add link to the wiki in arrays.dd

[9il]

arrays.dd contains rectangular-arrays section.
Motivation: http://forum.dlang.org/post/fsaohvwffyxgtlbholhv@forum.dlang.org

[JackStouffer]

I don't know about this. Should we really be promoting a third party library in the spec itself?

[CyberShadow]

I don't know about this. Should we really be promoting a third party library in the spec itself?

No, we shouldn't.

[9il]

The paragraph should cover somehow that dynamics tensors are exists. Can this be replaced with: See also https://wiki.dlang.org/Dense_multidimensional_arrays ? Please reopen at least for others to see and discuss it.

[CyberShadow]

Please reopen at least for others to see and discuss it.

OK. But I still don't think the spec is a place to list third-party libraries and such.

The spec is supposed to be, well, the specification: It's meant as a technical reference for implementers and speaks about the language itself. It makes very few references even to the standard library, much less third-party libraries.

We used to have articles hosted on dlang.org. I think the best place to improve ndslice visibility is an article on wiki.dlang.org, which can be linked from the site navigation (Documentation -> Articles).

[wilzbach]

Hmm ndslice has been a part of Phobos and as such isn't a usual third-party library as people might still be using ndslice from std.experimental, also there are precedents of linking to other projects from the spec. Just by quickly browsing I found this:

• Link to Deimos: https://dlang.org/spec/interfaceToC.html
• std.experimental.allocator: https://dlang.org/spec/cpp_interface.html

So imho we should at least link to the wiki and even linking to Mir would be helpful as it's the de-facto library for multi-dimensional data in which most readers might be interesting. However, as the later is controversial, I am just voting for the wiki link ;-)

[9il]

Updated with the wiki link

[wilzbach]

LGTM

[wilzbach]

@CyberShadow @JackStouffer are you okay with linking to the Wiki? (this happens fairly often in the specs).

[CyberShadow]

Link to Deimos: https://dlang.org/spec/interfaceToC.html

Deimos is not third-party, it is managed by the same people managing github.com/dlang.

std.experimental.allocator: https://dlang.org/spec/cpp_interface.html

That's in the standard library.

and even linking to Mir would be helpful

Here is why I am concerned:

1. Once we have one link to a third-party library in the spec, this sets a precedent and everyone with their own pet library will have a justification of adding a link to it in the spec.

2. Because the two are different projects managed by different people, there is no guarantee that Mir will be around as long as the D programming language is. I am reminded of http://www.digitalmars.com/d/dlinks.html, which may have made sense 10-15 years ago when the community was small, but has been a link graveyard for a very long time now.

3. As I said before, the spec is a technical document describing the language itself. Recommendations for third-party libraries are out of place there.

Therefore I'm still uneasy about this change as it is. Please move the link to http://dlang.org/articles.html and leave http://dlang.org/spec/arrays.html unchanged.

[CyberShadow]

Actually it looks mostly fine now. Only nit is that the wiki article should be presenting built-in solutions first and third-party libraries afterwards. Link text could be a bit better. Could use a second opinion, @JackStouffer ?

[9il]

Native D has not built-in multidimensional arrays. Only arrays of arrays.

[wilzbach]

Actually it looks mostly fine now. Only nit is that the wiki article should be presenting built-in solutions first and third-party libraries afterwards. Link text could be a bit better. Could use a second opinion, @JackStouffer ?

Ping @JackStouffer or maybe @jmdavis ?

[dlang-bot]

Thanks for your pull request, @9il!

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[dkorpel]

Only nit is that the wiki article should be presenting built-in solutions first and third-party libraries afterwards.

Looks like that's the case now