• Steve Teale <steve.teale britseyeview.com> Jun 19 2009
• superdan <super dan.org> Jun 19 2009
• grauzone <none example.net> Jun 19 2009
• superdan <super dan.org> Jun 19 2009
• Steve Teale <steve.teale britseyeview.com> Jun 21 2009
• superdan <super dan.org> Jun 21 2009
• Pete O'dowd <respw1008 romulus.co.uk> Jun 21 2009
• superdan <super dan.org> Jun 22 2009
• "Adam D. Ruppe" <destructionator gmail.com> Jun 19 2009
• Steve Teale <steve.teale britseyeview.com> Jun 21 2009
• BCS <ao pathlink.com> Jun 19 2009
• Sean Kelly <sean invisibleduck.org> Jun 19 2009
• "Danny Wilson" <bluezenix gmail.com> Jun 19 2009
• Jarrett Billingsley <jarrett.billingsley gmail.com> Jun 19 2009
• Daniel Keep <daniel.keep.lists gmail.com> Jun 20 2009
• Tim Matthews <tim.matthews7 gmail.com> Jun 19 2009
• hasen <hasan.aljudy gmail.com> Jun 20 2009
• Bruno Deligny <bruno.deligny gmail.com> Jun 20 2009
• Walter Bright <newshound1 digitalmars.com> Jun 20 2009
• Steve Teale <steve.teale britseyeview.com> Jun 21 2009

Steve Teale <steve.teale britseyeview.com> writes:

Can this group come up with a proper, sober (OK, I'm not), case for D.

This would clearly have to steer clear of the standard libraries, I can't see
how any outside observer is going to be impressed by the fact that we have two.

And D is a computer programming language. So we should deal with it as that
first.

Andrei's article had a lot of good points primarily revolving around the need
to concentrate on concurrency, but I suspect that we should probably stress the
basics.

When Bjarne Stroustrup was originally promoting C++, he made a strong point
that you could at least consider it to be a 'better C'. This point, it seemed
to me, was lost on many. Now we are looking for radical arguments as to why D
is a cool language. Maybe we should remember the basics, and concentrate less
on the vapor.

Bearophile made a counter-argument. But this also did not stress our basic
weaknesses. Most of us are using DMD, which on Windows uses a 20 year old
linker, and utilizes an antique object file format. Under Linux, it can't
produce the position-independent code that's required to create reliable shared
libraries.

Unless you use alpha-level code, you can't load arbitrary D modules at run-time.

There isn't a decent debugger for either Windows or Linux. There may never be
one if the potential authors see the constant focus on meta-programming - that
must make life hell for them.

I'm not advocating a return to D1, but I do want to see closure on D2, and an
ascent from the constant alpha state. Then after that, I'd like to see a more
formal system of RFCs for library proposals, and a recognized pattern for
voting on them so that anyone who kept up-to-date with the process would not be
surprised by what suddenly appeared in Phobos, or perhaps it should be the D
Standard Library (DSL).

When all that had happened I could forget computer programming and get on with
my woodwork relatively secure in the knowledge that I had chosen to support a
winner, and the Walter's efforts were not in vain.

superdan <super dan.org> writes:

Steve Teale Wrote:

 Can this group come up with a proper, sober (OK, I'm not)


den pretty please explain why anyone should give a flyin' fuck fer yer drunken
rant.

grauzone <none example.net> writes:

superdan wrote:
 Steve Teale Wrote:
 
 Can this group come up with a proper, sober (OK, I'm not)


 den pretty please explain why anyone should give a flyin' fuck fer yer drunken
rant.


You just gave a flying fuck.

superdan <super dan.org> writes:

grauzone Wrote:

 superdan wrote:
 Steve Teale Wrote:
 
 Can this group come up with a proper, sober (OK, I'm not)


 den pretty please explain why anyone should give a flyin' fuck fer yer drunken
rant.


 You just gave a flying fuck.


negative. i stopped readin' after da first line. dat counts at most for a
crawlin' fuck.

Steve Teale <steve.teale britseyeview.com> writes:

superdan Wrote:

 Steve Teale Wrote:
 
 Can this group come up with a proper, sober (OK, I'm not)


 den pretty please explain why anyone should give a flyin' fuck fer yer drunken
rant.


Love you man. You're on the spot! I have no excuse.

superdan <super dan.org> writes:

Steve Teale Wrote:

 superdan Wrote:
 
 Steve Teale Wrote:
 
 Can this group come up with a proper, sober (OK, I'm not)


 den pretty please explain why anyone should give a flyin' fuck fer yer drunken
rant.


 Love you man. You're on the spot! I have no excuse.


not shure u r bein' sarcastic but i'm a gonna take dat at face value. akshully
steve u got an excuse. u and i r part of a larger social phenom. i saw many
times in da group: sum'thin' good happens with d. then da group reacts
negatively with da speed o' light. its like physix: ackshon and reackshon.

walt adds features. den we bitch fuck them features, he has 3000 bugs up his
ass. walt fixes bugs. den we bitch that not'n' new is cummin' down da pike.
andre asks about ranges. we get motherfuckin' bikeshed fight. andre implements
them ranges. we bitch about namez syntax and all shit up to the motherfuckin'
wazoo. of course if we dun understand ranges dats his fault too.

been busy   work past week but saw good things. andreis book is on amazon so
ppl know it's cummin'. then da case fer d comes out. loved it. even better
reddit loves it. momentum iz there.

den wat do we do. bearophile writes other side of the coin. what in the name of
fuck is his problem. backstabbin' mo'fucker are da nicest words that cum 2 mind
after racking 'n' waterboarding my brain. EXIT_SUCCESS up yer ass. den cums da
proper case fer d. only good thing is sean's cumback o' da year. thanx sean.
den cherry on da cake. finally grauzone. where therez any negative shit about d
u bet grauzone is on it like flies on shit. so we get this piece of brain
vomit. leave them threadz alone. focus all on rewritin' da windows linker. what
an assfucked strategy dat iz. i bet soon ppl will say yeah d is a shitty
language but hey it got a great linker. what da fuck.

anyway steve. my point is we r part of some weird twilite zone. if d ever
becumz successful theres gonna be murder in dis group.

Pete O'dowd <respw1008 romulus.co.uk> writes:

superdan Wrote:

 Steve Teale Wrote:
 
 superdan Wrote:
 
 Steve Teale Wrote:
 
 Can this group come up with a proper, sober (OK, I'm not)


 den pretty please explain why anyone should give a flyin' fuck fer yer drunken
rant.


 Love you man. You're on the spot! I have no excuse.


 not shure u r bein' sarcastic but i'm a gonna take dat at face value. akshully
steve u got an excuse. u and i r part of a larger social phenom. i saw many
times in da group: sum'thin' good happens with d. then da group reacts
negatively with da speed o' light. its like physix: ackshon and reackshon.
 
 walt adds features. den we bitch fuck them features, he has 3000 bugs up his
ass. walt fixes bugs. den we bitch that not'n' new is cummin' down da pike.
andre asks about ranges. we get motherfuckin' bikeshed fight. andre implements
them ranges. we bitch about namez syntax and all shit up to the motherfuckin'
wazoo. of course if we dun understand ranges dats his fault too.
 
 been busy   work past week but saw good things. andreis book is on amazon so
ppl know it's cummin'. then da case fer d comes out. loved it. even better
reddit loves it. momentum iz there.
 
 den wat do we do. bearophile writes other side of the coin. what in the name
of fuck is his problem. backstabbin' mo'fucker are da nicest words that cum 2
mind after racking 'n' waterboarding my brain. EXIT_SUCCESS up yer ass. den
cums da proper case fer d. only good thing is sean's cumback o' da year. thanx
sean. den cherry on da cake. finally grauzone. where therez any negative shit
about d u bet grauzone is on it like flies on shit. so we get this piece of
brain vomit. leave them threadz alone. focus all on rewritin' da windows
linker. what an assfucked strategy dat iz. i bet soon ppl will say yeah d is a
shitty language but hey it got a great linker. what da fuck.
 
 anyway steve. my point is we r part of some weird twilite zone. if d ever
becumz successful theres gonna be murder in dis group.


Wow - Boyz n da Hood... Are you writing with a full keyboard?

P.O.

superdan <super dan.org> writes:

Pete Odowd Wrote:

 superdan Wrote:
 
 Steve Teale Wrote:
 
 superdan Wrote:
 
 Steve Teale Wrote:
 
 Can this group come up with a proper, sober (OK, I'm not)


 den pretty please explain why anyone should give a flyin' fuck fer yer drunken
rant.


 Love you man. You're on the spot! I have no excuse.


 not shure u r bein' sarcastic but i'm a gonna take dat at face value. akshully
steve u got an excuse. u and i r part of a larger social phenom. i saw many
times in da group: sum'thin' good happens with d. then da group reacts
negatively with da speed o' light. its like physix: ackshon and reackshon.
 
 walt adds features. den we bitch fuck them features, he has 3000 bugs up his
ass. walt fixes bugs. den we bitch that not'n' new is cummin' down da pike.
andre asks about ranges. we get motherfuckin' bikeshed fight. andre implements
them ranges. we bitch about namez syntax and all shit up to the motherfuckin'
wazoo. of course if we dun understand ranges dats his fault too.
 
 been busy   work past week but saw good things. andreis book is on amazon so
ppl know it's cummin'. then da case fer d comes out. loved it. even better
reddit loves it. momentum iz there.
 
 den wat do we do. bearophile writes other side of the coin. what in the name
of fuck is his problem. backstabbin' mo'fucker are da nicest words that cum 2
mind after racking 'n' waterboarding my brain. EXIT_SUCCESS up yer ass. den
cums da proper case fer d. only good thing is sean's cumback o' da year. thanx
sean. den cherry on da cake. finally grauzone. where therez any negative shit
about d u bet grauzone is on it like flies on shit. so we get this piece of
brain vomit. leave them threadz alone. focus all on rewritin' da windows
linker. what an assfucked strategy dat iz. i bet soon ppl will say yeah d is a
shitty language but hey it got a great linker. what da fuck.
 
 anyway steve. my point is we r part of some weird twilite zone. if d ever
becumz successful theres gonna be murder in dis group.


 Wow - Boyz n da Hood... Are you writing with a full keyboard?
 
 P.O.


menace ii society akshully. heh.

"Adam D. Ruppe" <destructionator gmail.com> writes:

On Fri, Jun 19, 2009 at 03:00:17PM -0400, Steve Teale wrote:
 Can this group come up with a proper, sober (OK, I'm not), case for D.


It is a better C; D is what C++ wishes it was.

My biggest love of D is two words: nested functions. I tend to write it
as if it was just C with the suck yanked out.

D2 is a better D1; you can write it in a similar way, but get even more
help from the compiler to catch errors.

D is the safe AND convenient language.

 There isn't a decent debugger for either Windows or Linux. 


I find gdb works well enough for me on linux. I use the -gc "pretend to
be C" option. But I rarely really need the debugger, thanks to the compiler.

-- 
Adam D. Ruppe
http://arsdnet.net

Steve Teale <steve.teale britseyeview.com> writes:

Adam D. Ruppe Wrote:

 On Fri, Jun 19, 2009 at 03:00:17PM -0400, Steve Teale wrote:
 Can this group come up with a proper, sober (OK, I'm not), case for D.


 It is a better C; D is what C++ wishes it was.
 
 My biggest love of D is two words: nested functions. I tend to write it
 as if it was just C with the suck yanked out.
 
 D2 is a better D1; you can write it in a similar way, but get even more
 help from the compiler to catch errors.
 
 D is the safe AND convenient language.
 
 There isn't a decent debugger for either Windows or Linux. 


 I find gdb works well enough for me on linux. I use the -gc "pretend to
 be C" option. But I rarely really need the debugger, thanks to the compiler.
 
 -- 
 Adam D. Ruppe
 http://arsdnet.net


Yes, you're right about not needing a debugger. Walter's compilers have always
given you a good idea of where you should look. But there are lots of potential
users who do not know how to debug without an IDE debugger. After all, the
seat-of-the-pants way is quite hard work.

BCS <ao pathlink.com> writes:

Reply to Steve,

 When Bjarne Stroustrup was originally promoting C++, he made a strong
 point that you could at least consider it to be a 'better C'. This
 point, it seemed to me, was lost on many. Now we are looking for
 radical arguments as to why D is a cool language. Maybe we should
 remember the basics, and concentrate less on the vapor.


"D is a low level language that can masquerade as a high level language" 
It has the low level stuff but if you just choose not to use them it looks 
and to a great extent acts like a high level one.

 Bearophile made a counter-argument. But this also did not stress our
 basic weaknesses. Most of us are using DMD, which on Windows uses a 20
 year old linker, and utilizes an antique object file format.


DMD now has 3 (or is it 4) different object file outputters. it shouldn't 
be hard from somone who knows somthing about a better format to be able to 
figure out how to patch one in and send Walter a patch.

 or perhaps it should be the D Standard Library (DSL).


No, DSL is already used. DSR? D standard runtime?

Sean Kelly <sean invisibleduck.org> writes:

Uppercase.  Calling it 'd' lacks a certain punch.

"Danny Wilson" <bluezenix gmail.com> writes:

Op Fri, 19 Jun 2009 22:53:54 +0200 schreef Sean Kelly  
<sean invisibleduck.org>:

 Uppercase.


Thats awesome, made me chuckle. :-)


  Calling it 'd' lacks a certain punch.

Jarrett Billingsley <jarrett.billingsley gmail.com> writes:

On Fri, Jun 19, 2009 at 4:53 PM, Sean Kelly<sean invisibleduck.org> wrote:
 Uppercase. =A0Calling it 'd' lacks a certain punch.


"The groan heard 'round the world"

Daniel Keep <daniel.keep.lists gmail.com> writes:

Sean Kelly wrote:
 Uppercase.  Calling it 'd' lacks a certain punch.


You know, that's exactly what I assumed the post was going to be about
when I saw the title...

:D

Tim Matthews <tim.matthews7 gmail.com> writes:

Many will argue that D has lots of features found in many other 
languages but I think that it was born from and is still chosen for need 
for the need to run high performance code on the bare metal without 
using C++ so try this:

1. Find code written in C++.
2. Attempt to re write it as D.

This 2 step should expose the cases not to use D.

hasen <hasan.aljudy gmail.com> writes:

Steve Teale wrote:
 Can this group come up with a proper, sober (OK, I'm not), case for D.
 
 This would clearly have to steer clear of the standard libraries, I can't see
how any outside observer is going to be impressed by the fact that we have two.
 
 And D is a computer programming language. So we should deal with it as that
first.
 
 Andrei's article had a lot of good points primarily revolving around the need
to concentrate on concurrency, but I suspect that we should probably stress the
basics.
 
 When Bjarne Stroustrup was originally promoting C++, he made a strong point
that you could at least consider it to be a 'better C'. This point, it seemed
to me, was lost on many. Now we are looking for radical arguments as to why D
is a cool language. Maybe we should remember the basics, and concentrate less
on the vapor.
 
 Bearophile made a counter-argument. But this also did not stress our basic
weaknesses. Most of us are using DMD, which on Windows uses a 20 year old
linker, and utilizes an antique object file format. Under Linux, it can't
produce the position-independent code that's required to create reliable shared
libraries.
 
 Unless you use alpha-level code, you can't load arbitrary D modules at
run-time.
 
 There isn't a decent debugger for either Windows or Linux. There may never be
one if the potential authors see the constant focus on meta-programming - that
must make life hell for them.
 
 I'm not advocating a return to D1, but I do want to see closure on D2, and an
ascent from the constant alpha state. Then after that, I'd like to see a more
formal system of RFCs for library proposals, and a recognized pattern for
voting on them so that anyone who kept up-to-date with the process would not be
surprised by what suddenly appeared in Phobos, or perhaps it should be the D
Standard Library (DSL).
 
 When all that had happened I could forget computer programming and get on with
my woodwork relatively secure in the knowledge that I had chosen to support a
winner, and the Walter's efforts were not in vain.
 
 


I think the proper case for D has to be in the form of (several) 
real-world applications/system-utilities that people outside this 
newsgroup will *want* to use, not because they're written in D, but 
because these programs actually do something useful that a lot of people 
would really want.

Games are certainly a good use case for D, but developing a good game 
takes a long time and in the end it won't compete with any of the 
available commercial games.

There are (surprisingly) many small utilities that do something very 
simple, yet they're very useful and are used by a lots of people,

Just to name a few ...

- Launchy
- safarp (simple and fast add/remove programs)
- Sumatra PDF viewer
- WinDjView
- Fotografix (extremely tiny image editor, 
http://lmadhavan.com/software/fotografix/ )
- Rapid Environment Editor
- WinDirStat
- Unlocker

These are very useful "system" (kinda?) utilities ,IMO there's lots of 
room for programs in this category to be written in D, either programs 
that are not written yet, or written but have sub-optimal performance. 
(for instance, launchy can be slow sometimes).

Of course, the end users of such utilities might not care much about 
what language they're written in; but that's exactly the point.

Bruno Deligny <bruno.deligny gmail.com> writes:

Steve Teale a écrit :
 Can this group come up with a proper, sober (OK, I'm not), case for D.
 
 This would clearly have to steer clear of the standard libraries, I can't see
how any outside observer is going to be impressed by the fact that we have two.
 
 And D is a computer programming language. So we should deal with it as that
first.
 
 Andrei's article had a lot of good points primarily revolving around the need
to concentrate on concurrency, but I suspect that we should probably stress the
basics.
 
 When Bjarne Stroustrup was originally promoting C++, he made a strong point
that you could at least consider it to be a 'better C'. This point, it seemed
to me, was lost on many. Now we are looking for radical arguments as to why D
is a cool language. Maybe we should remember the basics, and concentrate less
on the vapor.
 
 Bearophile made a counter-argument. But this also did not stress our basic
weaknesses. Most of us are using DMD, which on Windows uses a 20 year old
linker, and utilizes an antique object file format. Under Linux, it can't
produce the position-independent code that's required to create reliable shared
libraries.
 
 Unless you use alpha-level code, you can't load arbitrary D modules at
run-time.
 
 There isn't a decent debugger for either Windows or Linux. There may never be
one if the potential authors see the constant focus on meta-programming - that
must make life hell for them.
 
 I'm not advocating a return to D1, but I do want to see closure on D2, and an
ascent from the constant alpha state. Then after that, I'd like to see a more
formal system of RFCs for library proposals, and a recognized pattern for
voting on them so that anyone who kept up-to-date with the process would not be
surprised by what suddenly appeared in Phobos, or perhaps it should be the D
Standard Library (DSL).
 
 When all that had happened I could forget computer programming and get on with
my woodwork relatively secure in the knowledge that I had chosen to support a
winner, and the Walter's efforts were not in vain.
 
 


I totally agree!
Everybody i know that tried D have the same problems, so they all stick 
with C++.

The D language is amazing but the tools are awful. There is tools but 
nothing works together out of the box! The user experience of D is very bad!

The D needs a global strategy like C# did (language, compiler, library 
formats, IDE, debugger...) and all that with one click installers for 
all platforms. We don't need to reinvent the wheel, just create a 
synergy between projects!

Walter, if you don't want to be the production manager that will put all 
theses pieces together, you should stick to the language development and 
hire somebody to handle the development environment!

Walter Bright <newshound1 digitalmars.com> writes:

Steve Teale wrote:
 Most of us are using DMD, which on Windows uses a
 20 year old linker, and utilizes an antique object file format.


Knowing the guts of object file formats, the MachO format (used on the 
Mac) is by far the worst of the three (OMF, MachO, ELF).

 Under
 Linux, it can't produce the position-independent code that's required
 to create reliable shared libraries.


Use the -fPIC switch, which has been there for years.

Steve Teale <steve.teale britseyeview.com> writes:

Walter Bright Wrote:

 Steve Teale wrote:
 Most of us are using DMD, which on Windows uses a
 20 year old linker, and utilizes an antique object file format.


 Knowing the guts of object file formats, the MachO format (used on the 
 Mac) is by far the worst of the three (OMF, MachO, ELF).
 
 Under
 Linux, it can't produce the position-independent code that's required
 to create reliable shared libraries.


 Use the -fPIC switch, which has been there for years.


OK Walter, I'd have to go back again and cover that, but at the time I had
problems.

Steve