensitive imports would be 



 I don't know how many people find the case issue a sticking point, but I 
 do, and I am reluctant to use a library with such a different style not 
 because it is ugly in its self, but because it clashes with my own 
 style, making my code ugly and unreadable.
 
 Keep up the good work Janice!
 
 A...





 Nov 18 2007



prev sibling  parent reply renoX <renosky free.fr>  writes:


Kris a écrit :

 There's a fair chance the poster below is actually Janice, but just in case 
 there really is someone voicing an honest opinion there, read on ...


Uh? That's my honest opinion: when contributors add new code in a 
project, reusing the same style as the other code is a sign of 
professional/mature programmers (ok, amateurish was too strong sorry)

Linux kernel developers have even made a Perl script to ensure that new 
developers respect their "style"..

The exception is some rare case where the style is truly stupid, in 
which case you should first convince the authors to change their style, 
but here for the module naming, this isn't the case: this change was a 
gratuitous one.

renoX

 
 What many people fail to realize is that software doesn't survive without 
 nurture. In fact, when you forcibly freeze software, it tends to die quite 
 quickly (this is what happened to Simula, for those who follow language 
 history, and it's somewhat relevant here since Simula is perhaps the closest 
 relative to D).
 
 The take-home message is that Tango will continue to develop, grow, improve, 
 mature, in a non-static fashion. If anyone wants to chase that with a 
 redundant copy, that's their folly. Making a copy of Tango functionality is 
 only inviting more work for yourselves, and generating out-of-date 
 functionality for others to operate with. Isn't that obvious?
 
 The recommendation is this: if you'd like something changed within Tango, 
 then request it. We can't always please everyone, but we do manage to make a 
 lot of people happy with the (often real-time) changes we do make. Having 
 said that, requesting sweeping stylistic changes, based purely upon personal 
 preference, is likely to conflict with the personal preference of others. 
 It's very hard to resolve such a dilemma, as I'm sure everyone can 
 understand.
 
 - Kris
 
 
 "phango" <phango phangowant.com> wrote in message 
 news:fhnplh$1cs3$1 digitalmars.com...

 i love that - please release it to us all!
 can't wait to get it for all the reasons you put forth.


 
 





 Nov 18 2007



 next sibling parent reply Lars Ivar Igesund <larsivar igesund.net>  writes:


renoX wrote:


 Kris a écrit :

 There's a fair chance the poster below is actually Janice, but just in
 case there really is someone voicing an honest opinion there, read on ...


 
 Uh? That's my honest opinion: when contributors add new code in a
 project, reusing the same style as the other code is a sign of
 professional/mature programmers (ok, amateurish was too strong sorry)


Indeed, and Tango is quite a different project from Phobos (not counting the
runtime).

-- 
Lars Ivar Igesund
blog at http://larsivi.net
DSource, #d.tango & #D: larsivi
Dancing the Tango



 Nov 18 2007



  parent reply renoX <renosky free.fr>  writes:


Lars Ivar Igesund a écrit :

 renoX wrote:
 

 Kris a écrit :

 There's a fair chance the poster below is actually Janice, but just in
 case there really is someone voicing an honest opinion there, read on ...


 Uh? That's my honest opinion: when contributors add new code in a
 project, reusing the same style as the other code is a sign of
 professional/mature programmers (ok, amateurish was too strong sorry)


 
 Indeed, and Tango is quite a different project from Phobos (not counting the
 runtime).


*Sigh*, would you have a look at the big picture please?

People wants to use both Tango and Phobos, that's why there have been 
complaints of incompatibility between both.

Tango will be made compatible with Phobos in D2.0, that's very nice but 
one step even better than compatibility is coherence.

Phobos is the default standard library, so the true question is not "why 
project XXX should use the same way as Phobos?" but "why project XXX 
didn't use the 'Phobos way'?".

A valid answer could be "this part of Phobos sucks because YYY", that 
would be okay: nobody claimed that Phobos is perfect, just that it is 
the default.

So in this case, why Phobos convention of module naming isn't good enough?
For me, it is.

Regards,
renoX



 Nov 18 2007



 next sibling parent reply Alix Pexton <_a_l_i_x_._p_e_x_t_o_n_ _g_m_a_i_l_._c_o_m_>  writes:


renoX wrote:

 Lars Ivar Igesund a écrit :

 renoX wrote:


 Kris a écrit :

 There's a fair chance the poster below is actually Janice, but just in
 case there really is someone voicing an honest opinion there, read 
 on ...


 Uh? That's my honest opinion: when contributors add new code in a
 project, reusing the same style as the other code is a sign of
 professional/mature programmers (ok, amateurish was too strong sorry)


 Indeed, and Tango is quite a different project from Phobos (not 
 counting the
 runtime).


 
 *Sigh*, would you have a look at the big picture please?
 
 People wants to use both Tango and Phobos, that's why there have been 
 complaints of incompatibility between both.
 
 Tango will be made compatible with Phobos in D2.0, that's very nice but 
 one step even better than compatibility is coherence.
 
 Phobos is the default standard library, so the true question is not "why 
 project XXX should use the same way as Phobos?" but "why project XXX 
 didn't use the 'Phobos way'?".
 
 A valid answer could be "this part of Phobos sucks because YYY", that 
 would be okay: nobody claimed that Phobos is perfect, just that it is 
 the default.
 
 So in this case, why Phobos convention of module naming isn't good enough?
 For me, it is.
 
 Regards,
 renoX
 


I've not used every part of Phobos, and some parts of it do grate a little, but
I do not find it confusing the way that I sometimes do with Tango. I have
notthing at all against the use of CamelCase, but I think that it should be
used in different ways in different places. I just feel that it is bad practice
to have the same naming scheme for modules and classes.

A...



 Nov 18 2007



  parent reply "Janice Caron" <caron800 googlemail.com>  writes:


On 11/18/07, Alix Pexton <_a_l_i_x_._p_e_x_t_o_n_ _g_m_a_i_l_._c_o_m_> wrote:

 I have notthing at all against the use of CamelCase


I thought camel case was when every word /except/ the first was
capitalised (because it's got humps in the middle, no?). likeThis.
Examples are "opCall" and "toString".

If the first word is also capitalised, I believe that's called
titlecase (because that's what book titles do, more or less). Examples
are "BufferedStream" and "DirIterator".

I'm not sure what "Stdout" is. By my reckoning, stdout is two words -
std (short for standard) and out (short for output). So I figure,
camelcase would be "stdOut" and titlecase would be "StdOut". I guess
some folk must just count it as one word.



 Nov 18 2007



  parent reply Alix Pexton <_a_l_i_x_._p_e_x_t_o_n_ _g_m_a_i_l_._c_o_m_>  writes:


Janice Caron wrote:

 On 11/18/07, Alix Pexton <_a_l_i_x_._p_e_x_t_o_n_ _g_m_a_i_l_._c_o_m_> wrote:

 I have notthing at all against the use of CamelCase


 
 I thought camel case was when every word /except/ the first was
 capitalised (because it's got humps in the middle, no?). likeThis.
 Examples are "opCall" and "toString".
 
 If the first word is also capitalised, I believe that's called
 titlecase (because that's what book titles do, more or less). Examples
 are "BufferedStream" and "DirIterator".
 
 I'm not sure what "Stdout" is. By my reckoning, stdout is two words -
 std (short for standard) and out (short for output). So I figure,
 camelcase would be "stdOut" and titlecase would be "StdOut". I guess
 some folk must just count it as one word.


It was my understanding that CamelCase was the catch all term for all
space-eliminating mechanisms that use capitals to denote the beginning of a new
word, whether or not the first word is capitalised.

A...



 Nov 18 2007



  parent reply "Janice Caron" <caron800 googlemail.com>  writes:


On 11/18/07, Alix Pexton <_a_l_i_x_._p_e_x_t_o_n_ _g_m_a_i_l_._c_o_m_> wrote:

 It was my understanding that CamelCase was the catch all term for all
space-eliminating mechanisms that use capitals to denote the beginning of a new
word, whether or not the first word is capitalised.


Hey, according to Wikipedia, you're right! Well, you live and learn. I
stand corrected.



 Nov 18 2007



  parent reply Don Clugston <dac nospam.com.au>  writes:


Janice Caron wrote:

 On 11/18/07, Alix Pexton <_a_l_i_x_._p_e_x_t_o_n_ _g_m_a_i_l_._c_o_m_> wrote:

 It was my understanding that CamelCase was the catch all term for all
space-eliminating mechanisms that use capitals to denote the beginning of a new
word, whether or not the first word is capitalised.


 
 Hey, according to Wikipedia, you're right! Well, you live and learn. I
 stand corrected.


Yes. It's really unfortunate, because it means that CamelCase = union{ 
PascalCase, 
theConventionThatShouldBeCalledCamelCaseButDoesntHaveANameBecauseCamelCa
eIncludesPascalCase 
}.



 Nov 19 2007



  parent reply Robert DaSilva <sp.unit.262+digitalmars gmail.com>  writes:


Don Clugston wrote:

 Janice Caron wrote:

 On 11/18/07, Alix Pexton <_a_l_i_x_._p_e_x_t_o_n_ _g_m_a_i_l_._c_o_m_>
 wrote:

 It was my understanding that CamelCase was the catch all term for all
 space-eliminating mechanisms that use capitals to denote the
 beginning of a new word, whether or not the first word is capitalised.


 Hey, according to Wikipedia, you're right! Well, you live and learn. I
 stand corrected.


 
 Yes. It's really unfortunate, because it means that CamelCase = union{
 PascalCase,
 theConventionThatShouldBeCalledCamelCaseButDoesntHaveANameBecauseCamelCaseIncludesPascalCase
 }.


How about camelCase?



 Nov 19 2007



  parent reply Matti Niemenmaa <see_signature for.real.address>  writes:


Robert DaSilva wrote:

 Don Clugston wrote:

 Janice Caron wrote:

 On 11/18/07, Alix Pexton <_a_l_i_x_._p_e_x_t_o_n_ _g_m_a_i_l_._c_o_m_>
 wrote:

 It was my understanding that CamelCase was the catch all term for all
 space-eliminating mechanisms that use capitals to denote the
 beginning of a new word, whether or not the first word is capitalised.


 Hey, according to Wikipedia, you're right! Well, you live and learn. I
 stand corrected.


 Yes. It's really unfortunate, because it means that CamelCase = union{
 PascalCase,
 theConventionThatShouldBeCalledCamelCaseButDoesntHaveANameBecauseCamelCaseIncludesPascalCase
 }.


 
 How about camelCase?


The terms I've heard and use are lowerCamelCase and UpperCamelCase.

-- 
E-mail address: matti.niemenmaa+news, domain is iki (DOT) fi



 Nov 20 2007



  parent reply Oskar Linde <oskar.lindeREM OVEgmail.com>  writes:


Matti Niemenmaa wrote:

 Robert DaSilva wrote:

 Don Clugston wrote:

 Janice Caron wrote:

 On 11/18/07, Alix Pexton <_a_l_i_x_._p_e_x_t_o_n_ _g_m_a_i_l_._c_o_m_>
 wrote:

 It was my understanding that CamelCase was the catch all term for all
 space-eliminating mechanisms that use capitals to denote the
 beginning of a new word, whether or not the first word is capitalised.


 Hey, according to Wikipedia, you're right! Well, you live and learn. I
 stand corrected.


 Yes. It's really unfortunate, because it means that CamelCase = union{
 PascalCase,
 theConventionThatShouldBeCalledCamelCaseButDoesntHaveANameBecauseCamelCaseIncludesPascalCase
 }.


 How about camelCase?


 
 The terms I've heard and use are lowerCamelCase and UpperCamelCase.


Or CamelCase and dromedarCase :)

-- 
Oskar



 Nov 20 2007



  parent  Matti Niemenmaa <see_signature for.real.address>  writes:


Oskar Linde wrote:

 Matti Niemenmaa wrote:

 Robert DaSilva wrote:

 Don Clugston wrote:

 Janice Caron wrote:

 On 11/18/07, Alix Pexton <_a_l_i_x_._p_e_x_t_o_n_ _g_m_a_i_l_._c_o_m_>
 wrote:

 It was my understanding that CamelCase was the catch all term for all
 space-eliminating mechanisms that use capitals to denote the
 beginning of a new word, whether or not the first word is
 capitalised.


 Hey, according to Wikipedia, you're right! Well, you live and learn. I
 stand corrected.


 Yes. It's really unfortunate, because it means that CamelCase = union{
 PascalCase,
 theConventionThatShouldBeCalledCamelCaseButDoesntHaveANameBecauseCamelCaseIncludesPascalCase

 }.


 How about camelCase?


 The terms I've heard and use are lowerCamelCase and UpperCamelCase.


 
 Or CamelCase and dromedarCase :)


Yes, that's another (although isn't it dromedaryCase?). But I don't like the
term dromedaryCase since if it's gotMoreThanOneHump it's not a dromedary. :-)

-- 
E-mail address: matti.niemenmaa+news, domain is iki (DOT) fi



 Nov 20 2007



prev sibling next sibling parent reply Lars Ivar Igesund <larsivar igesund.net>  writes:


renoX wrote:


 Lars Ivar Igesund a écrit :

 renoX wrote:
 

 Kris a écrit :

 There's a fair chance the poster below is actually Janice, but just in
 case there really is someone voicing an honest opinion there, read on
 ...


 Uh? That's my honest opinion: when contributors add new code in a
 project, reusing the same style as the other code is a sign of
 professional/mature programmers (ok, amateurish was too strong sorry)


 
 Indeed, and Tango is quite a different project from Phobos (not counting
 the runtime).


 
 *Sigh*, would you have a look at the big picture please?
 
 People wants to use both Tango and Phobos, that's why there have been
 complaints of incompatibility between both.
 
 Tango will be made compatible with Phobos in D2.0, that's very nice but
 one step even better than compatibility is coherence.
 
 Phobos is the default standard library, so the true question is not "why
 project XXX should use the same way as Phobos?" but "why project XXX
 didn't use the 'Phobos way'?".
 
 A valid answer could be "this part of Phobos sucks because YYY", that
 would be okay: nobody claimed that Phobos is perfect, just that it is
 the default.
 
 So in this case, why Phobos convention of module naming isn't good enough?
 For me, it is.


I think it was already said, but we think that for any larger project
CamelCase is more readable, something that also apply to module names. I
also think it is a perfectly valid reason to distinguish a module name from
the package it is in.

Also note that (partially in reply to Pexton too) although someone wants to
use both Tango and Phobos in the same project, there isn't any technical
reason to do so beyond possibly some functionality not being present in
both places. This tends to be fixed in Tango if there is a compelling
reason to do so, though.

-- 
Lars Ivar Igesund
blog at http://larsivi.net
DSource, #d.tango & #D: larsivi
Dancing the Tango



 Nov 18 2007



  parent reply Alix Pexton <_a_l_i_x_._p_e_x_t_o_n_ _g_m_a_i_l_._c_o_m_>  writes:


Lars Ivar Igesund wrote:

 renoX wrote:
 

 Lars Ivar Igesund a écrit :

 renoX wrote:


 Kris a écrit :

 There's a fair chance the poster below is actually Janice, but just in
 case there really is someone voicing an honest opinion there, read on
 ...


 Uh? That's my honest opinion: when contributors add new code in a
 project, reusing the same style as the other code is a sign of
 professional/mature programmers (ok, amateurish was too strong sorry)


 Indeed, and Tango is quite a different project from Phobos (not counting
 the runtime).


 *Sigh*, would you have a look at the big picture please?

 People wants to use both Tango and Phobos, that's why there have been
 complaints of incompatibility between both.

 Tango will be made compatible with Phobos in D2.0, that's very nice but
 one step even better than compatibility is coherence.

 Phobos is the default standard library, so the true question is not "why
 project XXX should use the same way as Phobos?" but "why project XXX
 didn't use the 'Phobos way'?".

 A valid answer could be "this part of Phobos sucks because YYY", that
 would be okay: nobody claimed that Phobos is perfect, just that it is
 the default.

 So in this case, why Phobos convention of module naming isn't good enough?
 For me, it is.


 
 I think it was already said, but we think that for any larger project
 CamelCase is more readable, something that also apply to module names. I
 also think it is a perfectly valid reason to distinguish a module name from
 the package it is in.
 
 Also note that (partially in reply to Pexton too) although someone wants to
 use both Tango and Phobos in the same project, there isn't any technical
 reason to do so beyond possibly some functionality not being present in
 both places. This tends to be fixed in Tango if there is a compelling
 reason to do so, though.
 


Firstly, I think it quite rude to refer to me by my surname alone, even if you
are unsure if you are making the correct assumption it would be polite to
prefix Mr.

Secondly, my gripe has nothing to do with using Tango and Phobos together and I
don't know where in what I have written I might have given that impression.

I will give you credit, Tango is very consistent in its style and much of the
code is very elegant, but I believe very strongly that the decision to use
mixed case identifiers for BOTH module names AND classes was a mistake.

All the other issues I have with the layout of the library stem from this, but
it seems that you are an immovable object, and alas I am not an unstoppable
force.

I wish you all the best with your library...

A...



 Nov 18 2007



 next sibling parent  Lars Ivar Igesund <larsivar igesund.net>  writes:


Alix Pexton wrote:


 Lars Ivar Igesund wrote:

 renoX wrote:
 

 Lars Ivar Igesund a écrit :

 renoX wrote:


 Kris a écrit :

 There's a fair chance the poster below is actually Janice, but just
 in case there really is someone voicing an honest opinion there, read
 on ...


 Uh? That's my honest opinion: when contributors add new code in a
 project, reusing the same style as the other code is a sign of
 professional/mature programmers (ok, amateurish was too strong sorry)


 Indeed, and Tango is quite a different project from Phobos (not
 counting the runtime).


 *Sigh*, would you have a look at the big picture please?

 People wants to use both Tango and Phobos, that's why there have been
 complaints of incompatibility between both.

 Tango will be made compatible with Phobos in D2.0, that's very nice but
 one step even better than compatibility is coherence.

 Phobos is the default standard library, so the true question is not "why
 project XXX should use the same way as Phobos?" but "why project XXX
 didn't use the 'Phobos way'?".

 A valid answer could be "this part of Phobos sucks because YYY", that
 would be okay: nobody claimed that Phobos is perfect, just that it is
 the default.

 So in this case, why Phobos convention of module naming isn't good
 enough? For me, it is.


 
 I think it was already said, but we think that for any larger project
 CamelCase is more readable, something that also apply to module names. I
 also think it is a perfectly valid reason to distinguish a module name
 from the package it is in.
 
 Also note that (partially in reply to Pexton too) although someone wants
 to use both Tango and Phobos in the same project, there isn't any
 technical reason to do so beyond possibly some functionality not being
 present in both places. This tends to be fixed in Tango if there is a
 compelling reason to do so, though.
 


 Firstly, I think it quite rude to refer to me by my surname alone, even if
 you are unsure if you are making the correct assumption it would be polite
 to prefix Mr.


Deeply sorry for this Alix, I usually get such things right, and I don't
tend to use mother language as an excuse for such errors. So, sorry again.


 
 Secondly, my gripe has nothing to do with using Tango and Phobos together
 and I don't know where in what I have written I might have given that
 impression.


Right, misinterpreted the section where you said it conflicted with your
style. I took this to mean that you followed Phobos' style, but apparently
it did not.


 
 I will give you credit, Tango is very consistent in its style and much of
 the code is very elegant, but I believe very strongly that the decision to
 use mixed case identifiers for BOTH module names AND classes was a
 mistake.
 
 All the other issues I have with the layout of the library stem from this,
 but it seems that you are an immovable object, and alas I am not an
 unstoppable force.


We're not immovable, we just don't understand the issue :)


 
 I wish you all the best with your library...


Thanks!

-- 
Lars Ivar Igesund
blog at http://larsivi.net
DSource, #d.tango & #D: larsivi
Dancing the Tango



 Nov 18 2007



prev sibling  parent reply "Kris" <foo bar.com>  writes:


"Alix Pexton" <_a_l_i_x_._p_e_x_t_o_n_ _g_m_a_i_l_._c_o_m_>


 I will give you credit, Tango is very consistent in its style and much of 
 the code is very elegant, but I believe very strongly that the decision to 
 use mixed case identifiers for BOTH module names AND classes was a 
 mistake.


Thanks, Alix, for offering an honest perspective. It's a shame that it 
conflicts so much with your personal preferences. However, fwiw, you'd only 
ever see that in the import section at the top of a module, so perhaps it's 
not so bad? You can also use import renaming, or you can group Tango package 
imports into a single wrapper import (which lots of people have already 
asked for). For example, other people have been asking for this:





 All the other issues I have with the layout of the library stem from this, 
 but it seems that you are an immovable object, and alas I am not an 
 unstoppable force.


That's not the case at all. As I've said a couple of times in this thread: 
as much as we might like to, we can't go making sweeping changes to the 
library based upon a personal preference, because such changes would 
inevitably conflict with the personal preference of others. There's no way 
to resolve that dillema. Period. So, it's not that we're immovable at all. 
In fact, we're perhaps 'extremely' open to change, and often turn things 
around in real-time.

Cheers;



 Nov 18 2007



  parent reply Alix Pexton <_a_l_i_x_._p_e_x_t_o_n_ _g_m_a_i_l_._c_o_m_>  writes:


Kris wrote:

 "Alix Pexton" <_a_l_i_x_._p_e_x_t_o_n_ _g_m_a_i_l_._c_o_m_>
 

 I will give you credit, Tango is very consistent in its style and much of 
 the code is very elegant, but I believe very strongly that the decision to 
 use mixed case identifiers for BOTH module names AND classes was a 
 mistake.


 
 Thanks, Alix, for offering an honest perspective. It's a shame that it 
 conflicts so much with your personal preferences. However, fwiw, you'd only 
 ever see that in the import section at the top of a module, so perhaps it's 
 not so bad? You can also use import renaming, or you can group Tango package 
 imports into a single wrapper import (which lots of people have already 
 asked for). For example, other people have been asking for this:
 

 
 

 All the other issues I have with the layout of the library stem from this, 
 but it seems that you are an immovable object, and alas I am not an 
 unstoppable force.


 
 That's not the case at all. As I've said a couple of times in this thread: 
 as much as we might like to, we can't go making sweeping changes to the 
 library based upon a personal preference, because such changes would 
 inevitably conflict with the personal preference of others. There's no way 
 to resolve that dillema. Period. So, it's not that we're immovable at all. 
 In fact, we're perhaps 'extremely' open to change, and often turn things 
 around in real-time.
 
 Cheers;
 
 
 
 


Its not as simple as personal preference, my preferences nor anyone elses are
the issue here.

I'm going to spell this out as carefully as I can even though I am quite tired,
and I thought I had doneso several times already.

As I understand it, your argument for using CamelCase for your module names is
two fold.

1) Importing "tango.Foo" gives one access to the class within "Foo" called "Foo"

2) Using "PenIsland" (where Foo and Bar are real words with real meanings)
instead of "penisland" means the meaning can not be mistaken for "penis land".
(actual website btw)

Now, by far the vast majority of module names that I have encountered outside
of Tango are either abstract or a single word, and DO NOT share the name with
any of the classes inside. This makes it a convention, and one that I believe
has a very good track record for being easy to understand and with good reason.

In D, I know I am importing modules, not individual classes, I expect a module
that I have imported to have in it some related classes and functions, some of
which I might not use and will be pruned by the linker, but that they will all
have names that are unique identifiers.

In Java, I know that I can import whole packages with .* (in which case I must
take care within my own namespace not to shadow in imported class) or I can
import an individual class and get just that class. When I first looked at
Tango I though... "yay, they guys have given me a way of importing individual
classes, albeit via a bit of a messy namespace kludge," but I began to realise
that all was not quite as it seamed.

Sometimes a Tango import brings along a bunch of other classes that I wasn't
expecting, might have been added since I last looked at the library source and
suddenly introduce identifiers that might be in my code. Thanks to D being D,
my code at least does not compile, I hope!

So you see, or I hope you do, that the CamelCase is just the tip of the issue
as I see it, and that mixing up modules that are just modles, modules that are
just classes and modules that are both, can create confusion and introduce
errors.

Maybe its not Tango's fault at all, maybe D is wrong about the correlation
between namespaces, modules and classes and you are just doing the best you can
within the system.

I really don't like having to carefully alias module names and classes so that
free functions and static methods don't look the same or having to be uber
familiar with the source of the library to know which modules contain multiple
classes and which contain none at all.

In another language, your scheme might work fine, and this issue would not crop
up, but this is D. If Walter had, despite his good intentions, implemented D so
that it was more confusing to use than C++, its very unlikely that we'd
discussing this at all. So it alarms me that Tango is promoted as THEE
alternative library when the way it works and the way it is inflexibly
conglomerated is so unlike the language itself.

I know about wrapping and aliasing the imports and all that sort of thing, but
I think you will agree that goes against one of the key principles that sits at
the foundations of "the D mentality". That is, that the easiest way to do
something should be the right way to do it, (or perhaps just conversely, that
the hard way should be the wrong way.) It doesn't matter how politely you ask,
the consumers are not always going to jump through hoops to make their code
readable, and in the end all your suggested solution does is move the problem
to another location, and in some cases actually hide it completely.

On the occasions when I have used Tango, I feel like I am fighting it, where as
Phobos, the Java runtime and maybe 75% of C++ libraries that I have used seem
much more intuitive. Some of the libraries that I have found easiest to use,
actually really sucked once you looked under the hood, but they had got the
packaging right for their respective language.

I'm not a professional developer, or even really more than just a passtime
programmer, but I do know more than my fair share about marketing. I'm not
trying to sell you my opinions, but with current first impression that I get of
Tango, and the attidude that comes across (intended or otherwise) when I and
others offer constructive feed back, I wonder if you actually want people to
use it at all. It's as if you are writing a library simply for the sake of
writing a library, of perhaps out of some sort of selfish passion to be a
creator, expecting the end user to just use it and be thankful. You have given
up all these ours to make the internals reliable and all those other things,
don't you want people to use the damn thing?

I hope that in all my input here I have at least come across as calm and
respectful, but I'm begging to feel that I can only get my point across by
deviating from that demeanor. I don't know what anyone else thinks, but each
time I read a new anouncement or a developer's reply to a Tango related thread,
the first thought that enters my head is "gah, that arogant committee of
fools," but I know that you are not fools when it comes to the inner workings
of your code, only where the way that you present it is concerned. And no I did
not jst call you fools, for even the wisest of people can occasionally do
foolish things, just as experts can make descisions that later make them appear
to be amateurs. Its for this reason that most of the time I read the posts and
not who has posted them, and when the topic is not Tango, why I am not
surprised if I later find out where the smarter comments and suggestions come
from.

Metaphorically speaking, if Tango were a member of your preffered sex, they
would probably be rather attractive, but I think it would be dressed in a flour
sack, but pouting like it was Versace's finest, Ditch either the sack or the
attitude, a shy smile and/or jeans and a tee will get you a lot further.

I realise that this has been a rather rambling explanation of the issues as I
see them, and that perhaps fatigue has tainted my logic with a little anger,
but I only want to help you to realise that the very fastidiousness of the
consistency that you have applied to your module naming scheme is the very
thing that actually makes it inconsistent. And if you change nothing else,
change the attitude with which you arrogantly dismiss the genuine concerns of
people who want D as a whole to be a success.

A...



 Nov 18 2007



  parent  "Kris" <foo bar.com>  writes:


Thanks for your considerable treatment of the subject Alix, but I can't 
agree with you because I haven't yet made /any/ statement about why Tango 
has the style that it does. So, your premise is incorrect to begin with?

Also, you're assigning 'fault' or something to Tango, when in fact Tango has 
no choice in the matter. As to the whole thing about Tango modules importing 
others, that's just how D operates. Tango is actually very careful about 
what it imports: in fact, I've had lengthly and hard debates with people who 
want to mix functionality -- functionality that would cause more imports to 
be needed where they should be discrete instead. I'm /known/ for being 
careful about that, so you're kinda' hitting on the wrong guy here :)

Also, I'm sad to hear you've felt like Tango has been fighting you. That may 
be a stylistic thing also, but I don't know. However, I would strongly 
encourage you to file tickets for such things since that's an important 
concern. Have you done so in the past?

As for the lack of response to feedback: you are so completely wrong. I 
don't even know where to start, but instead I'll suggest that you spend some 
time on IRC, or simply look at the tickets we fix from the userbase. You 
know, maybe you get this idea from the ng? I mean, it seems like the only 
time anyone has anything to say about Tango on the ng is is topics like 
this - none of it particularly constructive, imo. All the action goes on 
over IRC and in dsource. Try it and see?





"Alix Pexton" <_a_l_i_x_._p_e_x_t_o_n_ _g_m_a_i_l_._c_o_m_> wrote in message 
news:fhqnac$60r$1 digitalmars.com...

 Kris wrote:

 "Alix Pexton" <_a_l_i_x_._p_e_x_t_o_n_ _g_m_a_i_l_._c_o_m_>


 I will give you credit, Tango is very consistent in its style and much 
 of the code is very elegant, but I believe very strongly that the 
 decision to use mixed case identifiers for BOTH module names AND classes 
 was a mistake.


 Thanks, Alix, for offering an honest perspective. It's a shame that it 
 conflicts so much with your personal preferences. However, fwiw, you'd 
 only ever see that in the import section at the top of a module, so 
 perhaps it's not so bad? You can also use import renaming, or you can 
 group Tango package imports into a single wrapper import (which lots of 
 people have already asked for). For example, other people have been 
 asking for this:





 All the other issues I have with the layout of the library stem from 
 this, but it seems that you are an immovable object, and alas I am not 
 an unstoppable force.


 That's not the case at all. As I've said a couple of times in this 
 thread: as much as we might like to, we can't go making sweeping changes 
 to the library based upon a personal preference, because such changes 
 would inevitably conflict with the personal preference of others. There's 
 no way to resolve that dillema. Period. So, it's not that we're immovable 
 at all. In fact, we're perhaps 'extremely' open to change, and often turn 
 things around in real-time.

 Cheers;


 Its not as simple as personal preference, my preferences nor anyone elses 
 are the issue here.

 I'm going to spell this out as carefully as I can even though I am quite 
 tired, and I thought I had doneso several times already.

 As I understand it, your argument for using CamelCase for your module 
 names is two fold.

 1) Importing "tango.Foo" gives one access to the class within "Foo" called 
 "Foo"

 2) Using "PenIsland" (where Foo and Bar are real words with real meanings) 
 instead of "penisland" means the meaning can not be mistaken for "penis 
 land". (actual website btw)

 Now, by far the vast majority of module names that I have encountered 
 outside of Tango are either abstract or a single word, and DO NOT share 
 the name with any of the classes inside. This makes it a convention, and 
 one that I believe has a very good track record for being easy to 
 understand and with good reason.

 In D, I know I am importing modules, not individual classes, I expect a 
 module that I have imported to have in it some related classes and 
 functions, some of which I might not use and will be pruned by the linker, 
 but that they will all have names that are unique identifiers.

 In Java, I know that I can import whole packages with .* (in which case I 
 must take care within my own namespace not to shadow in imported class) or 
 I can import an individual class and get just that class. When I first 
 looked at Tango I though... "yay, they guys have given me a way of 
 importing individual classes, albeit via a bit of a messy namespace 
 kludge," but I began to realise that all was not quite as it seamed.

 Sometimes a Tango import brings along a bunch of other classes that I 
 wasn't expecting, might have been added since I last looked at the library 
 source and suddenly introduce identifiers that might be in my code. Thanks 
 to D being D, my code at least does not compile, I hope!

 So you see, or I hope you do, that the CamelCase is just the tip of the 
 issue as I see it, and that mixing up modules that are just modles, 
 modules that are just classes and modules that are both, can create 
 confusion and introduce errors.

 Maybe its not Tango's fault at all, maybe D is wrong about the correlation 
 between namespaces, modules and classes and you are just doing the best 
 you can within the system.

 I really don't like having to carefully alias module names and classes so 
 that free functions and static methods don't look the same or having to be 
 uber familiar with the source of the library to know which modules contain 
 multiple classes and which contain none at all.

 In another language, your scheme might work fine, and this issue would not 
 crop up, but this is D. If Walter had, despite his good intentions, 
 implemented D so that it was more confusing to use than C++, its very 
 unlikely that we'd discussing this at all. So it alarms me that Tango is 
 promoted as THEE alternative library when the way it works and the way it 
 is inflexibly conglomerated is so unlike the language itself.

 I know about wrapping and aliasing the imports and all that sort of thing, 
 but I think you will agree that goes against one of the key principles 
 that sits at the foundations of "the D mentality". That is, that the 
 easiest way to do something should be the right way to do it, (or perhaps 
 just conversely, that the hard way should be the wrong way.) It doesn't 
 matter how politely you ask, the consumers are not always going to jump 
 through hoops to make their code readable, and in the end all your 
 suggested solution does is move the problem to another location, and in 
 some cases actually hide it completely.

 On the occasions when I have used Tango, I feel like I am fighting it, 
 where as Phobos, the Java runtime and maybe 75% of C++ libraries that I 
 have used seem much more intuitive. Some of the libraries that I have 
 found easiest to use, actually really sucked once you looked under the 
 hood, but they had got the packaging right for their respective language.

 I'm not a professional developer, or even really more than just a passtime 
 programmer, but I do know more than my fair share about marketing. I'm not 
 trying to sell you my opinions, but with current first impression that I 
 get of Tango, and the attidude that comes across (intended or otherwise) 
 when I and others offer constructive feed back, I wonder if you actually 
 want people to use it at all. It's as if you are writing a library simply 
 for the sake of writing a library, of perhaps out of some sort of selfish 
 passion to be a creator, expecting the end user to just use it and be 
 thankful. You have given up all these ours to make the internals reliable 
 and all those other things, don't you want people to use the damn thing?

 I hope that in all my input here I have at least come across as calm and 
 respectful, but I'm begging to feel that I can only get my point across by 
 deviating from that demeanor. I don't know what anyone else thinks, but 
 each time I read a new anouncement or a developer's reply to a Tango 
 related thread, the first thought that enters my head is "gah, that 
 arogant committee of fools," but I know that you are not fools when it 
 comes to the inner workings of your code, only where the way that you 
 present it is concerned. And no I did not jst call you fools, for even the 
 wisest of people can occasionally do foolish things, just as experts can 
 make descisions that later make them appear to be amateurs. Its for this 
 reason that most of the time I read the posts and not who has posted them, 
 and when the topic is not Tango, why I am not surprised if I later find 
 out where the smarter comments and suggestions come from.

 Metaphorically speaking, if Tango were a member of your preffered sex, 
 they would probably be rather attractive, but I think it would be dressed 
 in a flour sack, but pouting like it was Versace's finest, Ditch either 
 the sack or the attitude, a shy smile and/or jeans and a tee will get you 
 a lot further.

 I realise that this has been a rather rambling explanation of the issues 
 as I see them, and that perhaps fatigue has tainted my logic with a little 
 anger, but I only want to help you to realise that the very fastidiousness 
 of the consistency that you have applied to your module naming scheme is 
 the very thing that actually makes it inconsistent. And if you change 
 nothing else, change the attitude with which you arrogantly dismiss the 
 genuine concerns of people who want D as a whole to be a success.

 A... 





 Nov 18 2007



prev sibling  parent  "Kris" <foo bar.com>  writes:


"renoX" <renosky free.fr> wrote in message 
news:fhpacc$jg3$1 digitalmars.com...



 So in this case, why Phobos convention of module naming isn't good enough?
 For me, it is.


I suggest you try to answer sean's questions early on in this thread? That 
might be helpful?



 Nov 18 2007



prev sibling  parent reply "Kris" <foo bar.com>  writes:


"renoX" <renosky free.fr> wrote


 when contributors add new code in a project, reusing the same style as the 
 other code is a sign of professional/mature programmers (ok, amateurish 
 was too strong sorry)


Sure, RenoX. I agree completely. But the thing is, Tango was never intended 
to be a contribution to any other library. It is not a part of phobos. In 
fact, phobos is currently being reworked to have parts of Tango instead. So 
your point simply doesn't apply. You see the distinction? The outcome is 
that you're calling people "amateurish" and so on for no valid reason 
whatsoever.

So what is Tango? Why does it exist? This is my perspective only, so take it 
for what it is:

Tango is designed to be a complete, robust, cohesive, mature and rational 

perhaps currently weaker in others. The goal of Tango has always been to 
help D get in the door of the commercial sector and, as such, it is surely a 
blessing for D? I mean, there's a /lot/ of work in there. And, regardless of 
your stylistic preferences over module names, it is a damn fine example of 
both solid D code and what this community is capable of when focused. It is 
a community effort after all. If you consider yourself to be a D enthusiast, 
then you perhaps ought to be thanking all those Tango folks for all their 
hard work instead of pissing on the communal kitchen floor :p

I mean, there's no kickback for the Tango folks on this. It's not like the 
Tango folks will somehow retire off it (lol). Instead, there's a lot of 
altruism involved (you'd perhaps be shocked at the number of man-hours 
involved in Tango - I think it was calculated as ten man-years recently). 
Think about it. Yet, here we are bitching about minor stylistic issues 
instead. It's refreshing to hear an honest opinion from Alix (apparently a 
Tango detractor), about the coherency, clarity and quality of the code in 
Tango, because that is actually what /should/ be important. The library 
stands as much as an example of how to use D as anything else. It's free, 
it's innovative, and it includes some exemplary code from many of the best 
minds involved in this community. Look at the list of folks in the Tango 
contributor page, and you'll see what I mean.

Basically, if you don't like Tango because it doesn't jive with your notion 
of style, that's fine.You really don't have to use it. If you don't like 
Tango because of some reason that we can remedy, then please hook up on IRC, 
or write a ticket or whatever. You'll find that the Tango folks are usually 
incredibly responsive ... even when their spouses would much rather  the 
damn computer was switched off.  If you're one of the many, many people who 
use already Tango, thanks for all the tickets you've been writing :)

- Kris



 Nov 18 2007



  parent reply "David B. Held" <dheld codelogicconsulting.com>  writes:


Kris wrote:

 "renoX" <renosky free.fr> wrote
 

 when contributors add new code in a project, reusing the same style as the 
 other code is a sign of professional/mature programmers (ok, amateurish 
 was too strong sorry)


 
 Sure, RenoX. I agree completely. But the thing is, Tango was never intended 
 to be a contribution to any other library. It is not a part of phobos. In 
 fact, phobos is currently being reworked to have parts of Tango instead. So 
 your point simply doesn't apply. You see the distinction? The outcome is 
 that you're calling people "amateurish" and so on for no valid reason 
 whatsoever.
 [...]


I think it's always worthwhile to look back on the work of others who 
have gone before.  If I were to compare Tango to anything, I would 
compare it to Boost.  In some ways, that is appropriate, and others, it 
is very generous.  Like Tango, Boost was intended as a free, 
open-source, community-contributed library designed to improve the 
language community for which it was created.  Unlike Tango, when Boost 
had to choose a naming convention, guess what they did?  They said: 
"Ultimately, we have the ambition for this code to end up in the 
standard library.  Thus, it must look like the standard library *now*." 
  What they *didn't* say is: "Our code is so good, when the standard 
library includes it, it just better put up or shut up, yo!"

Now, the folks who started Boost were no small fry.  They weren't garage 
programmers fresh out of high school with a keyboard and a CRT and a ton 
of attitude.  They were world-class, respected programmers with decades 
of experience and enough clout and political capital to say: "We're 
going to do things differently and we're right".  But they didn't.  They 
stuck with the established, standard C++ conventions, and that alone 
lends additional legitimacy to the effort.

This is not to say that Tango made the wrong choice, or that camelCase 
is evil (I go both ways on the issue).  However, the conceit that Tango 
is independent of Phobos, and that Phobos is borrowing from it, so it 
just has to put up or shut up is a very different reaction and attitude 
from Boost "lending" libraries to standard C++.

One thing you learn very quickly when participating in the Boost 
community is that these people take C++ very seriously.  If your library 
doesn't take into account every minute detail of the language, you are 
virtually guaranteed that some expert somewhere in the world is going to 
point this out and make a big deal about it.  At first, it seems petty 
and overbearing.  But after a while, you see that the scrutiny is a 
trial by fire, and that reviewed libraries themselves gain extra 
credibility by taking into account the criticisms and feedback of what 
are truly world-class experts (and sometimes you can't tell the experts 
from the non-experts, but usually that doesn't matter because the truth 
has a way of bubbling up rather quickly).

What you especially learn is that there are definite best practices in 
the C++ community, and if you deviate from those, you had better have an 
excellent reason.  Conformity is King.  Your code had better *look* like 
Boost code, regardless of its quality otherwise.  Your documentation had 
better *look* like Boost documentation if you want to be taken 
seriously.  You had better have a full set of regression tests using the 
Boost.Test framework so your library will show up properly in the full 
regression results.  Miss any of these details, or try to be an 
"innovator", and you risk having your library rejected.  This isn't high 
school.  This is conformity with a purpose.

When a Boost reviewer says: "I think you choose a poor name for this 
function.  Please explain why you made that choice or try this suggested 
name instead", the author does not say: "Hey, jump on my IRC channel and 
we can discuss it."  That would be considered..."unprofessional"...to 
put it politely.  At work, when people have problems with some tools, 
the tool authors say: "Well, just file a bug report on our forums." 
Unfortunately, that says: "I can't be bothered to file a bug report on 
your behalf, even though you spelled out the details in an email." 
That's not to say that IRC is a bad communications medium; merely that 
it has a certain barrier to entry (not everyone has an IRC client 
installed by default, or would know how to use one).

At the end of the day, a Boost library author has to *defend* the 
library under review for it to be accepted.  Even though the author is 
the one contributing free work, it is ultimately the clients who get to 
decide whether it meets the bar of quality.  At no point would a Boost 
library author get away with saying: "No, you tell *me* why you think 
it's wrong.  My library rocks.  Capisce?"  Rather, the reality is that 
authors are more likely to run to the standard and quote chapter and 
verse to demonstrate that they made the right choice.  The onus is on 
the library writer to show that the library is well-designed.

As Alex mentioned, it's about selling.  Whether you like your customers 
or hate them, they are your customers, and will ultimately influence 
your success, even if they do nothing but elicit your unsavory side. 
The D community is not the Boost community, and has a long way to go to 
reach that level of experience (because D is a much younger language, to 
be sure).  But that doesn't mean we can't get a head start and take the 
language and its users as seriously as if there were a million D 
programmers in the world, with users in major Fortune 500 companies, and 
that most of them read the D forums as religiously as c.l.c++.m. 
Reputations take a very long time to build, but are quite easily 
destroyed, and often by oneself (ask James Watson about that).

Dave



 Nov 18 2007



 next sibling parent reply "Kris" <foo bar.com>  writes:


"David B. Held" <dheld codelogicconsulting.com> wrote in message 
news:fhr0at$g5a$1 digitalmars.com...

 Kris wrote:

 "renoX" <renosky free.fr> wrote


 when contributors add new code in a project, reusing the same style as 
 the other code is a sign of professional/mature programmers (ok, 
 amateurish was too strong sorry)


 Sure, RenoX. I agree completely. But the thing is, Tango was never 
 intended to be a contribution to any other library. It is not a part of 
 phobos. In fact, phobos is currently being reworked to have parts of 
 Tango instead. So your point simply doesn't apply. You see the 
 distinction? The outcome is that you're calling people "amateurish" and 
 so on for no valid reason whatsoever.
 [...]


 I think it's always worthwhile to look back on the work of others who have 
 gone before.  If I were to compare Tango to anything, I would compare it 
 to Boost.  In some ways, that is appropriate, and others, it is very 
 generous.  Like Tango, Boost was intended as a free, open-source, 
 community-contributed library designed to improve the language community 
 for which it was created.  Unlike Tango, when Boost had to choose a naming 
 convention, guess what they did?  They said: "Ultimately, we have the 
 ambition for this code to end up in the standard library.  Thus, it must 
 look like the standard library *now*." What they *didn't* say is: "Our 
 code is so good, when the standard library includes it, it just better put 
 up or shut up, yo!"


Appreciate the insights, Dave, and respect your opinion.  However, you're 
assuming Tango was designed to be included in phobos, and that is not the 
case. You're also ignoring a number of important factors. For example, Tango 
will likely change toUtf8 -> toString in order to satisfy certain 
compatability desires. That wouldn't happen with the "put up or shuttup" 
notion you discuss. Thus, your premise appears based on something 
non-factual and perhaps does not apply here? 



 Nov 18 2007



  parent  Alix Pexton <_a_l_i_x_._p_e_x_t_o_n_ _g_m_a_i_l_._c_o_m_>  writes:


Kris wrote:

 "David B. Held" <dheld codelogicconsulting.com> wrote in message 
 news:fhr0at$g5a$1 digitalmars.com...

 Kris wrote:

 "renoX" <renosky free.fr> wrote


 when contributors add new code in a project, reusing the same style as 
 the other code is a sign of professional/mature programmers (ok, 
 amateurish was too strong sorry)


 Sure, RenoX. I agree completely. But the thing is, Tango was never 
 intended to be a contribution to any other library. It is not a part of 
 phobos. In fact, phobos is currently being reworked to have parts of 
 Tango instead. So your point simply doesn't apply. You see the 
 distinction? The outcome is that you're calling people "amateurish" and 
 so on for no valid reason whatsoever.
 [...]


 I think it's always worthwhile to look back on the work of others who have 
 gone before.  If I were to compare Tango to anything, I would compare it 
 to Boost.  In some ways, that is appropriate, and others, it is very 
 generous.  Like Tango, Boost was intended as a free, open-source, 
 community-contributed library designed to improve the language community 
 for which it was created.  Unlike Tango, when Boost had to choose a naming 
 convention, guess what they did?  They said: "Ultimately, we have the 
 ambition for this code to end up in the standard library.  Thus, it must 
 look like the standard library *now*." What they *didn't* say is: "Our 
 code is so good, when the standard library includes it, it just better put 
 up or shut up, yo!"


 
 Appreciate the insights, Dave, and respect your opinion.  However, you're 
 assuming Tango was designed to be included in phobos, and that is not the 
 case. You're also ignoring a number of important factors. For example, Tango 
 will likely change toUtf8 -> toString in order to satisfy certain 
 compatability desires. That wouldn't happen with the "put up or shuttup" 
 notion you discuss. Thus, your premise appears based on something 
 non-factual and perhaps does not apply here? 
 
 


Well, I went on IRC, through a sleepy haze I think I managed to get my concers
somewhere closer to understood. I still think IRC is an appaling medium for
debate, things can so get lost in the interrruption of another user joining the
channel and too many people talking at once can cause more confussion than
CamelCase module names, but for the time being my inner devil's advocate is
sated.

However...

Tango definately still needs to go on a marketing course...

A...



 Nov 18 2007



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


David B. Held wrote:
...

The Boost libraries are obviously an example of high quality design and 
development process. To be fair, I want to make some remarks about your 
analogy:

The C++ standard library is more than conventions and functionality, it 
is a highly coherent suite of concepts. This is very different from 
Phobos. Boost is compatible with the C++ standard library in a way that 
Tango could never be, even if it was a goal from the beginning which it 
isn't.

About the development process: Kris does have a record - on this 
newsgroup - of caring highly about the D language, and so do other Tango 
developers. I don't see how Tango is under review here, but I can 
confirm that when it is, or when you make tickets, posts, whatever, the 
responses are highly welcoming.



 Nov 19 2007



prev sibling  parent  Sean Kelly <sean f4.ca>  writes:


Jason House wrote:

 Sean Kelly Wrote:

 D 1.0 is in maintenance mode now, so Phobos 1.0 isn't likely to change 
 much, if at all.  D 2.0 is obviously still in flux, and Phobos 2.0 has 
 already incorporated some of Tango's changes.  It is uncertain what the 
 final result of the merge will be for D 2.0, but from a code perspective 
 it is more likely that Phobos 2.0 will end up effectively using the 
 Tango runtime than vice-versa.  This is because everyone seems to agree 
 that the Tango runtime is a bit more robust.


 
 I translate that to mean that the merge of Tango and Phobos relies on the
Phobos developers to do the work.  Is Phobos being actively matured?  My
previous impression is that Walter was doing both that and compiler
internals... with most time dedicated to the latter.  


Andrei and Brad Roberts are working on Phobos 2.0 in various capacities. 
  Andrei is focusing on user-level changes, while Brad is looking at the 
runtime.  So Phobos is still being actively matured, though likely not 
as quickly as Tango.


 Is there a timeline when 2.0 versions of phobos and tango will be compatible? 
How will the pieces be partitioned?  Will tango be released with new dmd
versions?  Will both libraries adopt the same style (naming conventions,
capitalization, etc...)?


All still yet to be decided, I'm afraid.


Sean



 Nov 16 2007