I don't agree with the idea that there should be no standard library. There is a lot of benefit to having a big standard library with code for common tasks like manipulating strings, performing network I/O, or formatting text. Sure, you might be able to improve on the standard library, but the next person who has to maintain your code probably won't thank you for using something weird. And if your new thing is awesome enough, it might be added to the standard library in time.
Things like this were a big problem in C++. In the early days of C++, literally nothing was standard. Everyone ran around using his own string class-- "std" string was named aspirationally, not to reflect reality. They all behaved slightly differently. It has taken literally decades to get to the point where std::string appears in most new projects in the UNIX world. (I think that Windows is still hosed, due to the continuing UCS-2 train wreck on that platform... but I digress.) Similarly, there are 31 different flavors of smart pointer, and even a master C++ programmer won't know them all. So much pointless non-standardization, so much cognitive overhead.
I'm also reminded of Perl's "there's more than one way to do it" and the "enhanced job security" that ended up providing for anyone who managed to sneak Perl into production.
There is value in modularity, but only when the choice you're giving to the library user is a valuable one. Choosing whether to use a MySQL database connector or a Postgres database connector is good diversity. Choosing which string class to use, or what we're calling BigInt this month, or which of 15 Regex libraries we're using today... that kind of diversity just gives you headaches and maintenance pain, nothing more.
Things like this were a big problem in C++. In the early days of C++, literally nothing was standard. Everyone ran around using his own string class-- "std" string was named aspirationally, not to reflect reality. They all behaved slightly differently. It has taken literally decades to get to the point where std::string appears in most new projects in the UNIX world. (I think that Windows is still hosed, due to the continuing UCS-2 train wreck on that platform... but I digress.) Similarly, there are 31 different flavors of smart pointer, and even a master C++ programmer won't know them all. So much pointless non-standardization, so much cognitive overhead.
I'm also reminded of Perl's "there's more than one way to do it" and the "enhanced job security" that ended up providing for anyone who managed to sneak Perl into production.
There is value in modularity, but only when the choice you're giving to the library user is a valuable one. Choosing whether to use a MySQL database connector or a Postgres database connector is good diversity. Choosing which string class to use, or what we're calling BigInt this month, or which of 15 Regex libraries we're using today... that kind of diversity just gives you headaches and maintenance pain, nothing more.