OpenEuphoria

Standardized Euphoria

• Posted by Chris Bensler <bensler at nt.net> Dec 22, 2006
• 690 views

I'm working on designing new standard libraries for Euphoria to replace the RDS
libs that are shipped with the distro.

I have a few questions.

1. Besides additional functionality, I would prefer to redesign/reorganize the
existing libs. Would this be acceptable to people?

The new libs would not be compatible with the RDS libs but they would include
the same functionality, plus much more. The alternative is to just build upon the
existing libs, though I strongly beleive that we would be better off if they were
reorganized. Now that Eu supports include subfolders, I do have a way for
'legacy' code that uses rds libs to be compatible with the new libs, since that
would of course be a concern. This plan has actually been on the backburner for
many years because Euphoria didn't support include subfolders until v3.

2. Many things that would be added to the standardized libraries would collide
with existing projects that define the same things in it's own code.
This problem is unavoidable if I wish to expand on the RDS libraries, but I'm
sure it would deter many people from migrating. Any opinions on this?

3. My plan is to make a system of libraries that are successively more complex
and abstract using layers.
For example, there would be a core set (call it tier 0) of libraries that
provide rudimentary functionality. The actual libs that most people would use
would be tier 1 or tier 2 functionality.
The main purpose of the layers would be modularization. The core set could be
replaced with different functionality, such as a debug set or advanced error
handling for example. For the most part, the layers would be transparent to the
programmer, but you would have the ability to get under the hood make changes
that would affect the whole API. Currently if you want to change some basic
functionality such as how errors are handled, you would have to modify very file
that has an error condition, since there is no amalgomated method of error
handling in the RDS libs.
I've probed people on this issue in the past and the caveat here is that 
the libraries would be codependent, whereas the rds libs are for the most part
independent. This is a concern for some people, because they don't want to have
to ship a whole bunch of files just for the sake of needing one.

Again, opinions?


Chris Bensler
~ The difference between ordinary and extraordinary is that little extra ~
http://empire.iwireweb.com - Empire for Euphoria