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digitalmars.D - Spreading the word about D

reply Clay Smith <clayasaurus gmail.com> writes:
Couldn't find a specific thread devoted to this topic, so started.

What do you think is the best way to promote D?

Here are some ideas I already know about and have seen used successfully.

1. Articles - Write D articles and post on digg/reddit
2. Tutorials - Teach D newcomers how to use D
3. Libraries - Write a library for D / help out an existing D library

Here is a link that is also relevant to the subject: 
http://www.digitalmars.com/d/howto-promote.html

I'm wondering, what are all the awesome, zany, weird, or unique ways you 
can think of to promote the D language? Did I cover everything? Are 
there more effective ways of promoting the language?
Jun 21 2008
next sibling parent reply "Jarrett Billingsley" <kb3ctd2 yahoo.com> writes:
"Clay Smith" <clayasaurus gmail.com> wrote in message 
news:g3jrs4$402$1 digitalmars.com...

 Couldn't find a specific thread devoted to this topic, so started.

 What do you think is the best way to promote D?

 Here are some ideas I already know about and have seen used successfully.

 1. Articles - Write D articles and post on digg/reddit
 2. Tutorials - Teach D newcomers how to use D
 3. Libraries - Write a library for D / help out an existing D library

 Here is a link that is also relevant to the subject: 
 http://www.digitalmars.com/d/howto-promote.html

 I'm wondering, what are all the awesome, zany, weird, or unique ways you 
 can think of to promote the D language? Did I cover everything? Are there 
 more effective ways of promoting the language?


I've spread the word about D to the people I know -- classmates, 
professors -- just to get them, if nothing else, interested.  I also gave a 
small talk on the language through a computer club I'm in and got some 
people really interested, to the extent that we are now working on an OS in 
D.  And it's cool -- one of the other people who are working on the OS is 
now giving a small presentation to some of his colleages at work who are 
interested.  And another is a grad student who's worked for IBM and may work 
for them again.  Maybe this will spread further :)

I think word-of-mouth is really worth a lot, as long as you have a receptive 
audience.
Jun 21 2008
parent bearophile <bearophileHUGS lycos.com> writes:
Jarrett Billingsley:

 I think word-of-mouth is really worth a lot, as long as you have a receptive 
 audience.


From what I have seen a surprisingly high percentage of the programmers I know
know what D is, this is noteworthy.
But many of the younger ones are quite exigent: they don't want to touch the
language because they think the std lib "looks like a "toy"", and maybe for the

and they think a worth language must have a high level of polish).

Bye,
bearophile
Jun 21 2008
prev sibling next sibling parent reply "Chris R. Miller" <lordSaurontheGreat gmail.com> writes:
Clay Smith wrote:

 Couldn't find a specific thread devoted to this topic, so started.
=20
 What do you think is the best way to promote D?
=20
 Here are some ideas I already know about and have seen used successfull=


y.

=20
 1. Articles - Write D articles and post on digg/reddit
 2. Tutorials - Teach D newcomers how to use D
 3. Libraries - Write a library for D / help out an existing D library
=20
 Here is a link that is also relevant to the subject:=20
 http://www.digitalmars.com/d/howto-promote.html
=20
 I'm wondering, what are all the awesome, zany, weird, or unique ways yo=


u=20

 can think of to promote the D language? Did I cover everything? Are=20
 there more effective ways of promoting the language?


I think that more important than libraries are applications written in=20
D.  Start writing an application, run into a need for a library, write=20
the library and the application.  More applications will provide more=20
sample code for newbies to read through, as well as much more publicity. =

If there was a short blurb on the "about" page of every application=20
which said "Written in the Digital Mars D Programming Language" then - I =

think - D would gain a lot more publicity.  You know, "let your light so =

shine" and what-not.

If we can show just how powerful D is, then more people are bound to use =

it.  No one would use Java, Python, C, C++, Ruby, or anything else if it =

weren't that they've already seen the cool things those languages can do.=


I think that Java is a huge example of this.  Java itself is relatively=20
unremarkable, plain, almost boring language (trust me, I spent four=20
years with it!).  But people took the solid tools it provides and wrote=20
some wicked cool stuff in it.  For example, Java's video game=20
development following was largely due to Runescape, which proved that=20
games were possible in Java - way back in version 1.4!

I don't think we need to build really big applications for D, but little =

things that will help the ecosystem of applications snowball into a=20
larger community will greatly help.

Those who're maintaining libraries, great job, don't stop!  We need a=20
solid foundation to build on!  But I think that a lot of people take one =

look at D, see a mess of libraries on DSource (a lot of which are=20
abandoned or don't even build correctly) and sign it off as a language=20
with powerful features but a weak support system.  If we can demonstrate =

that D is more than just that, we'll have provided proof that D is not a =

cool gizmo, but a real, powerful tool.

At least, that's just my $0.02.
Jun 21 2008
parent reply Yigal Chripun <yigal100 gmail.com> writes:
Chris R. Miller wrote:

 Clay Smith wrote:

 Couldn't find a specific thread devoted to this topic, so started.

 What do you think is the best way to promote D?

 Here are some ideas I already know about and have seen used successfully.

 1. Articles - Write D articles and post on digg/reddit
 2. Tutorials - Teach D newcomers how to use D
 3. Libraries - Write a library for D / help out an existing D library

 Here is a link that is also relevant to the subject:
 http://www.digitalmars.com/d/howto-promote.html

 I'm wondering, what are all the awesome, zany, weird, or unique ways
 you can think of to promote the D language? Did I cover everything?
 Are there more effective ways of promoting the language?


 
 I think that more important than libraries are applications written in
 D.  Start writing an application, run into a need for a library, write
 the library and the application.  More applications will provide more
 sample code for newbies to read through, as well as much more publicity.
 If there was a short blurb on the "about" page of every application
 which said "Written in the Digital Mars D Programming Language" then - I
 think - D would gain a lot more publicity.  You know, "let your light so
 shine" and what-not.
 
 If we can show just how powerful D is, then more people are bound to use
 it.  No one would use Java, Python, C, C++, Ruby, or anything else if it
 weren't that they've already seen the cool things those languages can do.
 
 I think that Java is a huge example of this.  Java itself is relatively
 unremarkable, plain, almost boring language (trust me, I spent four
 years with it!).  But people took the solid tools it provides and wrote
 some wicked cool stuff in it.  For example, Java's video game
 development following was largely due to Runescape, which proved that
 games were possible in Java - way back in version 1.4!
 
 I don't think we need to build really big applications for D, but little
 things that will help the ecosystem of applications snowball into a
 larger community will greatly help.
 
 Those who're maintaining libraries, great job, don't stop!  We need a
 solid foundation to build on!  But I think that a lot of people take one
 look at D, see a mess of libraries on DSource (a lot of which are
 abandoned or don't even build correctly) and sign it off as a language
 with powerful features but a weak support system.  If we can demonstrate
 that D is more than just that, we'll have provided proof that D is not a
 cool gizmo, but a real, powerful tool.
 
 At least, that's just my $0.02.
 


D doesn't even have an agreed upon standard library, and you want the
libs on dsource to not look like a mess?!

there is no point building the roof when the foundation isn't ready yet.
 First thing's first: D needs a standard lib. not phobos/tango/tangobos/
downs' libs/bearophile's libs/etc... but a /STANDARD/ lib. One agreed
upon IO API, One agreed upon concurrency API., etc...

people nowadays are accustomed to the the Java standard libs/the .net
framework and anything less than that is perceived as unprofessional.
A programmer friend of mine switched from Ruby to Python even though he
thinks (like me) that the Ruby language has a the superior syntax and is
better designed (passing the this pointer manually, wtf?)
The main reason is of course the Python libs. you get a lot more libs in
the standard python dist and beyond that many more 3rd party libs.

with D, you need to look for 3rd party libs for things that really
should be in the std lib. good example is threading, either you go with
tango which is 3rd party even if you consider it as the de-facto std
lib, or with a different solution like downs' tools for phobos.

I know this subject was discussed many times before and that I haven't
added anything new here but unfortunately there is no progress on the
horizon. Also, having one common runtime upon which there would be two
APIs (phobos and tango) is not a solution. The language needs to provide
one standard API for common constructs like IO and such.

--Yigal
Jun 21 2008
next sibling parent Marianne Gagnon <auria.mg gmail.com> writes:
 Those who're maintaining libraries, great job, don't stop!  We need a
 solid foundation to build on!  But I think that a lot of people take one
 look at D, see a mess of libraries on DSource (a lot of which are
 abandoned or don't even build correctly) and sign it off as a language
 with powerful features but a weak support system.  If we can demonstrate
 that D is more than just that, we'll have provided proof that D is not a
 cool gizmo, but a real, powerful tool.
 
 At least, that's just my $0.02.
 


 
 D doesn't even have an agreed upon standard library, and you want the
 libs on dsource to not look like a mess?!
 
 there is no point building the roof when the foundation isn't ready yet.
  First thing's first: D needs a standard lib. not phobos/tango/tangobos/
 downs' libs/bearophile's libs/etc... but a /STANDARD/ lib. One agreed
 upon IO API, One agreed upon concurrency API., etc...
 
 people nowadays are accustomed to the the Java standard libs/the .net
 framework and anything less than that is perceived as unprofessional.
 A programmer friend of mine switched from Ruby to Python even though he
 thinks (like me) that the Ruby language has a the superior syntax and is
 better designed (passing the this pointer manually, wtf?)
 The main reason is of course the Python libs. you get a lot more libs in
 the standard python dist and beyond that many more 3rd party libs.
 
 with D, you need to look for 3rd party libs for things that really
 should be in the std lib. good example is threading, either you go with
 tango which is 3rd party even if you consider it as the de-facto std
 lib, or with a different solution like downs' tools for phobos.
 


I am personnaly only watching D from a distance and continuously am evaluating
it for my own use. (I do not often post here, but perhaps my opinion may have
some use since i'm just an avergae programmer trying to get the job done and
not an enthusiastic)

When I look at D, my mouth waters at the awesome language design, but I shiver
in fear whenever I look at libraries available. All this bunch of librairies is
unstable, often unmaintained, clunky. As already mentionned often, the lack of
standard library does not help. But another thing, i think, is that D is now
trying to incorporate every feature in the world instead of just getting stable
and letting library makers work.

So in short, I think it's too early to widely advertise D, it would IMO only
give a bad impression. I think it's time to stop trying to add every possible
feature (hell, java doesn't have half of D's features and can still make about
any program) and instead focus on getting a bit more stable and standard. Then
GDC can catch up, then other librairies can catch up and build upon a reliable
base. Then IDEs can add D support and/or be developped.

When progress has been done on this side, only then can D be successfully
advertised. My current position is generally "D looks very nice, but the poor
developement environment makes the syntaxic improvements not worth dropping my
current C++ environment"
Jun 21 2008
prev sibling next sibling parent reply "Chris R. Miller" <lordSaurontheGreat gmail.com> writes:
Yigal Chripun wrote:

 D doesn't even have an agreed upon standard library, and you want the
 libs on dsource to not look like a mess?!


I try very hard not to touch that subject because people are so=20
passionate about the whole Phobos/Tango topic.  True, Tango is a great=20
library, and (at least in my opinion) is better than Phobos.  But it's=20
still Walter's language, and he can do whatever he wants.


 I know this subject was discussed many times before and that I haven't
 added anything new here but unfortunately there is no progress on the
 horizon. Also, having one common runtime upon which there would be two
 APIs (phobos and tango) is not a solution. The language needs to provid=


e

 one standard API for common constructs like IO and such.


I think that one of the subjects for discussion at this years D=20
Conference is that very topic.  I might have heard wrong, but that's the =

impression I was under.
Jun 22 2008
parent reply "Jarrett Billingsley" <kb3ctd2 yahoo.com> writes:
"Chris R. Miller" <lordSaurontheGreat gmail.com> wrote in message 
news:g3ktib$29kb$1 digitalmars.com...


 I know this subject was discussed many times before and that I haven't
 added anything new here but unfortunately there is no progress on the
 horizon. Also, having one common runtime upon which there would be two
 APIs (phobos and tango) is not a solution. The language needs to provide
 one standard API for common constructs like IO and such.


 I think that one of the subjects for discussion at this years D
 Conference is that very topic.  I might have heard wrong, but that's the
 impression I was under.


It was the subject of discussion at _last_ year's D Conference, and not much 
has come of it since then.  Maybe they'll talk and do nothing again this 
year!

(Also, Chris, why do all your messages show up as attachments?)
Jun 22 2008
parent reply janderson <askme me.com> writes:
Jarrett Billingsley wrote:

 "Chris R. Miller" <lordSaurontheGreat gmail.com> wrote in message 
 news:g3ktib$29kb$1 digitalmars.com...
 

 I know this subject was discussed many times before and that I haven't
 added anything new here but unfortunately there is no progress on the
 horizon. Also, having one common runtime upon which there would be two
 APIs (phobos and tango) is not a solution. The language needs to provide
 one standard API for common constructs like IO and such.


 I think that one of the subjects for discussion at this years D
 Conference is that very topic.  I might have heard wrong, but that's the
 impression I was under.


 
 It was the subject of discussion at _last_ year's D Conference, and not much 
 has come of it since then.  Maybe they'll talk and do nothing again this 
 year!
 
 (Also, Chris, why do all your messages show up as attachments?) 
 
 


They don't for me.  Must be a combination of your newsreader and the way 
Chris sends it.

-Joel
Jun 22 2008
parent reply "Jarrett Billingsley" <kb3ctd2 yahoo.com> writes:
"janderson" <askme me.com> wrote in message 
news:g3m6df$2f1r$1 digitalmars.com...


 They don't for me.  Must be a combination of your newsreader and the way 
 Chris sends it.


OE must not understand multipart/signed messages.  Meh, he's the only one.

What I wouldn't give to have the newsgroups indexed by Google Groups.  Man!
Jun 22 2008
parent reply janderson <askme me.com> writes:
Jarrett Billingsley wrote:

 "janderson" <askme me.com> wrote in message 
 news:g3m6df$2f1r$1 digitalmars.com...
 

 They don't for me.  Must be a combination of your newsreader and the way 
 Chris sends it.


 
 OE must not understand multipart/signed messages.  Meh, he's the only one.
 
 What I wouldn't give to have the newsgroups indexed by Google Groups.  Man! 
 
 



I use Thunderbird.
Jun 22 2008
parent reply "Nick Sabalausky" <a a.a> writes:
"janderson" <askme me.com> wrote in message 
news:g3m8n8$2ilb$1 digitalmars.com...

 Jarrett Billingsley wrote:

 "janderson" <askme me.com> wrote in message 
 news:g3m6df$2f1r$1 digitalmars.com...


 They don't for me.  Must be a combination of your newsreader and the way 
 Chris sends it.


 OE must not understand multipart/signed messages.  Meh, he's the only 
 one.

 What I wouldn't give to have the newsgroups indexed by Google Groups. 
 Man!



 I use Thunderbird.


I use Outlook Express and have the same problem with most of Chris's 
messages.
Jun 23 2008
parent reply "Koroskin Denis" <2korden gmail.com> writes:
On Mon, 23 Jun 2008 11:16:45 +0400, Nick Sabalausky <a a.a> wrote:


 "janderson" <askme me.com> wrote in message
 news:g3m8n8$2ilb$1 digitalmars.com...

 Jarrett Billingsley wrote:

 "janderson" <askme me.com> wrote in message
 news:g3m6df$2f1r$1 digitalmars.com...


 They don't for me.  Must be a combination of your newsreader and the  
 way
 Chris sends it.


 OE must not understand multipart/signed messages.  Meh, he's the only
 one.

 What I wouldn't give to have the newsgroups indexed by Google Groups.
 Man!



 I use Thunderbird.


 I use Outlook Express and have the same problem with most of Chris's
 messages.


He attaches a signature with every message, maybe this leads to a problem  
on your side.
OE is a bad newsreader, I rejected it in favor of Opera and don't regret.
And yes, I don't have the said problem.
Jun 24 2008
parent reply "Chris R. Miller" <lordSaurontheGreat gmail.com> writes:
Koroskin Denis wrote:

 He attaches a signature with every message, maybe this leads to a=20
 problem on your side.
 OE is a bad newsreader, I rejected it in favor of Opera and don't regre=


t.

 And yes, I don't have the said problem.


I could discontinue signing my messages, though it does prevent issues=20
with any kind of potential impersonation.  If the signature doesn't=20
validate.... it ain't me!
Jun 24 2008
parent reply "Jarrett Billingsley" <kb3ctd2 yahoo.com> writes:
"Chris R. Miller" <lordSaurontheGreat gmail.com> wrote in message 
news:g3rjko$af6$1 digitalmars.com...

There are plenty of other people who sign their messages and they all show 
up fine.  Maybe you have an option to turn off the multipart message?
Jun 24 2008
parent "Chris R. Miller" <lordSaurontheGreat gmail.com> writes:
Jarrett Billingsley wrote:

 "Chris R. Miller" <lordSaurontheGreat gmail.com> wrote in message=20
 news:g3rjko$af6$1 digitalmars.com...
=20
 There are plenty of other people who sign their messages and they all s=


how=20

 up fine.  Maybe you have an option to turn off the multipart message?=20


I may just be incompetent with my mail client.  I looked and searched=20
and looked, but found nothing of the sort.  I did order it to "rewrap=20
html to keep message integrity", trying to see if that might work, but=20
I'm at a loss.  I'm not particularly partial to Thunderbird, so if this=20
doesn't work I may try Opera or something else like that next.
Jun 24 2008
prev sibling parent reply bearophile <bearophileHUGS lycos.com> writes:
Yigal Chripun:

 A programmer friend of mine switched from Ruby to Python even though he
 thinks (like me) that the Ruby language has a the superior syntax and is
 better designed (passing the this pointer manually, wtf?)


This FAQ point may be enough to explain the situation:
http://www.python.org/doc/faq/general/#why-must-self-be-used-explicitly-in-method-definitions-and-calls

Bye,
bearophile
Jun 22 2008
parent Yigal Chripun <yigal100 gmail.com> writes:
bearophile wrote:

 Yigal Chripun:

 A programmer friend of mine switched from Ruby to Python even though he
 thinks (like me) that the Ruby language has a the superior syntax and is
 better designed (passing the this pointer manually, wtf?)


 
 This FAQ point may be enough to explain the situation:
 http://www.python.org/doc/faq/general/#why-must-self-be-used-explicitly-in-method-definitions-and-calls
 
 Bye,
 bearophile


I'm sure that there are reasons within python for that. As a non-Python
programmer I don't care. I also dislike the indentation requirements of
Python. simply put: I think that the Ruby language is superior in regard
to OOP concepts and in other regards.
OTOH, I do appreciate the functional aspects of Python.

in the same way: many C++ programmers will argue that c++ supports OOP,
but you don't need to read the famous FQA to see that the C++ design is
flawed in this regard. And of course, there are good reasons for all the
design decisions within C++, like backwards compatibility with C.

No offense meant towards any python programmers here, but I simply
prefer to use a language like D without that specific syntax choice.

--Yigal
Jun 22 2008
prev sibling next sibling parent reply Erik Lechak <prochak netzero.net> writes:
Clay Smith Wrote:


 Couldn't find a specific thread devoted to this topic, so started.
 
 What do you think is the best way to promote D?
 
 Here are some ideas I already know about and have seen used successfully.
 
 1. Articles - Write D articles and post on digg/reddit
 2. Tutorials - Teach D newcomers how to use D
 3. Libraries - Write a library for D / help out an existing D library
 
 Here is a link that is also relevant to the subject: 
 http://www.digitalmars.com/d/howto-promote.html
 
 I'm wondering, what are all the awesome, zany, weird, or unique ways you 
 can think of to promote the D language? Did I cover everything? Are 
 there more effective ways of promoting the language?
 


I was thinking about writing a simple multi-player 3rd person space-shooter
game in D.    I was slowly tinkering with it myself to get into the D
programming language, but if anyone is interested,  it would be a good project
to cooperatively learn, promote, and develop in D.

So if anyone is interested in learning D, Derelict (openGL, SDL, openAL), and
other D related stuff, by developing an open source game reply or send me an
email.

Even if your not interested in this project.  Using D to create an open source
project that reflects your interests might help.  Getting a lot of people
writing D code is probably the best way to promote the language and to foment
interest and cooperation in standardizing the D standard library.  

Thanks,
Erik Lechak
prochak netzero.net
Jun 21 2008
parent "Chris R. Miller" <lordSaurontheGreat gmail.com> writes:
Erik Lechak wrote:

 I was thinking about writing a simple multi-player 3rd person space-sho=


oter game in D.    I was slowly tinkering with it myself to get into the =
D programming language, but if anyone is interested,  it would be a good =
project to cooperatively learn, promote, and develop in D.

That's hilarious, because yesterday I randomly thought to myself "I=20
should write a flight simulator."  Then I slapped myself because I have=20
no experience in 3D programming.


 So if anyone is interested in learning D, Derelict (openGL, SDL, openAL=


), and other D related stuff, by developing an open source game reply or =
send me an email.

Sounds fun.  I wouldn't want to volunteer myself until you gave a bit=20
more specifics about the scope of the project, complexity, completion=20
timeline, etc.  But that should probably be in a whole different thread.
Jun 22 2008
prev sibling next sibling parent reply Vincenzo Ampolo <vincenzo.ampolo gmail.com> writes:
Clay Smith wrote:


 What do you think is the best way to promote D?


IMHO, D should be more "opensource oriented". Better gdc support, and a real
and usable IDE. This, i think, are the missing things to make D easy to learn
and use.

I'm reading Learn to tango with D and it' very good...
Jun 22 2008
parent reply Robert Fraser <fraserofthenight gmail.com> writes:
Vincenzo Ampolo wrote:

 ... and a real and usable IDE...


In what ways is Decent not "real" or "usable" and how can we address this?
Jun 22 2008
next sibling parent Extrawurst <spam extrawurst.org> writes:
Robert Fraser schrieb:

 Vincenzo Ampolo wrote:

 ... and a real and usable IDE...


 In what ways is Decent not "real" or "usable" and how can we address 
 this?


I guess the opinion about that differs from user to user, but for me 
personally it is unusable since it does not support D 2.0 ... and i 
really cant wait until i finally can use Descent, believe me !
Jun 22 2008
prev sibling next sibling parent reply Jacob Carlborg <doobnet gmail.com> writes:
Robert Fraser wrote:

 Vincenzo Ampolo wrote:

 ... and a real and usable IDE...


 
 In what ways is Decent not "real" or "usable" and how can we address this?


First I can say that I have quite high standards but I only need a 
couple of features but I want them to work, every time and to be as good 
as JDT or better. Like autocompletion, go to definition, project 
explorer, automatic generation of documentation comments, ddoc view, 
highlighting of all occurrences of the current token under the cursor, 
syntax errors and some semantic errors are shown with a reg squiggle, 
syntax highlighting, formatter and a build system. Yes all of these 
exist in descent, except a build system, but all of them don't work all 
the time.

Example: autocompletion, go to definition and syntax errors and some 
semantic errors stop to work perhaps 50-100 lines down the code. 
Sometimes just a few lines down the code.

I must say that in my opinion descent is the best IDE/editor for D there is.
Jun 22 2008
parent Ary Borenszweig <ary esperanto.org.ar> writes:
Jacob Carlborg a écrit :

 Robert Fraser wrote:

 Vincenzo Ampolo wrote:

 ... and a real and usable IDE...


 In what ways is Decent not "real" or "usable" and how can we address 
 this?





 Example: autocompletion, go to definition and syntax errors and some 
 semantic errors stop to work perhaps 50-100 lines down the code. 
 Sometimes just a few lines down the code.


In such cases, it would be nice if you could report these as bugs, much 
better if you can make a small source code to show where the problem is.

Descent has a lot of unit tests (about 2000 by now), and it has also 
tests for autocompletion. So it's a matter of adding tests with these 
broken scenarios, fixing them, and they won't appear anymore.

Descent is still not robust enough because it lacks enough usage and 
bug-reporting, IMHO.
Jun 22 2008
prev sibling next sibling parent reply "Simen Haugen" <simen.haugen pandavre.com> writes:
"Robert Fraser" <fraserofthenight gmail.com> wrote in message 
news:g3l8pq$2vo1$1 digitalmars.com...

 Vincenzo Ampolo wrote:

 ... and a real and usable IDE...


 In what ways is Decent not "real" or "usable" and how can we address this?


For me, the primary cavecat is it's speed. The editor stops for several 
seconds very often. For a reason I've never understood, it even hangs for up 
to ten seconds when copying some text to the clipboard.... But Descent is a 
very decent editor already, and I don't think its fair to say its not 
usable. I doubt I'm the only one using it for real projects.
Jun 22 2008
parent reply Helmut Duregger <nono hgwehowngh.arg> writes:
Simen Haugen Wrote:

 For me, the primary cavecat is it's speed. The editor stops for several 
 seconds very often.


I have to second that. It's just to slow on my AMD64 3200+. I suspect the
indexer does most of the harm. It really pauses 10+ seconds sometimes, which is
totally annoying while typing.
But I sure will use it when I get a faster computer.

A feature I missed so far was refactoring, just basic, I like the way you can
rename methods in Java.
Jun 22 2008
parent reply "Chris R. Miller" <lordSaurontheGreat gmail.com> writes:
Helmut Duregger wrote:

 Simen Haugen Wrote:

 For me, the primary cavecat is it's speed. The editor stops for severa=




l=20

 seconds very often.


=20
 I have to second that. It's just to slow on my AMD64 3200+. I suspect t=


he indexer does most of the harm. It really pauses 10+ seconds sometimes,=
 which is totally annoying while typing.

 But I sure will use it when I get a faster computer.
=20
 A feature I missed so far was refactoring, just basic, I like the way y=


ou can rename methods in Java.

I have a (much) faster computer, and it still pauses for up to fifteen=20
seconds, sometimes more, especially when using DWT.  I also found that=20
it uses so much memory that Eclipse cannot start with a memory limit=20
high enough to support it.  I have 4 gigs of RAM, and Eclipse doesn't=20
support a whit beyond 1098 mb or something like that.

So yes, there are still some issues with Descent, though I'm excited for =

the next release in hopes that it'll be better.  Even with its problems=20
it's the best IDE I've yet seen (according to my personal preferences,=20
which are very pro-Eclipse).

Oh, my chip is a dual-core 2.5Ghz Athlon 64 X2, so it's not a weak chip=20
by any stretch of the imagination.
Jun 22 2008
parent Ary Borenszweig <ary esperanto.org.ar> writes:
Chris R. Miller a écrit :

 Helmut Duregger wrote:

 Simen Haugen Wrote:

 For me, the primary cavecat is it's speed. The editor stops for 
 several seconds very often.


 I have to second that. It's just to slow on my AMD64 3200+. I suspect 
 the indexer does most of the harm. It really pauses 10+ seconds 
 sometimes, which is totally annoying while typing.
 But I sure will use it when I get a faster computer.

 A feature I missed so far was refactoring, just basic, I like the way 
 you can rename methods in Java.


 
 I have a (much) faster computer, and it still pauses for up to fifteen 
 seconds, sometimes more, especially when using DWT.


DWT is a very special case. It is a *huge* project with a lot of 
inter-module dependencies. I'll use it as a test case for optimizing 
Descent.

If I use Descent with phobos or Tango, or some of the libs out there 
(like DFL or Derelict), it works just fine.
Jun 22 2008
prev sibling next sibling parent Vincenzo Ampolo <vincenzo.ampolo gmail.com> writes:
Robert Fraser wrote:


 In what ways is Decent not "real" or "usable" and how can we address this?


Descent is the most advanced IDE (or better, eclipse plugin) for D right now,
but it lacks 2.0 support (http://www.dsource.org/projects/descent) and it works
on eclipse that is known to be slow, huge and fat. (sorry for my english).

IMHO, a good D IDE, maybe written in D itself, would be very good, but in the
meantime Descent is the best choice. 
Look at the KDE project: with the goal to build a good DE they made Kdevelop, a
very good IDE for many languages (that also supports D in an early stage).
After this basics they developed the DE.

Btw, i'm learning D in these days and my first application will be an IDE. And
get the Descent code will be one of the first steps... I hope to do something
useful for the community and for the people that work and develop new tools for
D :)
Jun 22 2008
prev sibling parent "Nick Sabalausky" <a a.a> writes:
"Robert Fraser" <fraserofthenight gmail.com> wrote in message 
news:g3l8pq$2vo1$1 digitalmars.com...

 Vincenzo Ampolo wrote:

 ... and a real and usable IDE...


 In what ways is Decent not "real" or "usable" and how can we address this?


Aside from the speed that's already been mentioned, I've always found 
Eclipse to be very Java-centric (which is to be expected, of course) 
Obviously that's not really major issue, but in the long-term I'd like to 
see a major D IDE that isn't based so heavily around the details of another 
language. Something either more D-oriented or more language-agnostic (I know 
Eclipse *is* largely language-agnostic, but it just doesn't always *feel* 
like it.) D could use *it's own* Eclipse, not just an Eclipse plug-in. But 
again, I'm talking long-term here, not immediate issues.
Jun 23 2008
prev sibling next sibling parent reply "Nick Sabalausky" <a a.a> writes:
"Clay Smith" <clayasaurus gmail.com> wrote in message 
news:g3jrs4$402$1 digitalmars.com...

 Couldn't find a specific thread devoted to this topic, so started.

 What do you think is the best way to promote D?

 Here are some ideas I already know about and have seen used successfully.

 1. Articles - Write D articles and post on digg/reddit
 2. Tutorials - Teach D newcomers how to use D
 3. Libraries - Write a library for D / help out an existing D library

 Here is a link that is also relevant to the subject: 
 http://www.digitalmars.com/d/howto-promote.html

 I'm wondering, what are all the awesome, zany, weird, or unique ways you 
 can think of to promote the D language? Did I cover everything? Are there 
 more effective ways of promoting the language?


I agree with all of the "libraries" stuff said before. But I'd also add a 
couple other things:

It's been brought up before, but the official webpage needs to be maintained 
better, particularly from the perspective of a D newbie.  Don't get me 
wrong, this isn't an attack on Walter's web work or anything. It's just that 
D has all this good stuff, like Wiki4D, Chris's snapshots, DFL, etc, but no 
ones going to be finding these things unless they actually commit the time 
amd effort to really dig around the scene and stumble upon them.

Think about it this way: If a person hears about "this cool new D language" 
and decides they want to know more about it, where are they going to go? 
They're going to go find the official D site. (Maybe it's just me, but if I 
want to learn about a language, finding the official site would be my first 
step.) But then they get there and see these outdated pages about the major 
projects and sites for D, and if they stumble upon, for instance, Chris's D 
Snapshots and DSource instead of Elephant and the crappy newsgroup 
web-interface, well then that's just by pure luck rather than design.

Which brings up another thing. Newsgroups aren't very inviting. If Johnny 
Newbie goes to site "BB" and sees a well-designed web-based message board, 
and goes to site "CC" and sees "here's the server and group name for our 
newsgroup" (interestingly, I can't even seem to find the page that says that 
right now - just direct links into the not-very-good web-reader) or even 
worse: a mailing list, then he's gonna be a lot more likely to join in on 
community "BB". I know I would. So...I'm not saying we should switch from 
newsgoups to a message board. I'm just saying, if we're going to stick with 
newsgroups, then getting a better web-interface should be a priority.
Jun 22 2008
parent reply Robert Fraser <fraserofthenight gmail.com> writes:
Nick Sabalausky wrote:

 "Clay Smith" <clayasaurus gmail.com> wrote in message 
 news:g3jrs4$402$1 digitalmars.com...

 Couldn't find a specific thread devoted to this topic, so started.

 What do you think is the best way to promote D?

 Here are some ideas I already know about and have seen used successfully.

 1. Articles - Write D articles and post on digg/reddit
 2. Tutorials - Teach D newcomers how to use D
 3. Libraries - Write a library for D / help out an existing D library

 Here is a link that is also relevant to the subject: 
 http://www.digitalmars.com/d/howto-promote.html

 I'm wondering, what are all the awesome, zany, weird, or unique ways you 
 can think of to promote the D language? Did I cover everything? Are there 
 more effective ways of promoting the language?


 
 I agree with all of the "libraries" stuff said before. But I'd also add a 
 couple other things:
 
 It's been brought up before, but the official webpage needs to be maintained 
 better, particularly from the perspective of a D newbie.  Don't get me 
 wrong, this isn't an attack on Walter's web work or anything. It's just that 
 D has all this good stuff, like Wiki4D, Chris's snapshots, DFL, etc, but no 
 ones going to be finding these things unless they actually commit the time 
 amd effort to really dig around the scene and stumble upon them.
 
 Think about it this way: If a person hears about "this cool new D language" 
 and decides they want to know more about it, where are they going to go? 
 They're going to go find the official D site. (Maybe it's just me, but if I 
 want to learn about a language, finding the official site would be my first 
 step.) But then they get there and see these outdated pages about the major 
 projects and sites for D, and if they stumble upon, for instance, Chris's D 
 Snapshots and DSource instead of Elephant and the crappy newsgroup 
 web-interface, well then that's just by pure luck rather than design.
 
 Which brings up another thing. Newsgroups aren't very inviting. If Johnny 
 Newbie goes to site "BB" and sees a well-designed web-based message board, 
 and goes to site "CC" and sees "here's the server and group name for our 
 newsgroup" (interestingly, I can't even seem to find the page that says that 
 right now - just direct links into the not-very-good web-reader) or even 
 worse: a mailing list, then he's gonna be a lot more likely to join in on 
 community "BB". I know I would. So...I'm not saying we should switch from 
 newsgoups to a message board. I'm just saying, if we're going to stick with 
 newsgroups, then getting a better web-interface should be a priority. 


I think Walter needs to let someone in the community take over (at least 
partially) the main D page... someone with web design skills ;-P. And 
the backend for a newsreader would make an interesting D project, as well.
Jun 22 2008
parent reply Yigal Chripun <yigal100 gmail.com> writes:
Robert Fraser wrote:

 Nick Sabalausky wrote:

 "Clay Smith" <clayasaurus gmail.com> wrote in message
 news:g3jrs4$402$1 digitalmars.com...

 Couldn't find a specific thread devoted to this topic, so started.

 What do you think is the best way to promote D?

 Here are some ideas I already know about and have seen used
 successfully.

 1. Articles - Write D articles and post on digg/reddit
 2. Tutorials - Teach D newcomers how to use D
 3. Libraries - Write a library for D / help out an existing D library

 Here is a link that is also relevant to the subject:
 http://www.digitalmars.com/d/howto-promote.html

 I'm wondering, what are all the awesome, zany, weird, or unique ways
 you can think of to promote the D language? Did I cover everything?
 Are there more effective ways of promoting the language?


 I agree with all of the "libraries" stuff said before. But I'd also
 add a couple other things:

 It's been brought up before, but the official webpage needs to be
 maintained better, particularly from the perspective of a D newbie. 
 Don't get me wrong, this isn't an attack on Walter's web work or
 anything. It's just that D has all this good stuff, like Wiki4D,
 Chris's snapshots, DFL, etc, but no ones going to be finding these
 things unless they actually commit the time amd effort to really dig
 around the scene and stumble upon them.

 Think about it this way: If a person hears about "this cool new D
 language" and decides they want to know more about it, where are they
 going to go? They're going to go find the official D site. (Maybe it's
 just me, but if I want to learn about a language, finding the official
 site would be my first step.) But then they get there and see these
 outdated pages about the major projects and sites for D, and if they
 stumble upon, for instance, Chris's D Snapshots and DSource instead of
 Elephant and the crappy newsgroup web-interface, well then that's just
 by pure luck rather than design.

 Which brings up another thing. Newsgroups aren't very inviting. If
 Johnny Newbie goes to site "BB" and sees a well-designed web-based
 message board, and goes to site "CC" and sees "here's the server and
 group name for our newsgroup" (interestingly, I can't even seem to
 find the page that says that right now - just direct links into the
 not-very-good web-reader) or even worse: a mailing list, then he's
 gonna be a lot more likely to join in on community "BB". I know I
 would. So...I'm not saying we should switch from newsgoups to a
 message board. I'm just saying, if we're going to stick with
 newsgroups, then getting a better web-interface should be a priority. 


 
 I think Walter needs to let someone in the community take over (at least
 partially) the main D page... someone with web design skills ;-P. And
 the backend for a newsreader would make an interesting D project, as well.


vote +100

Also, what about using Google groups?
Jun 22 2008
next sibling parent reply "Chris R. Miller" <lordSaurontheGreat gmail.com> writes:
Yigal Chripun wrote:

 Robert Fraser wrote:

 Nick Sabalausky wrote:

 "Clay Smith" <clayasaurus gmail.com> wrote in message
 news:g3jrs4$402$1 digitalmars.com...

 Couldn't find a specific thread devoted to this topic, so started.

 What do you think is the best way to promote D?

 Here are some ideas I already know about and have seen used
 successfully.

 1. Articles - Write D articles and post on digg/reddit
 2. Tutorials - Teach D newcomers how to use D
 3. Libraries - Write a library for D / help out an existing D librar=








y

 Here is a link that is also relevant to the subject:
 http://www.digitalmars.com/d/howto-promote.html

 I'm wondering, what are all the awesome, zany, weird, or unique ways=









 you can think of to promote the D language? Did I cover everything?
 Are there more effective ways of promoting the language?


 I agree with all of the "libraries" stuff said before. But I'd also
 add a couple other things:

 It's been brought up before, but the official webpage needs to be
 maintained better, particularly from the perspective of a D newbie.=20
 Don't get me wrong, this isn't an attack on Walter's web work or
 anything. It's just that D has all this good stuff, like Wiki4D,
 Chris's snapshots, DFL, etc, but no ones going to be finding these
 things unless they actually commit the time amd effort to really dig
 around the scene and stumble upon them.

 Think about it this way: If a person hears about "this cool new D
 language" and decides they want to know more about it, where are they=







 going to go? They're going to go find the official D site. (Maybe it'=






s

 just me, but if I want to learn about a language, finding the officia=






l

 site would be my first step.) But then they get there and see these
 outdated pages about the major projects and sites for D, and if they
 stumble upon, for instance, Chris's D Snapshots and DSource instead o=






f

 Elephant and the crappy newsgroup web-interface, well then that's jus=






t

 by pure luck rather than design.

 Which brings up another thing. Newsgroups aren't very inviting. If
 Johnny Newbie goes to site "BB" and sees a well-designed web-based
 message board, and goes to site "CC" and sees "here's the server and
 group name for our newsgroup" (interestingly, I can't even seem to
 find the page that says that right now - just direct links into the
 not-very-good web-reader) or even worse: a mailing list, then he's
 gonna be a lot more likely to join in on community "BB". I know I
 would. So...I'm not saying we should switch from newsgoups to a
 message board. I'm just saying, if we're going to stick with
 newsgroups, then getting a better web-interface should be a priority.=






=20

 I think Walter needs to let someone in the community take over (at lea=




st

 partially) the main D page... someone with web design skills ;-P. And
 the backend for a newsreader would make an interesting D project, as w=




ell.

=20
 vote +100
=20
 Also, what about using Google groups?


Googlegroups would be a very powerful tool indeed.  I have some=20
experience administering various Google Groups, and as such I have to=20
warn that they are subject to a large amount of spam.  Perhaps a GNU=20
Mailman list instead, or perhaps a phpBB3.0 forum?
Jun 22 2008
parent reply Yigal Chripun <yigal100 gmail.com> writes:
Chris R. Miller wrote:

 Yigal Chripun wrote:

 Robert Fraser wrote:

 Nick Sabalausky wrote:

 "Clay Smith" <clayasaurus gmail.com> wrote in message
 news:g3jrs4$402$1 digitalmars.com...

 Couldn't find a specific thread devoted to this topic, so started.

 What do you think is the best way to promote D?

 Here are some ideas I already know about and have seen used
 successfully.

 1. Articles - Write D articles and post on digg/reddit
 2. Tutorials - Teach D newcomers how to use D
 3. Libraries - Write a library for D / help out an existing D library

 Here is a link that is also relevant to the subject:
 http://www.digitalmars.com/d/howto-promote.html

 I'm wondering, what are all the awesome, zany, weird, or unique ways
 you can think of to promote the D language? Did I cover everything?
 Are there more effective ways of promoting the language?


 I agree with all of the "libraries" stuff said before. But I'd also
 add a couple other things:

 It's been brought up before, but the official webpage needs to be
 maintained better, particularly from the perspective of a D newbie.
 Don't get me wrong, this isn't an attack on Walter's web work or
 anything. It's just that D has all this good stuff, like Wiki4D,
 Chris's snapshots, DFL, etc, but no ones going to be finding these
 things unless they actually commit the time amd effort to really dig
 around the scene and stumble upon them.

 Think about it this way: If a person hears about "this cool new D
 language" and decides they want to know more about it, where are they
 going to go? They're going to go find the official D site. (Maybe it's
 just me, but if I want to learn about a language, finding the official
 site would be my first step.) But then they get there and see these
 outdated pages about the major projects and sites for D, and if they
 stumble upon, for instance, Chris's D Snapshots and DSource instead of
 Elephant and the crappy newsgroup web-interface, well then that's just
 by pure luck rather than design.

 Which brings up another thing. Newsgroups aren't very inviting. If
 Johnny Newbie goes to site "BB" and sees a well-designed web-based
 message board, and goes to site "CC" and sees "here's the server and
 group name for our newsgroup" (interestingly, I can't even seem to
 find the page that says that right now - just direct links into the
 not-very-good web-reader) or even worse: a mailing list, then he's
 gonna be a lot more likely to join in on community "BB". I know I
 would. So...I'm not saying we should switch from newsgoups to a
 message board. I'm just saying, if we're going to stick with
 newsgroups, then getting a better web-interface should be a priority. 


 I think Walter needs to let someone in the community take over (at least
 partially) the main D page... someone with web design skills ;-P. And
 the backend for a newsreader would make an interesting D project, as
 well.


 vote +100

 Also, what about using Google groups?


 
 Googlegroups would be a very powerful tool indeed.  I have some
 experience administering various Google Groups, and as such I have to
 warn that they are subject to a large amount of spam.  Perhaps a GNU
 Mailman list instead, or perhaps a phpBB3.0 forum?
 


definitely NOT any kind of a mailing list - those are user unfriendly.
I'd prefer mirroring the D news groups on Google groups and I'm sure the
spam can be dealt with, for instance by requiring a sign-up.

Of all the Language sites the php site is widely known for its
organization and documentation. D needs something /at least/ of that
level. My perfect D site would run on a CMS with different perspectives
for different user types. D programmers require a different set of tools
and documentation from the set of tools and documentation required for
the developers of the language and its environment itself ( that means
the compiler, runtime, standard lib, etc...).
Jun 22 2008
next sibling parent "Jarrett Billingsley" <kb3ctd2 yahoo.com> writes:
"Yigal Chripun" <yigal100 gmail.com> wrote in message 
news:g3mjvi$r9t$1 digitalmars.com...


 definitely NOT any kind of a mailing list - those are user unfriendly.
 I'd prefer mirroring the D news groups on Google groups and I'm sure the
 spam can be dealt with, for instance by requiring a sign-up.


We've already got issues with impersonators, so a sign-up would help with 
that too.
Jun 22 2008
prev sibling parent reply "Chris R. Miller" <lordSaurontheGreat gmail.com> writes:
Yigal Chripun wrote:

 Chris R. Miller wrote:

 Yigal Chripun wrote:

 Also, what about using Google groups?


 Googlegroups would be a very powerful tool indeed.  I have some
 experience administering various Google Groups, and as such I have to
 warn that they are subject to a large amount of spam.  Perhaps a GNU
 Mailman list instead, or perhaps a phpBB3.0 forum?


 definitely NOT any kind of a mailing list - those are user unfriendly.
 I'd prefer mirroring the D news groups on Google groups and I'm sure th=


e

 spam can be dealt with, for instance by requiring a sign-up.


Also in my experience is that a sign-up system greatly reduces the=20
number of new sign-ups, mainly because people never read the instructions=
=2E

A funny anecdote from that is the story of the Linux Users Group on=20
Google Groups (http://groups.google.com/group/linuxusersgroup), where we =

were getting so much spam that the administrators decided to manually=20
screen all potential new members by hand by asking a security question:=20
  "Do you intend to spam the group?"

The majority of applicants put nothing there, presumably because they're =

mindless spambots.

Some people read the instructions and wrote "no."

Others condensed their whole resume and autobiography down to a size=20
that it would fit in the tiny input box.  Of course, they never answered =

the question, so we were forced to deny them.

Some people answered "yes."

Others treated it like some kind of door, and they'd write stuff like=20
"hello plz let me in plz i want to ask qestionz abt linus!"  These guys=20
were so funny we actually started a private Google Group for just the=20
admins to share these funny replies with.



So, returning to the original topic, while screening newbies does have=20
its merit, I have found that it really doesn't do that well.  People are =

used to captchas, proving their humanity by responding to an email from=20
a mailman list manager, and they have also proven an inability to read a =

question and answer it (which would explain the dismal scores seen in=20
schools nowadays).  You're welcome to try, and it will be successful,=20
but you may end up inadvertently screening out people who will in time=20
become good members of the community.  Heck, when I first started on=20
mailing lists and forums so many years ago, I was not very smart, I was=20
annoying, and if I now were an admin and I then entered, I would ban me=20
in an instant.  Eventually I straightened myself out and learned to shut =

up (most of the time) but I caution you to think of the newbies.  Yes,=20
they're annoying, but they do get better over time.


 Of all the Language sites the php site is widely known for its
 organization and documentation. D needs something /at least/ of that
 level. My perfect D site would run on a CMS with different perspectives=



 for different user types. D programmers require a different set of tool=


s

 and documentation from the set of tools and documentation required for
 the developers of the language and its environment itself ( that means
 the compiler, runtime, standard lib, etc...).


Perhaps Drupal?  Maybe using it as an opportunity to upgrade and expand=20
dsource?  There are many paths we might take.  In my experience Joomla=20
is just a pain to work with.  I rather like the idea of making the site=20
in D itself, perhaps using Wombat or FastCGI4D.  It would be an epic=20
project assuming it's aimed as a whole CMS, so perhaps something on=20
Django would do better?  Then we could use Pygment's excellent D source=20
code highlighter.  We'd have to convince someone to leave D long enough=20
to mess around in Python long enough to make the site, and even then=20
convincing someone to maintain it would be bothersome to say the least.

There are many possible choices, so we should probably make a list of=20
advantages and disadvantages of each on Wiki4D or something like that,=20
assuming it does become a community decision (I was always under the=20
impression that what Walter does with his site was his own business,=20
though if he's willing to entertain our ideas that's great too).
Jun 22 2008
next sibling parent reply Walter Bright <newshound1 digitalmars.com> writes:
Chris R. Miller wrote:

 There are many possible choices, so we should probably make a list of 
 advantages and disadvantages of each on Wiki4D or something like that, 
 assuming it does become a community decision (I was always under the 
 impression that what Walter does with his site was his own business, 
 though if he's willing to entertain our ideas that's great too).


The current D website is set up to need minimal attention to keep it 
running.
Jun 22 2008
parent reply Robert Fraser <fraserofthenight gmail.com> writes:
Walter Bright wrote:

 Chris R. Miller wrote:

 There are many possible choices, so we should probably make a list of 
 advantages and disadvantages of each on Wiki4D or something like that, 
 assuming it does become a community decision (I was always under the 
 impression that what Walter does with his site was his own business, 
 though if he's willing to entertain our ideas that's great too).


 
 The current D website is set up to need minimal attention to keep it 
 running.


But if other people could keep it running for you, would you be averse 
to that?
Jun 22 2008
parent reply Walter Bright <newshound1 digitalmars.com> writes:
Robert Fraser wrote:

 Walter Bright wrote:

 Chris R. Miller wrote:

 There are many possible choices, so we should probably make a list of 
 advantages and disadvantages of each on Wiki4D or something like 
 that, assuming it does become a community decision (I was always 
 under the impression that what Walter does with his site was his own 
 business, though if he's willing to entertain our ideas that's great 
 too).


 The current D website is set up to need minimal attention to keep it 
 running.


 
 But if other people could keep it running for you, would you be averse 
 to that?


No, but it would be a major job for someone.
Jun 22 2008
next sibling parent reply "Chris R. Miller" <lordSaurontheGreat gmail.com> writes:
Walter Bright wrote:

 Robert Fraser wrote:

 Walter Bright wrote:

 Chris R. Miller wrote:

 There are many possible choices, so we should probably make a list=20
 of advantages and disadvantages of each on Wiki4D or something like =









 that, assuming it does become a community decision (I was always=20
 under the impression that what Walter does with his site was his own=








=20

 business, though if he's willing to entertain our ideas that's great=








=20

 too).


 The current D website is set up to need minimal attention to keep it =







 running.


 But if other people could keep it running for you, would you be averse=




=20

 to that?


=20
 No, but it would be a major job for someone.


I'm just thinking aloud here:

If we were to make a new site, right now I'm thinking that Django would=20
be our best option because it can make use of the Pygments code=20
highlighter, and because it's quite flexible and could perform many=20
different functions for us.  We could (thinking aloud here, remember?)=20
make a fairly cool integrated system with a front-facing site for=20
Digital Mars and a forum/ng/you-name-it section for the community to=20
live in, perhaps using the Python gizmos to link to dsource or something =

like that.  That way Walter and some other trusted people could=20
administer the Digital Mars site and the content there as a group, and=20
it would allow for a certain level of interoperability with the=20
community communication tool (which appears to be the ng at the moment). =

  Maybe even a Mibbit widget tool for the various D-related IRC channels =

as well.  My point is,

static if(walter says it's okay) {
	static if(people who volunteer to do it pick Django/Python) {
		we/they could build a really nifty site that could
		really reflect how awesome D is as a language.
	} else {
		cool, it'll probably be just as good, or better, or else
		it will be good enough.
} else {
	oh well, it was a nice thought.  If wishes were horses, we'd
	need another planet to put them all on we'd have so many.
}

Apologies for the intermixing of English and code, but you must=20
understand that I'm postulating out on a limb of quite a few=20
assumptions.  I was strongly considering not posting this at all, but I=20
figured that it couldn't hurt to whet the imaginations of some of the=20
other people out here if I only phrase it right (being as neutral,=20
what-if as possible).
Jun 22 2008
parent reply Walter Bright <newshound1 digitalmars.com> writes:
Chris R. Miller wrote:

 I'm just thinking aloud here:


If php's site is so great, why not just use their software (if it's open 
source) ?
Jun 23 2008
next sibling parent Yigal Chripun <yigal100 gmail.com> writes:
Walter Bright wrote:

 Chris R. Miller wrote:

 I'm just thinking aloud here:


 
 If php's site is so great, why not just use their software (if it's open
 source) ?


I think it was specifically developed for their own use. I don't know if
it's open source. Besides it integrates with their language tools which
isn't suitable for D (for example a D site would need to support DDoc)
Jun 23 2008
prev sibling parent reply "Jarrett Billingsley" <kb3ctd2 yahoo.com> writes:
"Walter Bright" <newshound1 digitalmars.com> wrote in message 
news:g3njnp$2gh6$1 digitalmars.com...

 Chris R. Miller wrote:

 I'm just thinking aloud here:


 If php's site is so great, why not just use their software (if it's open 
 source) ?


Because it's written _in PHP_.  Only masochists would like maintaining it ;)
Jun 23 2008
parent "Unknown W. Brackets" <unknown simplemachines.org> writes:
If you know what you're doing, you can write in any language; but some 
languages give you more options than others.  PHP is ubiquitous - if I 
sent an RFP back to Fox suggesting D, I might as well not bother.  But 
PHP is what most of their sites run using, and that's how I've worked 
with them.

Anyway, using PHP's site wouldn't be half bad (it is well considered the 
best documented language, and probably that is a good reason it is so 
popular), but I think doing something in D would not be significantly 
hard.  More important I think is to learn where PHP's site does the 
right thing.

Writing it is (imho) the easy part.  Knowing what to write, that is the 
endeavor.

-[Unknown]


Jarrett Billingsley wrote:

 "Walter Bright" <newshound1 digitalmars.com> wrote in message 
 news:g3njnp$2gh6$1 digitalmars.com...

 Chris R. Miller wrote:

 I'm just thinking aloud here:


 If php's site is so great, why not just use their software (if it's open 
 source) ?


 
 Because it's written _in PHP_.  Only masochists would like maintaining it ;)
Jun 25 2008
prev sibling parent reply Yigal Chripun <yigal100 gmail.com> writes:
Walter Bright wrote:

 Robert Fraser wrote:

 Walter Bright wrote:

 Chris R. Miller wrote:

 There are many possible choices, so we should probably make a list
 of advantages and disadvantages of each on Wiki4D or something like
 that, assuming it does become a community decision (I was always
 under the impression that what Walter does with his site was his own
 business, though if he's willing to entertain our ideas that's great
 too).


 The current D website is set up to need minimal attention to keep it
 running.


 But if other people could keep it running for you, would you be averse
 to that?


 
 No, but it would be a major job for someone.


The community is willing to take that job on itself. That'll improve
many aspects of the site without any work on your part. you can continue
to work on DMD without troubling yourself with maintaining a website.
isn't it a win-win situation for all of us? all we need is your approval
Also, a community site can have several maintainers which can split the
work among themselves and delegate some of the work to the community at
large (like submitting code examples, articles, etc to the site).

This can be a huge step forward for D.
Jun 23 2008
parent reply Walter Bright <newshound1 digitalmars.com> writes:
Yigal Chripun wrote:

 The community is willing to take that job on itself. That'll improve
 many aspects of the site without any work on your part. you can continue
 to work on DMD without troubling yourself with maintaining a website.
 isn't it a win-win situation for all of us? all we need is your approval
 Also, a community site can have several maintainers which can split the
 work among themselves and delegate some of the work to the community at
 large (like submitting code examples, articles, etc to the site).
 
 This can be a huge step forward for D.


How would that be different from a wiki?
Jun 23 2008
next sibling parent reply Yigal Chripun <yigal100 gmail.com> writes:
Walter Bright wrote:

 Yigal Chripun wrote:

 The community is willing to take that job on itself. That'll improve
 many aspects of the site without any work on your part. you can continue
 to work on DMD without troubling yourself with maintaining a website.
 isn't it a win-win situation for all of us? all we need is your approval
 Also, a community site can have several maintainers which can split the
 work among themselves and delegate some of the work to the community at
 large (like submitting code examples, articles, etc to the site).

 This can be a huge step forward for D.


 
 How would that be different from a wiki?


Personally I hate wikis. I really don't see a point for their existence.
They do not add anything new accept a non standard syntax. Why should I
bother to learn a new syntax when I already know [x]html? besides, what
if you want to switch to a different wiki system in the future with a
different syntax? all those wiki systems basically reinvented html, and
I prefer to use the standard, original and more flexible format.
besides, CMS systems provide a WYSIWYG editor for html, so you don't
even need to learn html to add content to the site.

I think it'd be better to use a system that uses html or xml or any
other standard file format for content of the site. that way, if in the
future there's a need to switch to a different system, there'll be no
need to convert all the content to a different syntax.

Besides, real CMSs have many more features than a wiki and are
extensible with plugins: you can have anything from a site with just
static content to a web application with an online store, an online
photo gallery, etc.
Jun 23 2008
parent reply "Chris R. Miller" <lordSaurontheGreat gmail.com> writes:
Yigal Chripun wrote:

 Walter Bright wrote:

 Yigal Chripun wrote:

 The community is willing to take that job on itself. That'll improve
 many aspects of the site without any work on your part. you can conti=






nue

 to work on DMD without troubling yourself with maintaining a website.=







 isn't it a win-win situation for all of us? all we need is your appro=






val

 Also, a community site can have several maintainers which can split t=






he

 work among themselves and delegate some of the work to the community =






at

 large (like submitting code examples, articles, etc to the site).

 This can be a huge step forward for D.


 How would that be different from a wiki?


=20
 Personally I hate wikis. I really don't see a point for their existence=


=2E

 They do not add anything new accept a non standard syntax. Why should I=



 bother to learn a new syntax when I already know [x]html? besides, what=



Because when the Wiki engine interprets the wiki code it generates html=20
that renders (mostly) the same on every platform, without having to=20
embed javascript if(platform =3D ie6) { then do this } else if (platform =
=3D=20
ie7) { then do that } all over the place.


 if you want to switch to a different wiki system in the future with a
 different syntax? all those wiki systems basically reinvented html, and=



 I prefer to use the standard, original and more flexible format.
 besides, CMS systems provide a WYSIWYG editor for html, so you don't
 even need to learn html to add content to the site.


I've worked with html-based wikis before, and they're a holy load of=20
crud.  The most advanced web-based HTML editor I have seen is MCE, and=20
that stinks - really bad.  Doesn't render correctly on different=20
browsers, etc.  Some of my friends were so ticked off at it on the FSDEV =

site that I eventually took the 3 days of server downtime to migrate to=20
Redmine, which is a much nicer wiki (renders the same on all browsers, et=
c).


 I think it'd be better to use a system that uses html or xml or any
 other standard file format for content of the site. that way, if in the=



 future there's a need to switch to a different system, there'll be no
 need to convert all the content to a different syntax.


Unless it uses filtered html, or it uses a wiki syntax of its own.  Many =

different wiki systems have their own converters to translate between=20
different wiki syntaxes, which can greatly ease the pains of moving=20
between systems.


 Besides, real CMSs have many more features than a wiki and are
 extensible with plugins: you can have anything from a site with just
 static content to a web application with an online store, an online
 photo gallery, etc.


A system like Drupal can function (somewhat) as both a wiki and a CMS.=20
I fear for the source code highlighter, however, since I don't remember=20
Drupal having support for D, which is why I was leaning towards=20
something Python based, since Pygments already works quite well (it's=20
what powers dsource, actually).
Jun 23 2008
parent reply Walter Bright <newshound1 digitalmars.com> writes:
One thing to keep in mind is that the entire D web site is all in ddoc 
format.
Jun 23 2008
parent "Jarrett Billingsley" <kb3ctd2 yahoo.com> writes:
"Walter Bright" <newshound1 digitalmars.com> wrote in message 
news:g3ovqu$2eiu$1 digitalmars.com...

 One thing to keep in mind is that the entire D web site is all in ddoc 
 format.


Perl could make short work of that.
Jun 23 2008
prev sibling parent reply Manfred <austernpilze freenet.de> writes:
Walter Bright wrote:


 Yigal Chripun wrote:

 The community is willing to take that job on itself. That'll improve
 many aspects of the site without any work on your part. you can continue
 to work on DMD without troubling yourself with maintaining a website.
 isn't it a win-win situation for all of us? all we need is your approval
 Also, a community site can have several maintainers which can split the
 work among themselves and delegate some of the work to the community at
 large (like submitting code examples, articles, etc to the site).
 
 This can be a huge step forward for D.


 
 How would that be different from a wiki?


Hello,

i believe Walter have a second domain for the d progamming language?
At the moment i can't find them.

Maybe someone start there a new D website.
Jun 23 2008
parent reply Yigal Chripun <yigal100 gmail.com> writes:
Manfred wrote:

 Walter Bright wrote:
 

 Yigal Chripun wrote:

 The community is willing to take that job on itself. That'll improve
 many aspects of the site without any work on your part. you can continue
 to work on DMD without troubling yourself with maintaining a website.
 isn't it a win-win situation for all of us? all we need is your approval
 Also, a community site can have several maintainers which can split the
 work among themselves and delegate some of the work to the community at
 large (like submitting code examples, articles, etc to the site).

 This can be a huge step forward for D.


 How would that be different from a wiki?


 
 Hello,
 
 i believe Walter have a second domain for the d progamming language?
 At the moment i can't find them.
 
 Maybe someone start there a new D website.
 
 


That's exactly what I was thinking about. The domain is:
http://www.d-programming-language.org/
Jun 23 2008
parent Manfred <austernpilze freenet.de> writes:
 That's exactly what I was thinking about. The domain is:
 http://www.d-programming-language.org/


Yes, thats what i mean.
Jun 23 2008
prev sibling next sibling parent "Nick Sabalausky" <a a.a> writes:
"Chris R. Miller" <lordSaurontheGreat gmail.com> wrote in message 
news:g3mr6t$15oo$1 digitalmars.com...

 so perhaps something on
 Django would do better?  Then we could use Pygment's excellent D source
 code highlighter.  We'd have to convince someone to leave D long enough
 to mess around in Python long enough to make the site, and even then
 convincing someone to maintain it would be bothersome to say the least.


I've been tempted to write a crude Python preprocessor (in D, of course) 
that would translate "{}"-style blocks into Python's indentation syntax. 
Maybe that would ease the poor recruit's D->Python weening ;)
Jun 23 2008
prev sibling parent reply Yigal Chripun <yigal100 gmail.com> writes:
Chris R. Miller wrote:

 Yigal Chripun wrote:

 Chris R. Miller wrote:

 Yigal Chripun wrote:

 Also, what about using Google groups?


 Googlegroups would be a very powerful tool indeed.  I have some
 experience administering various Google Groups, and as such I have to
 warn that they are subject to a large amount of spam.  Perhaps a GNU
 Mailman list instead, or perhaps a phpBB3.0 forum?


 definitely NOT any kind of a mailing list - those are user unfriendly.
 I'd prefer mirroring the D news groups on Google groups and I'm sure the
 spam can be dealt with, for instance by requiring a sign-up.


 
 Also in my experience is that a sign-up system greatly reduces the
 number of new sign-ups, mainly because people never read the instructions.
 
 A funny anecdote from that is the story of the Linux Users Group on
 Google Groups (http://groups.google.com/group/linuxusersgroup), where we
 were getting so much spam that the administrators decided to manually
 screen all potential new members by hand by asking a security question:
  "Do you intend to spam the group?"
 
 The majority of applicants put nothing there, presumably because they're
 mindless spambots.
 
 Some people read the instructions and wrote "no."
 
 Others condensed their whole resume and autobiography down to a size
 that it would fit in the tiny input box.  Of course, they never answered
 the question, so we were forced to deny them.
 
 Some people answered "yes."
 
 Others treated it like some kind of door, and they'd write stuff like
 "hello plz let me in plz i want to ask qestionz abt linus!"  These guys
 were so funny we actually started a private Google Group for just the
 admins to share these funny replies with.
 
 
 
 So, returning to the original topic, while screening newbies does have
 its merit, I have found that it really doesn't do that well.  People are
 used to captchas, proving their humanity by responding to an email from
 a mailman list manager, and they have also proven an inability to read a
 question and answer it (which would explain the dismal scores seen in
 schools nowadays).  You're welcome to try, and it will be successful,
 but you may end up inadvertently screening out people who will in time
 become good members of the community.  Heck, when I first started on
 mailing lists and forums so many years ago, I was not very smart, I was
 annoying, and if I now were an admin and I then entered, I would ban me
 in an instant.  Eventually I straightened myself out and learned to shut
 up (most of the time) but I caution you to think of the newbies.  Yes,
 they're annoying, but they do get better over time.
 

 Of all the Language sites the php site is widely known for its
 organization and documentation. D needs something /at least/ of that
 level. My perfect D site would run on a CMS with different perspectives
 for different user types. D programmers require a different set of tools
 and documentation from the set of tools and documentation required for
 the developers of the language and its environment itself ( that means
 the compiler, runtime, standard lib, etc...).


 
 Perhaps Drupal?  Maybe using it as an opportunity to upgrade and expand
 dsource?  There are many paths we might take.  In my experience Joomla
 is just a pain to work with.  I rather like the idea of making the site
 in D itself, perhaps using Wombat or FastCGI4D.  It would be an epic
 project assuming it's aimed as a whole CMS, so perhaps something on
 Django would do better?  Then we could use Pygment's excellent D source
 code highlighter.  We'd have to convince someone to leave D long enough
 to mess around in Python long enough to make the site, and even then
 convincing someone to maintain it would be bothersome to say the least.
 
 There are many possible choices, so we should probably make a list of
 advantages and disadvantages of each on Wiki4D or something like that,
 assuming it does become a community decision (I was always under the
 impression that what Walter does with his site was his own business,
 though if he's willing to entertain our ideas that's great too).
 


Just to note a few things:
A) I totally agree with Jarret's post about the problem of impersonators.

B) I think that there should be separation between the D language itself
and Walter's site. Walter's site should be about his implementation -
DMD, and a different site should be created for the D language
specification itself which would point to all the related sites, like
digital mars, the GDC site (do they even have a site?), Dsource, etc...
I know there once was a d-programming-language.com site which could be
made the official gateway to all info related to the language.

C) regarding sign-up: you don't have to block all newbies. you can have
different policies for different groups. namely, the D.learn NG
shouldn't have the same policy as this NG. It makes sense to have a
place for newbies to ask questions without a registration separate from
a different group for the regulars here, and maybe even a third group
for developers and contributers to the D language. Also a separation of
the D language specification from the different compiler implementors
should be considered, for example the "D language specification group"
can be the place for different implementors to discuss implementation
techniques like the GC implementation, the run-time, and the standard
lib. currently there is no such place that I'm aware of besides this
group where people can discuss and concentrate on those issues.

D) Regarding a CMS: I agree that Joomla sucks. Of course a D cms would
be the best option, but since we currently don't have one, I'd suggest
something like modx (modxcms.com) or maybe RoR. Anything that is
flexible and without unneeded restrictions.
Jun 23 2008
parent reply janderson <askme me.com> writes:
Yigal Chripun wrote:

 B) I think that there should be separation between the D language itself
 and Walter's site. Walter's site should be about his implementation -
 DMD, and a different site should be created for the D language
 specification itself which would point to all the related sites, like
 digital mars, the GDC site (do they even have a site?), Dsource, etc...
 I know there once was a d-programming-language.com site which could be
 made the official gateway to all info related to the language.


If Walter where to go this route, I think the DigitalMars D site would 
have to automatically go to that website, and the D implementation would 
have to live in a slightly different location.  The fact is, when 
someone searches for D they always get the DigitalMars site.  I still 
think one well designed, good looking webpage would do much for 
popularizing D.

-Joel
Jun 24 2008
parent reply Yigal Chripun <yigal100 gmail.com> writes:
janderson wrote:

 Yigal Chripun wrote:

 B) I think that there should be separation between the D language itself
 and Walter's site. Walter's site should be about his implementation -
 DMD, and a different site should be created for the D language
 specification itself which would point to all the related sites, like
 digital mars, the GDC site (do they even have a site?), Dsource, etc...
 I know there once was a d-programming-language.com site which could be
 made the official gateway to all info related to the language.


 
 If Walter where to go this route, I think the DigitalMars D site would
 have to automatically go to that website, and the D implementation would
 have to live in a slightly different location.  The fact is, when
 someone searches for D they always get the DigitalMars site.  I still
 think one well designed, good looking webpage would do much for
 popularizing D.
 
 -Joel


I disagree. If you create a new site on www.d-programming-language.org
[a domain already owned by Walter] and put links to all D related sites,
than searching for "D programming language" will match the domain /and/
all the info and this site will quickly become the 1st search result.
Besides, it makes sense that Walter's site would be about /Walter's/
implementation of the language while a separate D-languge site would be
about the general specification of D.
Jun 25 2008
next sibling parent reply Robert Fraser <fraserofthenight gmail.com> writes:
Yigal Chripun wrote:

 janderson wrote:

 Yigal Chripun wrote:

 B) I think that there should be separation between the D language itself
 and Walter's site. Walter's site should be about his implementation -
 DMD, and a different site should be created for the D language
 specification itself which would point to all the related sites, like
 digital mars, the GDC site (do they even have a site?), Dsource, etc...
 I know there once was a d-programming-language.com site which could be
 made the official gateway to all info related to the language.


 If Walter where to go this route, I think the DigitalMars D site would
 have to automatically go to that website, and the D implementation would
 have to live in a slightly different location.  The fact is, when
 someone searches for D they always get the DigitalMars site.  I still
 think one well designed, good looking webpage would do much for
 popularizing D.

 -Joel


 
 I disagree. If you create a new site on www.d-programming-language.org
 [a domain already owned by Walter] and put links to all D related sites,
 than searching for "D programming language" will match the domain /and/
 all the info and this site will quickly become the 1st search result.
 Besides, it makes sense that Walter's site would be about /Walter's/
 implementation of the language while a separate D-languge site would be
 about the general specification of D.


Quickly as in about one year for Google (not sure about Live and some of 
the others...)
Jun 25 2008
parent "Koroskin Denis" <2korden gmail.com> writes:
On Thu, 26 Jun 2008 10:25:19 +0400, Robert Fraser  
<fraserofthenight gmail.com> wrote:


 Yigal Chripun wrote:

 janderson wrote:

 Yigal Chripun wrote:

 B) I think that there should be separation between the D language  
 itself
 and Walter's site. Walter's site should be about his implementation -
 DMD, and a different site should be created for the D language
 specification itself which would point to all the related sites, like
 digital mars, the GDC site (do they even have a site?), Dsource,  
 etc...
 I know there once was a d-programming-language.com site which could be
 made the official gateway to all info related to the language.


 If Walter where to go this route, I think the DigitalMars D site would
 have to automatically go to that website, and the D implementation  
 would
 have to live in a slightly different location.  The fact is, when
 someone searches for D they always get the DigitalMars site.  I still
 think one well designed, good looking webpage would do much for
 popularizing D.

 -Joel


  I disagree. If you create a new site on www.d-programming-language.org
 [a domain already owned by Walter] and put links to all D related sites,
 than searching for "D programming language" will match the domain /and/
 all the info and this site will quickly become the 1st search result.
 Besides, it makes sense that Walter's site would be about /Walter's/
 implementation of the language while a separate D-languge site would be
 about the general specification of D.


 Quickly as in about one year for Google (not sure about Live and some of  
 the others...)


It doesn't matter. Think long-term.
Jun 26 2008
prev sibling parent janderson <askme me.com> writes:
Yigal Chripun wrote:

 janderson wrote:

 Yigal Chripun wrote:

 B) I think that there should be separation between the D language itself
 and Walter's site. Walter's site should be about his implementation -
 DMD, and a different site should be created for the D language
 specification itself which would point to all the related sites, like
 digital mars, the GDC site (do they even have a site?), Dsource, etc...
 I know there once was a d-programming-language.com site which could be
 made the official gateway to all info related to the language.


 If Walter where to go this route, I think the DigitalMars D site would
 have to automatically go to that website, and the D implementation would
 have to live in a slightly different location.  The fact is, when
 someone searches for D they always get the DigitalMars site.  I still
 think one well designed, good looking webpage would do much for
 popularizing D.

 -Joel


 
 I disagree. If you create a new site on www.d-programming-language.org
 [a domain already owned by Walter] and put links to all D related sites,
 than searching for "D programming language" will match the domain /and/
 all the info and this site will quickly become the 1st search result.
 Besides, it makes sense that Walter's site would be about /Walter's/
 implementation of the language while a separate D-languge site would be
 about the general specification of D.


It would take a while for things to update.  Even then, would there be 
enough links from other user webpages to make it appear as the first 
link when I type "Digital Mars D" or "D programming".  I imagine that 
the digital mars site has a lot of links from sites that are no loner 
being maintained.

-Joel
Jun 26 2008
prev sibling parent reply Jesse Phillips <jessekphillips gmail.com> writes:
On Sun, 22 Jun 2008 17:43:27 +0300, Yigal Chripun wrote:


 Robert Fraser wrote:

 Nick Sabalausky wrote:

 "Clay Smith" <clayasaurus gmail.com> wrote in message
 news:g3jrs4$402$1 digitalmars.com...

 Couldn't find a specific thread devoted to this topic, so started.

 What do you think is the best way to promote D?

 Here are some ideas I already know about and have seen used
 successfully.

 1. Articles - Write D articles and post on digg/reddit 2. Tutorials -
 Teach D newcomers how to use D 3. Libraries - Write a library for D /
 help out an existing D library

 Here is a link that is also relevant to the subject:
 http://www.digitalmars.com/d/howto-promote.html

 I'm wondering, what are all the awesome, zany, weird, or unique ways
 you can think of to promote the D language? Did I cover everything?
 Are there more effective ways of promoting the language?


 I agree with all of the "libraries" stuff said before. But I'd also
 add a couple other things:

 It's been brought up before, but the official webpage needs to be
 maintained better, particularly from the perspective of a D newbie.
 Don't get me wrong, this isn't an attack on Walter's web work or
 anything. It's just that D has all this good stuff, like Wiki4D,
 Chris's snapshots, DFL, etc, but no ones going to be finding these
 things unless they actually commit the time amd effort to really dig
 around the scene and stumble upon them.

 Think about it this way: If a person hears about "this cool new D
 language" and decides they want to know more about it, where are they
 going to go? They're going to go find the official D site. (Maybe it's
 just me, but if I want to learn about a language, finding the official
 site would be my first step.) But then they get there and see these
 outdated pages about the major projects and sites for D, and if they
 stumble upon, for instance, Chris's D Snapshots and DSource instead of
 Elephant and the crappy newsgroup web-interface, well then that's just
 by pure luck rather than design.

 Which brings up another thing. Newsgroups aren't very inviting. If
 Johnny Newbie goes to site "BB" and sees a well-designed web-based
 message board, and goes to site "CC" and sees "here's the server and
 group name for our newsgroup" (interestingly, I can't even seem to
 find the page that says that right now - just direct links into the
 not-very-good web-reader) or even worse: a mailing list, then he's
 gonna be a lot more likely to join in on community "BB". I know I
 would. So...I'm not saying we should switch from newsgoups to a
 message board. I'm just saying, if we're going to stick with
 newsgroups, then getting a better web-interface should be a priority.


 
 I think Walter needs to let someone in the community take over (at
 least partially) the main D page... someone with web design skills ;-P.
 And the backend for a newsreader would make an interesting D project,
 as well.


 
 vote +100
 
 Also, what about using Google groups?


There is a D programming group on Google groups. The probably is that no 
one is there. There are people signed up for it, like 60, but the help 
seems to come from the ng so there isn't much point posting there. As of 
right now, I can tell you there is no spam coming in. I even set it up te 
send me emails upon any message posting since activity is so low. It 
would be great to see the news move in my opinion.
Jun 22 2008
next sibling parent reply Walter Bright <newshound1 digitalmars.com> writes:
Jesse Phillips wrote:

 Also, what about using Google groups?


 
 There is a D programming group on Google groups. The probably is that no 
 one is there. There are people signed up for it, like 60, but the help 
 seems to come from the ng so there isn't much point posting there. As of 
 right now, I can tell you there is no spam coming in. I even set it up te 
 send me emails upon any message posting since activity is so low. It 
 would be great to see the news move in my opinion.


What's better about google groups? (I find the Thunderbird newsreader 
better than g.g.)
Jun 23 2008
next sibling parent reply Yigal Chripun <yigal100 gmail.com> writes:
Walter Bright wrote:

 Jesse Phillips wrote:

 Also, what about using Google groups?


 There is a D programming group on Google groups. The probably is that
 no one is there. There are people signed up for it, like 60, but the
 help seems to come from the ng so there isn't much point posting
 there. As of right now, I can tell you there is no spam coming in. I
 even set it up te send me emails upon any message posting since
 activity is so low. It would be great to see the news move in my opinion.


 
 What's better about google groups? (I find the Thunderbird newsreader
 better than g.g.)


My suggestion is not to replace the NG. All the regulars can and should
keep their favorite news-readers. I merely suggested to mirror the NG
there as a /much/ better web front that what's in use on digitalmars.com
Jun 23 2008
parent reply Bill Baxter <dnewsgroup billbaxter.com> writes:
Yigal Chripun wrote:

 Walter Bright wrote:

 Jesse Phillips wrote:

 Also, what about using Google groups?


 There is a D programming group on Google groups. The probably is that
 no one is there. There are people signed up for it, like 60, but the
 help seems to come from the ng so there isn't much point posting
 there. As of right now, I can tell you there is no spam coming in. I
 even set it up te send me emails upon any message posting since
 activity is so low. It would be great to see the news move in my opinion.


 What's better about google groups? (I find the Thunderbird newsreader
 better than g.g.)


 
 My suggestion is not to replace the NG. All the regulars can and should
 keep their favorite news-readers. I merely suggested to mirror the NG
 there as a /much/ better web front that what's in use on digitalmars.com


I think somebody tried that before, but to get google to mirror an NG 
you have to convince google it's a major enough NG to be worth 
mirroring.   Apparently they weren't convinced at the time.

Certainly worth giving it another shot I suppose.  Eventually if enough 
people ask, you'd have to think they'd decide that it's easier to just 
mirror the darned thing than keep dealing with all the requests to 
mirror it.

--bb
Jun 23 2008
parent reply Walter Bright <newshound1 digitalmars.com> writes:
Bill Baxter wrote:

 I think somebody tried that before, but to get google to mirror an NG 
 you have to convince google it's a major enough NG to be worth 
 mirroring.   Apparently they weren't convinced at the time.
 
 Certainly worth giving it another shot I suppose.  Eventually if enough 
 people ask, you'd have to think they'd decide that it's easier to just 
 mirror the darned thing than keep dealing with all the requests to 
 mirror it.


I've sent repeated requests to Google to pick up the n.g. which they've 
ignored. I've thought since that might not be a bad thing, as we don't 
get a whole lot of spam here.

I like the reddit comment system a lot. I read it's open source now. If 
it could be used in conjunction with the n.g., that would be ideal.

(In conjunction meaning that the reddit would be the "web interface" to 
the n.g.)

The web interface used now sucks, but it is the only one we found that 
would even work. It is open source, and anyone is free to try and 
improve it.
Jun 23 2008
parent reply "Koroskin Denis" <2korden gmail.com> writes:
On Mon, 23 Jun 2008 14:11:52 +0400, Walter Bright  
<newshound1 digitalmars.com> wrote:


 Bill Baxter wrote:

 I think somebody tried that before, but to get google to mirror an NG  
 you have to convince google it's a major enough NG to be worth  
 mirroring.   Apparently they weren't convinced at the time.
  Certainly worth giving it another shot I suppose.  Eventually if  
 enough people ask, you'd have to think they'd decide that it's easier  
 to just mirror the darned thing than keep dealing with all the requests  
 to mirror it.


 I've sent repeated requests to Google to pick up the n.g. which they've  
 ignored. I've thought since that might not be a bad thing, as we don't  
 get a whole lot of spam here.

 I like the reddit comment system a lot. I read it's open source now. If  
 it could be used in conjunction with the n.g., that would be ideal.

 (In conjunction meaning that the reddit would be the "web interface" to  
 the n.g.)

 The web interface used now sucks, but it is the only one we found that  
 would even work. It is open source, and anyone is free to try and  
 improve it.


I enjoy the solution found by Sony very much:

All their console game development discussion is concentrated in  
newsgroup, that can be accessed via web interface as a full-featured forum  
(with login, statistics, search etc. Think of phpbb, for example). At the  
end of each message there is a www link to the it to be accessed from a  
browser. I found it very handy!

Most people are more used to forums, not newsgroups. Maybe we should write  
a wrapper one for D newsgroups and put it into this new site?
Jun 24 2008
parent Robert Fraser <fraserofthenight gmail.com> writes:
Koroskin Denis Wrote:


 On Mon, 23 Jun 2008 14:11:52 +0400, Walter Bright  
 <newshound1 digitalmars.com> wrote:
 

 Bill Baxter wrote:

 I think somebody tried that before, but to get google to mirror an NG  
 you have to convince google it's a major enough NG to be worth  
 mirroring.   Apparently they weren't convinced at the time.
  Certainly worth giving it another shot I suppose.  Eventually if  
 enough people ask, you'd have to think they'd decide that it's easier  
 to just mirror the darned thing than keep dealing with all the requests  
 to mirror it.


 I've sent repeated requests to Google to pick up the n.g. which they've  
 ignored. I've thought since that might not be a bad thing, as we don't  
 get a whole lot of spam here.

 I like the reddit comment system a lot. I read it's open source now. If  
 it could be used in conjunction with the n.g., that would be ideal.

 (In conjunction meaning that the reddit would be the "web interface" to  
 the n.g.)

 The web interface used now sucks, but it is the only one we found that  
 would even work. It is open source, and anyone is free to try and  
 improve it.


 
 I enjoy the solution found by Sony very much:
 
 All their console game development discussion is concentrated in  
 newsgroup, that can be accessed via web interface as a full-featured forum  
 (with login, statistics, search etc. Think of phpbb, for example). At the  
 end of each message there is a www link to the it to be accessed from a  
 browser. I found it very handy!
 
 Most people are more used to forums, not newsgroups. Maybe we should write  
 a wrapper one for D newsgroups and put it into this new site?


How is that different than what we have (except we should have a good
one)? If we added the ability to embed sound effects & music to posts
made on the web interface, we'd be getting somewhere.
Jun 24 2008
prev sibling next sibling parent reply "Jarrett Billingsley" <kb3ctd2 yahoo.com> writes:
"Walter Bright" <newshound1 digitalmars.com> wrote in message 
news:g3njpj$2gh6$2 digitalmars.com...


 What's better about google groups? (I find the Thunderbird newsreader 
 better than g.g.)


For me, the worst thing about my newsgroup reader is that it's on my local 
machine.  All the state about what I've read and haven't is stored here --  
on my Windows partition of my desktop.  If I want to read the NGs from 
anywhere else: my laptop, my Linux partition, someone else's computer, a 
public computer -- it's impossible to tell what I have and haven't read. 
It's also frustrating because I have to have a newsgroup client, which isn't 
always possible on public machines, or else I face the cold wrath of the 
horrible web interface.

If I could access everything through Google, bam, all problems solved.  I'd 
even be able to read the newsgroups on my cell phone.

In short: when it comes to the internets, distributed state sucks.
Jun 23 2008
next sibling parent reply e-t172 <e-t172 akegroup.org> writes:
Jarrett Billingsley wrote:

 "Walter Bright" <newshound1 digitalmars.com> wrote in message 
 news:g3njpj$2gh6$2 digitalmars.com...
 

 What's better about google groups? (I find the Thunderbird newsreader 
 better than g.g.)


 
 For me, the worst thing about my newsgroup reader is that it's on my local 
 machine.  All the state about what I've read and haven't is stored here --  
 on my Windows partition of my desktop.  If I want to read the NGs from 
 anywhere else: my laptop, my Linux partition, someone else's computer, a 
 public computer -- it's impossible to tell what I have and haven't read. 
 It's also frustrating because I have to have a newsgroup client, which isn't 
 always possible on public machines, or else I face the cold wrath of the 
 horrible web interface.
 
 If I could access everything through Google, bam, all problems solved.  I'd 
 even be able to read the newsgroups on my cell phone.
 
 In short: when it comes to the internets, distributed state sucks. 


Seconded. That's why I definitely prefer mailing lists over newsgroups: 
all my mail is stored on a IMAP server, so the read/unread state is 
centralized.
Jun 23 2008
parent "Anders Bergh" <anders1 gmail.com> writes:
On Mon, Jun 23, 2008 at 4:58 PM, e-t172 <e-t172 akegroup.org> wrote:

 Seconded. That's why I definitely prefer mailing lists over newsgroups: all
 my mail is stored on a IMAP server, so the read/unread state is centralized.


I use the puremagic relay. This way you can use your regular email
client and get all of those IMAP features etc.

http://lists.puremagic.com/mailman/listinfo

Anders
Jun 23 2008
prev sibling parent janderson <askme me.com> writes:
Jarrett Billingsley wrote:

 I'd even be able to read the newsgroups on my cell phone.


I can read the D newsgroup on my cell in a newsreader but I take your point.

-Joel
Jun 24 2008
prev sibling next sibling parent Sean Kelly <sean invisibleduck.org> writes:
== Quote from Walter Bright (newshound1 digitalmars.com)'s article

 Jesse Phillips wrote:

 Also, what about using Google groups?


 There is a D programming group on Google groups. The probably is that no
 one is there. There are people signed up for it, like 60, but the help
 seems to come from the ng so there isn't much point posting there. As of
 right now, I can tell you there is no spam coming in. I even set it up te
 send me emails upon any message posting since activity is so low. It
 would be great to see the news move in my opinion.


 What's better about google groups? (I find the Thunderbird newsreader
 better than g.g.)


Google groups isn't blocked by corporate firewalls, while for whatever reason,
plain old usenet often is.


Sean
Jun 23 2008
prev sibling parent reply Jesse Phillips <jessekphillips gmail.com> writes:
On Mon, 23 Jun 2008 00:36:23 -0700, Walter Bright wrote:


 Jesse Phillips wrote:

 Also, what about using Google groups?


 
 There is a D programming group on Google groups. The probably is that
 no one is there. There are people signed up for it, like 60, but the
 help seems to come from the ng so there isn't much point posting there.
 As of right now, I can tell you there is no spam coming in. I even set
 it up te send me emails upon any message posting since activity is so
 low. It would be great to see the news move in my opinion.


 
 What's better about google groups? (I find the Thunderbird newsreader
 better than g.g.)


Personally, like others, my only problem is on the go. I use Pan am quite 
happy reading the news groups with it. If the website when reddit style 
with it, including logins to remember read posts, I'd start using the web 
interface. Even if it didn't remember what I read, I could use it to 
check for new posts when I'm not at my computer which I currently do not 
do.
Jun 23 2008
parent "Jarrett Billingsley" <kb3ctd2 yahoo.com> writes:
"Jesse Phillips" <jessekphillips gmail.com> wrote in message 
news:g3pite$19k3$1 digitalmars.com...


 Personally, like others, my only problem is on the go. I use Pan am quite
 happy reading the news groups with it. If the website when reddit style
 with it, including logins to remember read posts, I'd start using the web


Does.  Not.  Compute.
Jun 23 2008
prev sibling parent reply Yigal Chripun <yigal100 gmail.com> writes:
Jesse Phillips wrote:

 On Sun, 22 Jun 2008 17:43:27 +0300, Yigal Chripun wrote:
 

 Robert Fraser wrote:

 Nick Sabalausky wrote:

 "Clay Smith" <clayasaurus gmail.com> wrote in message
 news:g3jrs4$402$1 digitalmars.com...

 Couldn't find a specific thread devoted to this topic, so started.

 What do you think is the best way to promote D?

 Here are some ideas I already know about and have seen used
 successfully.

 1. Articles - Write D articles and post on digg/reddit 2. Tutorials -
 Teach D newcomers how to use D 3. Libraries - Write a library for D /
 help out an existing D library

 Here is a link that is also relevant to the subject:
 http://www.digitalmars.com/d/howto-promote.html

 I'm wondering, what are all the awesome, zany, weird, or unique ways
 you can think of to promote the D language? Did I cover everything?
 Are there more effective ways of promoting the language?


 I agree with all of the "libraries" stuff said before. But I'd also
 add a couple other things:

 It's been brought up before, but the official webpage needs to be
 maintained better, particularly from the perspective of a D newbie.
 Don't get me wrong, this isn't an attack on Walter's web work or
 anything. It's just that D has all this good stuff, like Wiki4D,
 Chris's snapshots, DFL, etc, but no ones going to be finding these
 things unless they actually commit the time amd effort to really dig
 around the scene and stumble upon them.

 Think about it this way: If a person hears about "this cool new D
 language" and decides they want to know more about it, where are they
 going to go? They're going to go find the official D site. (Maybe it's
 just me, but if I want to learn about a language, finding the official
 site would be my first step.) But then they get there and see these
 outdated pages about the major projects and sites for D, and if they
 stumble upon, for instance, Chris's D Snapshots and DSource instead of
 Elephant and the crappy newsgroup web-interface, well then that's just
 by pure luck rather than design.

 Which brings up another thing. Newsgroups aren't very inviting. If
 Johnny Newbie goes to site "BB" and sees a well-designed web-based
 message board, and goes to site "CC" and sees "here's the server and
 group name for our newsgroup" (interestingly, I can't even seem to
 find the page that says that right now - just direct links into the
 not-very-good web-reader) or even worse: a mailing list, then he's
 gonna be a lot more likely to join in on community "BB". I know I
 would. So...I'm not saying we should switch from newsgoups to a
 message board. I'm just saying, if we're going to stick with
 newsgroups, then getting a better web-interface should be a priority.


 I think Walter needs to let someone in the community take over (at
 least partially) the main D page... someone with web design skills ;-P.
 And the backend for a newsreader would make an interesting D project,
 as well.


 vote +100

 Also, what about using Google groups?


 
 There is a D programming group on Google groups. The probably is that no 
 one is there. There are people signed up for it, like 60, but the help 
 seems to come from the ng so there isn't much point posting there. As of 
 right now, I can tell you there is no spam coming in. I even set it up te 
 send me emails upon any message posting since activity is so low. It 
 would be great to see the news move in my opinion.


This is not exactly what I suggested. no need to split the community to
different places. I actually thought of /mirroring/ the NG on Google
gropus. I know that other projects do that. Basically using the Google
groups instead of the current [crappy] web news system as another
front-end to the NG.
Jun 23 2008
parent reply Sean Kelly <sean invisibleduck.org> writes:
== Quote from Yigal Chripun (yigal100 gmail.com)'s article

 Jesse Phillips wrote:

 On Sun, 22 Jun 2008 17:43:27 +0300, Yigal Chripun wrote:


 Robert Fraser wrote:

 Nick Sabalausky wrote:

 "Clay Smith" <clayasaurus gmail.com> wrote in message
 news:g3jrs4$402$1 digitalmars.com...

 Couldn't find a specific thread devoted to this topic, so started.

 What do you think is the best way to promote D?

 Here are some ideas I already know about and have seen used
 successfully.

 1. Articles - Write D articles and post on digg/reddit 2. Tutorials -
 Teach D newcomers how to use D 3. Libraries - Write a library for D /
 help out an existing D library

 Here is a link that is also relevant to the subject:
 http://www.digitalmars.com/d/howto-promote.html

 I'm wondering, what are all the awesome, zany, weird, or unique ways
 you can think of to promote the D language? Did I cover everything?
 Are there more effective ways of promoting the language?


 I agree with all of the "libraries" stuff said before. But I'd also
 add a couple other things:

 It's been brought up before, but the official webpage needs to be
 maintained better, particularly from the perspective of a D newbie.
 Don't get me wrong, this isn't an attack on Walter's web work or
 anything. It's just that D has all this good stuff, like Wiki4D,
 Chris's snapshots, DFL, etc, but no ones going to be finding these
 things unless they actually commit the time amd effort to really dig
 around the scene and stumble upon them.

 Think about it this way: If a person hears about "this cool new D
 language" and decides they want to know more about it, where are they
 going to go? They're going to go find the official D site. (Maybe it's
 just me, but if I want to learn about a language, finding the official
 site would be my first step.) But then they get there and see these
 outdated pages about the major projects and sites for D, and if they
 stumble upon, for instance, Chris's D Snapshots and DSource instead of
 Elephant and the crappy newsgroup web-interface, well then that's just
 by pure luck rather than design.

 Which brings up another thing. Newsgroups aren't very inviting. If
 Johnny Newbie goes to site "BB" and sees a well-designed web-based
 message board, and goes to site "CC" and sees "here's the server and
 group name for our newsgroup" (interestingly, I can't even seem to
 find the page that says that right now - just direct links into the
 not-very-good web-reader) or even worse: a mailing list, then he's
 gonna be a lot more likely to join in on community "BB". I know I
 would. So...I'm not saying we should switch from newsgoups to a
 message board. I'm just saying, if we're going to stick with
 newsgroups, then getting a better web-interface should be a priority.


 I think Walter needs to let someone in the community take over (at
 least partially) the main D page... someone with web design skills ;-P.
 And the backend for a newsreader would make an interesting D project,
 as well.


 vote +100

 Also, what about using Google groups?


 There is a D programming group on Google groups. The probably is that no
 one is there. There are people signed up for it, like 60, but the help
 seems to come from the ng so there isn't much point posting there. As of
 right now, I can tell you there is no spam coming in. I even set it up te
 send me emails upon any message posting since activity is so low. It
 would be great to see the news move in my opinion.


 This is not exactly what I suggested. no need to split the community to
 different places. I actually thought of /mirroring/ the NG on Google
 gropus. I know that other projects do that. Basically using the Google
 groups instead of the current [crappy] web news system as another
 front-end to the NG.


I've requested that Google Groups pick up the DigitalMars newsgroups before
but had no success.


Sean
Jun 23 2008
parent reply Bill Baxter <dnewsgroup billbaxter.com> writes:
Sean Kelly wrote:


 I've requested that Google Groups pick up the DigitalMars newsgroups before
 but had no success.


Where does one make such a request?
One or two people probably isn't going to do it, but if they keep 
getting request from different people, maybe they'll give in eventually.

So how did you request DigitalMars be added?  (I looked over the 
groups.google site, but couldn't find anything obvious.)

--bb
Jun 23 2008
parent Sean Kelly <sean invisibleduck.org> writes:
== Quote from Bill Baxter (dnewsgroup billbaxter.com)'s article

 Sean Kelly wrote:

 I've requested that Google Groups pick up the DigitalMars newsgroups before
 but had no success.


 Where does one make such a request?
 One or two people probably isn't going to do it, but if they keep
 getting request from different people, maybe they'll give in eventually.
 So how did you request DigitalMars be added?  (I looked over the
 groups.google site, but couldn't find anything obvious.)


I think I emailed them.  Somewhere in groups.google.com there's a comment
similar to "don't see the group you're looking for?  let us know!" with an email
address.


Sean
Jun 24 2008
prev sibling next sibling parent reply David Ferenczi <raggae ferenczi.net> writes:
Clay Smith wrote:


 Couldn't find a specific thread devoted to this topic, so started.
 
 What do you think is the best way to promote D?
 
 Here are some ideas I already know about and have seen used successfully.
 
 1. Articles - Write D articles and post on digg/reddit
 2. Tutorials - Teach D newcomers how to use D
 3. Libraries - Write a library for D / help out an existing D library
 
 Here is a link that is also relevant to the subject:
 http://www.digitalmars.com/d/howto-promote.html
 
 I'm wondering, what are all the awesome, zany, weird, or unique ways you
 can think of to promote the D language? Did I cover everything? Are
 there more effective ways of promoting the language?


For a successful promotion I think some precondition should be met:
1) The compiler should be (almost) bugfree, so that the user has no doubt,
whether the used language construct is worng or the compiler has a bug.
Yes, the language specification may give a hint, but a solid reference
compiler is essential.
2) The documentation on the web site often lacks of deeper explanations
(and/or examples), which would help to understand the features and the
correct usage of them. It would be good to see a motivation->solution->best
practice like explanations to most of the features. (What is the D-ish
solution?)

These should cover all the languge issues, but the goal is to have market
share. So we need to go further:

3) In case of development for PC architectures, we need libraries,

Java. The same goes for script langugages, like Python, Perl, and Ruby. D
must be not just a superior language but must provide a complete collection
of libraries.
4) In case of embedded development the libraries are not absolutely
neccessary. (It depends.) E.g firmware development rarely needs libraries.
And this is the field, where D can show it's real potetntial. In the
embedded development there is one and only language, at the moment, C. I
think I don't have to speak too much about its weeknesses. But D has no
chance, till 99% of the controllers come with a C compiler. (And mostly no
other compiler is available, maybe in rare cases ada or C++.) So the
promotion of D should strongly consider the microchip manufacturer
componies. You may say, that D must be wide spreaded first, and then the
microchip manufacturers will switch, but I'm not sure. I think D should be
also bundled, so that it will be also an immedate option for embedded
development. If I just mention functional safety, which really needs the
technological advances of D, the chances are clear. Safety is a buzzword
nowadays and it can generate quite a good promotion for D. I think D could
easily take over the embedded development from C, and I would strongly
concentrate on this area.
Jun 24 2008
parent "Jarrett Billingsley" <kb3ctd2 yahoo.com> writes:
"David Ferenczi" <raggae ferenczi.net> wrote in message 
news:g3qn16$p5f$1 digitalmars.com...


 For a successful promotion I think some precondition should be met:
 1) The compiler should be (almost) bugfree, so that the user has no doubt,
 whether the used language construct is worng or the compiler has a bug.
 Yes, the language specification may give a hint, but a solid reference
 compiler is essential.


I second this.  Walter, can we have -- for once -- a pause in the 
development of new features in favor of a slew of bugfixes?  We had that one 
glorious period the couple months before 1.0 came out.  If that kind of 
thing carried on for 6 months, probably a great majority of the bugs could 
be fixed.

Maybe once the 2.0 spec is finalized, focus could be shifted entirely to 
implementing it correctly and making DMDFE far more robust than it is now. 
I think newcomers would appreciate a working compiler more than a token 
announcement that "2.0 is out!".
Jun 24 2008
prev sibling next sibling parent Lutger <lutger.blijdestijn gmail.com> writes:
Most of the ways to promote D are already being worked upon, such as good
compilers, websites, blogs, libraries, tools, etc. I think D is doing
relatively good on the web with spreading information / The Word.

I can think of two things that could use more attention: systems programming
and applications. 
Systems programming and embedded devices could be an area where D faces
little competition. If it will be used more here, it may also gain 
confidence in other areas. 
Most important may be applications. One or two 'killer apps' may attract a
lot of attention, whether it is freeware, open source or commercial. For
example, Kenta Cho's games most likely did a lot of good for D in the
Japanese community at least.
Jun 24 2008
prev sibling parent Ingo Oeser <ioe-news rameria.de> writes:
Clay Smith wrote:


 What do you think is the best way to promote D?
 Here are some ideas I already know about and have seen used successfully.
 
 1. Articles - Write D articles and post on digg/reddit


Ivory tower stuff -> nobody invests in that, except some geeks.

Walter and friends wrote too much praise already. Better invest that
time in writing D spec and managing the developers to scale development 
of code and documentation.
Walter should learn more from Linus Torvalds here. He excelled there
together with his team!

Recommended reading: linux-2.6/Documentation/ManagementStyle


 2. Tutorials - Teach D newcomers how to use D


Great idea! Better: Provide professional D trainings.
If it works out, D has business value.


 3. Libraries - Write a library for D / help out an existing D library


Good idea! But please prefer "help out". 

Diversity and choice is good, but "do not repeat yourself" and 
"don't reinvent the wheel" might prove more efficient 
with the scarce development resources of the D community.

Additions:
4. write real applications with added value and sell them successfully.
   That proves the added value in $CURRENCY.

5. write real applications with added value and open source them.
   That proves that more than fancy libraries and games can be written
   in D and how to do it.

6. Extend dsss to build *.msi, *.rpm, *.deb etc. packages
   Really: Not using the package manager to deploy any executable
        code is a big NO these days. Even Windows can do it these days!

So there is actually real coding work to do!


Best Regards

Ingo
Jun 24 2008