Giving Euphoria more of an appeal to others?
Euphoria is a great language, however, there are a few things that I think are
preventing it from gaining even more popularity. I am curious as to the users
opinions and feedback.
I'll focus on #1 as I can help there.
1. A standard library. One of the reasons Python is so popular is because when
you download and install it, you have just about everything you need (they take
it a bit to extremes though, I think). Now, on the contrary, with Euphoria, how
do I add two dates? How can I trim the whitespace off the end or beginning of a
sequence acting as a string? How do I split a string by spaces? How do I create a
hash table? etc... All of those can be done by downloads found in "The Archive"
but which one? Then find it. Then use one "split" function and then one of the
other libs you use requires a different "split" function, etc... Then, when
wrapping libraries it seems everyone has their own functions for peeking at
strings, assigning and checking functions, etc...
CK Lester already started on such a library. Submissions to The Archive seem to
show that such a thing is needed. There are others who have attempted at creating
unofficial standard libs. Euphoria has itself an include directory with euphoria
functions.
I am wondering, why not start building an official standard library that is
distributed with Euphoria? Not additions in C, but such helpers placed in
EUPHORIA/include ?? CK Lester has started on such a library.
I would be willing to start organizing such an addition by standardizing naming,
documenting functions in the standard .htx format and importantly, providing unit
tests for the functions and, in fact, functions that are already in existence in
Euphoria.
I would start on String functions, then Date and Time functions, the Hash
functions and move on from there. It would take a bit of work, but a solid week
of work on it, I think we would all be amazed at what could be done.
It would be a *fantastic* addition to 3.2.
2. The website is very old in appearance. It's very functional, which is of
course good but it needs a face lift. I invited a co-worker to visit
rapideuphoria.com and check out Euphoria. They saw the website, the flashing
banner "Simpler than basic, more powerful than C++, etc..." and thought it was a
toy from 1980. Seriously, the claim of more powerful than C++ is pretty
subjective and hard to substantiate.
3. Get Euphoria into the major Linux distributions. Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora,
GenToo, FreeBSD, OpenSUSE, Mandrivia and others.
These are just some thoughts. Please comment, especially on #1. If the community
likes the idea, I would get started right away.
--
Jeremy Cowgar
http://jeremy.cowgar.com
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