On Tue, Nov 7, 2017 at 12:18 PM, Félix Fischer via swift-evolution < swift-evolution@swift.org> wrote:
> Hmm. I kind of like the idea, but not really. I think it has a fundamental > flaw: centralization. > > You see, the StdLib can be commanded by a central authority (the core > team) and hear the needs of the general community (through swift-evolution > and such) because, among other things, it’s small. The StdLib solves common > and well-understood problems. Most of the solutions it provides are optimal > for all use cases. > > This is fundamentally different from a non-StdLib. If I understood your > idea correctly, it would be the complement of StdLib; it will be big and it > will attend problems that are not well-understood or whose solutions have > many differrying approaches depending on the users’ neccessities (think > Geometry). Therefore, a correct and complete approach would inevitably have > to: > - Know the needs of all the relevant user groups and balance their > priorities. > - Contain all the important and complementary solutions. > > This is very hard to achieve in a centralized system. Not impossible, but > very resource-intensive. > > You can achieve something similar by letting the community grow and by > encouraging a good environment. People will the build the tools they need, > and the important voices will index the tools people use the most. That > makes them good, as well as easily findable. It’s not perfect either, but > it’s more efficient in my opinion. > > — Félix Fischer > People tend to build the tools they need, but not what other people need. And there are many many examples from other languages of what can go wrong when non-standard libraries compete. As for important voices indexing the tools people use the most, I don’t see that happening.
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