OpenEuphoria

Re: Garbage Collection (Real Features)

• Posted by "Juergen Luethje" <j.lue at gmx.de> Jun 29, 2005
• 453 views

Gordon Webster wrote:

[Vincent's suggestions]

> Some of the suggested features are obviously things
> that are part of the core language and only RDS could
> implement. Some of them however are things that the
> Eu community could implement for themselves.
>
> Obvious examples are routines that remove or insert
> an element from/to a specified position in a sequence.
>
> I would echo the concerns of one of the other respondents
> to this post, about keeping the core language clean.
> I personally like Euphoria because I don't need to read
> a 900+ page manual to learn the language. At the same time
> however, it would be great to have HashMaps, Sets, and
> other kinds of cool collections available in Euphoria.
> But the core language can easily be kept clean by expanding
> the runtime library (a la Python or Java).
>
> Here's my suggestion ...
>
> Why not create a "community model" runtime library,
> steered by some of the elders on this list?
>
> Include the best user submissions in it and have
> a "release fast, release often" model for its evolution.
> The "community" runtime library wouldn't be that different
> from the EuForum archive, except that some standardization
> could be applied so that there would some continuity for
> users writing applications with the "stable" release and
> those pioneers looking to blaze new trails, could work
> on the newest features of the "bleeding edge" version,
> maturing them until they might evolve sufficiently to
> become part of the stable release.

I like this idea.

> In time, features of the "community" runtime library might
> be included by RDS in their own official runtime library,

RDS could have done that alreaday during the last years with
some of the existing user contributions, but they obviously
don't want to do so.

> so that they can benefit as well and continue to develop
> the core language. If anyone thinks this unfair,

The point is a completely different one (see above).

<snip>

> While it wouldn't address all the issues people might have
> with the core language, a maintained, community runtime
> library with a separate release track would answer some
> of the the needs of the people on this list who would like
> to see a more rapid evolution of Euphoria.

I agree.

> I would also point to the incredible success of Python as
> a testament to the efficacy of this community model.

I don't know anything about the Python community. Do you think the
main difference (except of the number of members) between the Euphoria
and the Python community is, that the Python community provides a
"community runtime library"?

Regards,
   Juergen