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digitalmars.D - All this talk about 1.0 makes me worried.

reply Bruno Medeiros <daiphoenixNO SPAMlycos.com> writes:
All this talk about 1.0 (and other stuff like slogans) makes me worried. 
People talk as if D nearing completion: There is occasionally threads 
about the coming or even requesting the release of 1.0; In a recent 
post(news://news.digitalmars.com:119/dvuc0r$19t3$1 digitaldaemon.com) 
Don Clugston comments that what's left for 1.0 is "Not much more" and 
enumerates just a few items remaining; Other people also don't mention 
much more items; And we have people finding slogans for D mentioning 
about it's uber greatness and simplicity and whatnot; ...

Am I the only one to find that (even besides the library) there is still 
a long way for D to go? And I'm talking about the language itself: it's 
design and not the tools and other stuff from the environment.
I have a list (mirrored in my wiki entry) of pending languages issues 
which I or others have reported/posted about, most of them acknowledged 
issues/problems by the core of the NG.
A recent thread by Oskar Linde 
(news://news.digitalmars.com:119/e00v0m$te2$3 digitaldaemon.com)
brings to attention another issue about associative arrays, which I too 
find important, and which I think are not the only issues regarding 
arrays in general.
Many similar threads exists, (most of them I believe with not very good 
ideas), but some others are very pertinent.
And there is a list of more issues about D that I have pending in my 
mind which I haven't yet the time to "research" and write about (which 
is the case for example of the immutability issue, want to finish 
reading that pdf about Javari).

So in my opinion there is a lot of work to be done in D, and I'm not 
gonna bother thinking about 1.0 or even slogans until these are (at 
least mostly) resolved. Don't get me wrong, I already think D is a great 
language, and much better than C++ (not that hard to be though.. ), but 
much of D's greatness is still in potential only.


-- 
Bruno Medeiros - CS/E student
http://www.prowiki.org/wiki4d/wiki.cgi?BrunoMedeiros#D
Mar 26 2006
next sibling parent reply kris <foo bar.com> writes:
Bruno Medeiros wrote:

 All this talk about 1.0 (and other stuff like slogans) makes me worried. 
 People talk as if D nearing completion: There is occasionally threads 
 about the coming or even requesting the release of 1.0; In a recent 
 post(news://news.digitalmars.com:119/dvuc0r$19t3$1 digitaldaemon.com) 
 Don Clugston comments that what's left for 1.0 is "Not much more" and 
 enumerates just a few items remaining; Other people also don't mention 
 much more items; And we have people finding slogans for D mentioning 
 about it's uber greatness and simplicity and whatnot; ...
 
 Am I the only one to find that (even besides the library) there is still 
 a long way for D to go? And I'm talking about the language itself: it's 
 design and not the tools and other stuff from the environment.
 I have a list (mirrored in my wiki entry) of pending languages issues 
 which I or others have reported/posted about, most of them acknowledged 
 issues/problems by the core of the NG.
 A recent thread by Oskar Linde 
 (news://news.digitalmars.com:119/e00v0m$te2$3 digitaldaemon.com)
 brings to attention another issue about associative arrays, which I too 
 find important, and which I think are not the only issues regarding 
 arrays in general.
 Many similar threads exists, (most of them I believe with not very good 
 ideas), but some others are very pertinent.
 And there is a list of more issues about D that I have pending in my 
 mind which I haven't yet the time to "research" and write about (which 
 is the case for example of the immutability issue, want to finish 
 reading that pdf about Javari).
 
 So in my opinion there is a lot of work to be done in D, and I'm not 
 gonna bother thinking about 1.0 or even slogans until these are (at 
 least mostly) resolved. Don't get me wrong, I already think D is a great 
 language, and much better than C++ (not that hard to be though.. ), but 
 much of D's greatness is still in potential only.


Right on the money. What's the hurry, anyway?

I think what's more important is a general feeling of progress. The 
recent changes for 'bit' is a good example. As you say, D is a fine 
langauge, with awesome potential; but it needs some rough edges cleaned 
up quite badly (such as improved debugger support, the never-ending AA 
concerns, and a variety of others).

I suppose many people like the idea of placing a stake in the ground ~ 
as means of marking/stamping progress? If so, then one would need to 
ensure all features present at that point would not be subsequently 
revoked (in the manner of 'bit', for example). I think that's a more 
accurate measure of a "release" candiate than anything else.

- Kris
Mar 26 2006
parent reply Charles <noone nowhere.com> writes:
 I suppose many people like the idea of placing a stake in the ground ~
 as means of marking/stamping progress?


I know of alot of people ( myself partially included ) that are waiting 
for a D 1.0 untill they really commit to using D.  Untill it reaches a 
1.0 ( which feels like never -- in which case if it is going to take 
another year or greater we should be talking about how to handle and 
work with a perpetually changing language - id be curious to know how 
often you have to update mango in response new DMD releases ) , i doubt 
'corporations' would even consider using it.  Even post D 1.0 is going 
to take a big effort from the community to get D in the mainstream.


kris wrote:

 Bruno Medeiros wrote:
 

 All this talk about 1.0 (and other stuff like slogans) makes me 
 worried. People talk as if D nearing completion: There is occasionally 
 threads about the coming or even requesting the release of 1.0; In a 
 recent 
 post(news://news.digitalmars.com:119/dvuc0r$19t3$1 digitaldaemon.com) 
 Don Clugston comments that what's left for 1.0 is "Not much more" and 
 enumerates just a few items remaining; Other people also don't mention 
 much more items; And we have people finding slogans for D mentioning 
 about it's uber greatness and simplicity and whatnot; ...

 Am I the only one to find that (even besides the library) there is 
 still a long way for D to go? And I'm talking about the language 
 itself: it's design and not the tools and other stuff from the 
 environment.
 I have a list (mirrored in my wiki entry) of pending languages issues 
 which I or others have reported/posted about, most of them 
 acknowledged issues/problems by the core of the NG.
 A recent thread by Oskar Linde 
 (news://news.digitalmars.com:119/e00v0m$te2$3 digitaldaemon.com)
 brings to attention another issue about associative arrays, which I 
 too find important, and which I think are not the only issues 
 regarding arrays in general.
 Many similar threads exists, (most of them I believe with not very 
 good ideas), but some others are very pertinent.
 And there is a list of more issues about D that I have pending in my 
 mind which I haven't yet the time to "research" and write about (which 
 is the case for example of the immutability issue, want to finish 
 reading that pdf about Javari).

 So in my opinion there is a lot of work to be done in D, and I'm not 
 gonna bother thinking about 1.0 or even slogans until these are (at 
 least mostly) resolved. Don't get me wrong, I already think D is a 
 great language, and much better than C++ (not that hard to be though.. 
 ), but much of D's greatness is still in potential only.


 
 
 Right on the money. What's the hurry, anyway?
 
 I think what's more important is a general feeling of progress. The 
 recent changes for 'bit' is a good example. As you say, D is a fine 
 langauge, with awesome potential; but it needs some rough edges cleaned 
 up quite badly (such as improved debugger support, the never-ending AA 
 concerns, and a variety of others).
 
 I suppose many people like the idea of placing a stake in the ground ~ 
 as means of marking/stamping progress? If so, then one would need to 
 ensure all features present at that point would not be subsequently 
 revoked (in the manner of 'bit', for example). I think that's a more 
 accurate measure of a "release" candiate than anything else.
 
 - Kris
Mar 27 2006
next sibling parent reply Jeremy <Jeremy_member pathlink.com> writes:
In article <e0901s$1fcd$1 digitaldaemon.com>, Charles says...

 I suppose many people like the idea of placing a stake in the ground ~
 as means of marking/stamping progress?


I know of alot of people ( myself partially included ) that are waiting 
for a D 1.0 untill they really commit to using D.  Untill it reaches a 
1.0 ( which feels like never -- in which case if it is going to take 
another year or greater we should be talking about how to handle and 
work with a perpetually changing language - id be curious to know how 
often you have to update mango in response new DMD releases ) , i doubt 
'corporations' would even consider using it.  Even post D 1.0 is going 
to take a big effort from the community to get D in the mainstream.


I'd have to agree. There needs to be some v1.0 'base' that D programmers can
rely on to not change enough to break existing code... future changes could be
simply fixing bugs/feature additions etc.

For example, I cannot compile DWT with DMD v0.150 (can anyone else?) -- makes it
hard to develop libraries if no compatibility is really gaurenteed :(

Jeremy
Mar 27 2006
parent reply "Walter Bright" <newshound digitalmars.com> writes:
"Jeremy" <Jeremy_member pathlink.com> wrote in message 
news:e095qh$1mq3$1 digitaldaemon.com...

 For example, I cannot compile DWT with DMD v0.150 (can anyone else?) --  
 makes it
 hard to develop libraries if no compatibility is really gaurenteed :(


Why not?
Mar 27 2006
parent reply Jeremy <Jeremy_member pathlink.com> writes:
In article <e09ee5$2282$2 digitaldaemon.com>, Walter Bright says...

"Jeremy" <Jeremy_member pathlink.com> wrote in message 
news:e095qh$1mq3$1 digitaldaemon.com...

 For example, I cannot compile DWT with DMD v0.150 (can anyone else?) --  
 makes it
 hard to develop libraries if no compatibility is really gaurenteed :(


Why not? 


I get some errors in printdialog.d -- for example on line 42, i get "no
identifier for declarator int". Many other scope errors happen (including line
one for line 42)... I'm at work right now so I shouldn't be spending too much
time on this :) I also can't get DDL to compile -- complains "memcpy()" doesn't
exist, but I have spent about 30 seconds with that...

Jeremy
Mar 27 2006
next sibling parent Dave <Dave_member pathlink.com> writes:
In article <e09hv6$26lg$1 digitaldaemon.com>, Jeremy says...

In article <e09ee5$2282$2 digitaldaemon.com>, Walter Bright says...

"Jeremy" <Jeremy_member pathlink.com> wrote in message 
news:e095qh$1mq3$1 digitaldaemon.com...

 For example, I cannot compile DWT with DMD v0.150 (can anyone else?) --  
 makes it
 hard to develop libraries if no compatibility is really gaurenteed :(


Why not? 


I get some errors in printdialog.d -- for example on line 42, i get "no
identifier for declarator int". Many other scope errors happen (including line
one for line 42)... I'm at work right now so I shouldn't be spending too much
time on this :) I also can't get DDL to compile -- complains "memcpy()" doesn't
exist, but I have spent about 30 seconds with that...

Jeremy


These may help but I'm not sure if they cover everything for v0.150.

http://www.digitalmars.com/drn-bin/wwwnews?digitalmars.D.dwt/113
http://www.digitalmars.com/drn-bin/wwwnews?digitalmars.D.dwt/140
Mar 27 2006
prev sibling parent reply "Walter Bright" <newshound digitalmars.com> writes:
"Jeremy" <Jeremy_member pathlink.com> wrote in message 
news:e09hv6$26lg$1 digitaldaemon.com...

 I get some errors in printdialog.d -- for example on line 42, i get "no
 identifier for declarator int". Many other scope errors happen (including 
 line
 one for line 42)... I'm at work right now so I shouldn't be spending too 
 much
 time on this :) I also can't get DDL to compile -- complains "memcpy()" 
 doesn't
 exist, but I have spent about 30 seconds with that...


For the memcpy one, just import std.c.string.
Mar 27 2006
parent reply "Jarrett Billingsley" <kb3ctd2 yahoo.com> writes:
"Walter Bright" <newshound digitalmars.com> wrote in message 
news:e09reh$2orb$1 digitaldaemon.com...

 For the memcpy one, just import std.c.string.


I noticed that changed in 0.150.  A file that compiled fine before suddenly 
had to import std.c.string because memcpy wasn't defined.  Was an external 
definition or an implicit import of std.c.string removed?
Mar 27 2006
parent Walter Bright <newshound digitalmars.com> writes:
Jarrett Billingsley wrote:

 "Walter Bright" <newshound digitalmars.com> wrote in message 
 news:e09reh$2orb$1 digitaldaemon.com...

 For the memcpy one, just import std.c.string.


 
 I noticed that changed in 0.150.  A file that compiled fine before suddenly 
 had to import std.c.string because memcpy wasn't defined.  Was an external 
 definition or an implicit import of std.c.string removed? 


The idea was to have a clean separation between C's string functions and 
D's.
Mar 30 2006
prev sibling parent reply kris <foo bar.com> writes:
Charles wrote:

  > I suppose many people like the idea of placing a stake in the ground ~
  > as means of marking/stamping progress?
 
 I know of alot of people ( myself partially included ) that are waiting 
 for a D 1.0 untill they really commit to using D.  Untill it reaches a 
 1.0 ( which feels like never -- in which case if it is going to take 
 another year or greater we should be talking about how to handle and 
 work with a perpetually changing language - id be curious to know how 
 often you have to update mango in response new DMD releases )  


There was a bit of turmoil back when it started (~March 2004), but after 
that? Hmmm ... discovering that AA's were broken caused some 
re-engineering; the "length" pseudo-keyword issue caused some more. Then 
there was quite a bit of effort to cleanup using -w. The char, wchar, 
dchar support could not really have been done until templates came 
along, so that doesn't really count, I suppose? Mango has always used 
'bool' instead of 'bit', so that wasn't an issue. To be honest, I think 
internal redesign has caused more changes than language evolution.



 i doubt 
 'corporations' would even consider using it.  Even post D 1.0 is going 
 to take a big effort from the community to get D in the mainstream.


Very true. However, those same corporations likely won't consider D 
until library support is notably better? I've always felt that would be 
the sticking point, and that Phobos was a bit thin for that purpose. 
This leads me to conclude thusly:

D will not be ready for commercial usage until the availability of 
libraries reaches some critical mass. Who is going to write those 
libraries? My guess would be the the early adopters? So, why is it that 
there's perhaps only a few handfuls of people who are prepared to make 
that happen? Don't wish to be critical of anyone, or start wagging any 
fingers, but surely those calling for a v1.0 should be equally 
determined to construct the libraries?

- Kris
Mar 27 2006
next sibling parent reply John Demme <me teqdruid.com> writes:
kris wrote:


 Charles wrote:

  > I suppose many people like the idea of placing a stake in the ground ~
  > as means of marking/stamping progress?
 
 I know of alot of people ( myself partially included ) that are waiting
 for a D 1.0 untill they really commit to using D.  Untill it reaches a
 1.0 ( which feels like never -- in which case if it is going to take
 another year or greater we should be talking about how to handle and
 work with a perpetually changing language - id be curious to know how
 often you have to update mango in response new DMD releases )


 
 There was a bit of turmoil back when it started (~March 2004), but after
 that? Hmmm ... discovering that AA's were broken caused some
 re-engineering; the "length" pseudo-keyword issue caused some more. Then
 there was quite a bit of effort to cleanup using -w. The char, wchar,
 dchar support could not really have been done until templates came
 along, so that doesn't really count, I suppose? Mango has always used
 'bool' instead of 'bit', so that wasn't an issue. To be honest, I think
 internal redesign has caused more changes than language evolution.
 
 

 i doubt
 'corporations' would even consider using it.  Even post D 1.0 is going
 to take a big effort from the community to get D in the mainstream.


 
 Very true. However, those same corporations likely won't consider D
 until library support is notably better? I've always felt that would be
 the sticking point, and that Phobos was a bit thin for that purpose.
 This leads me to conclude thusly:
 
 D will not be ready for commercial usage until the availability of
 libraries reaches some critical mass. Who is going to write those
 libraries? My guess would be the the early adopters? So, why is it that
 there's perhaps only a few handfuls of people who are prepared to make
 that happen? Don't wish to be critical of anyone, or start wagging any
 fingers, but surely those calling for a v1.0 should be equally
 determined to construct the libraries?
 
 - Kris



I agree with both of you.  Here is what I would like to see soon: DMD
1.0RC-1 with a guarantee that all of the language features and syntax are
tacked down, and there will not be more changes that will break code.  From
there, Walter handles only fixes and feaures like debugging output.  We can
also spend time getting libraries ready to go (read: libraries to be
included with DMD)... I don't want DMD 1.0 to be released until there's a
decent library (read: Mango) to be released with it.

~John Demme
Mar 27 2006
parent Hasan Aljudy <hasan.aljudy gmail.com> writes:
John Demme wrote:

 I agree with both of you.  Here is what I would like to see soon: DMD
 1.0RC-1 with a guarantee that all of the language features and syntax are
 tacked down, and there will not be more changes that will break code.  From
 there, Walter handles only fixes and feaures like debugging output.  We can
 also spend time getting libraries ready to go (read: libraries to be
 included with DMD)... I don't want DMD 1.0 to be released until there's a
 decent library (read: Mango) to be released with it.
 
 ~John Demme


I think Mango is wrongly advertised as "serverside programming" stuff.
I only recently looked at Mango, and I was amazed!! Mango is a great 
library.
Mar 28 2006
prev sibling parent Charles <noone nowhere.com> writes:
 Hmmm ... discovering that AA's were broken caused some re-engineering;


Lots of talk about AA's recently, I'll have to go back and look through 
the forums / newgroups , if someone has time though what are the current 
problems with them  ( asociative arrays ) ?




kris wrote:

 Charles wrote:
 

  > I suppose many people like the idea of placing a stake in the ground ~
  > as means of marking/stamping progress?

 I know of alot of people ( myself partially included ) that are 
 waiting for a D 1.0 untill they really commit to using D.  Untill it 
 reaches a 1.0 ( which feels like never -- in which case if it is going 
 to take another year or greater we should be talking about how to 
 handle and work with a perpetually changing language - id be curious 
 to know how often you have to update mango in response new DMD 
 releases )  


 
 
 There was a bit of turmoil back when it started (~March 2004), but after 
 that? Hmmm ... discovering that AA's were broken caused some 
 re-engineering; the "length" pseudo-keyword issue caused some more. Then 
 there was quite a bit of effort to cleanup using -w. The char, wchar, 
 dchar support could not really have been done until templates came 
 along, so that doesn't really count, I suppose? Mango has always used 
 'bool' instead of 'bit', so that wasn't an issue. To be honest, I think 
 internal redesign has caused more changes than language evolution.
 
 

 i doubt 'corporations' would even consider using it.  Even post D 1.0 
 is going to take a big effort from the community to get D in the 
 mainstream.


 
 
 Very true. However, those same corporations likely won't consider D 
 until library support is notably better? I've always felt that would be 
 the sticking point, and that Phobos was a bit thin for that purpose. 
 This leads me to conclude thusly:
 
 D will not be ready for commercial usage until the availability of 
 libraries reaches some critical mass. Who is going to write those 
 libraries? My guess would be the the early adopters? So, why is it that 
 there's perhaps only a few handfuls of people who are prepared to make 
 that happen? Don't wish to be critical of anyone, or start wagging any 
 fingers, but surely those calling for a v1.0 should be equally 
 determined to construct the libraries?
 
 - Kris
Mar 28 2006
prev sibling next sibling parent BCS <BCS_member pathlink.com> writes:
I think you are on the right track.

What is needed is some place to formally maintain a list of issues. NG, bug
list, wiki, doesn't matter. What maters is that it should have some sort of
process to it (candidate -> discussion -> ratification -> solution ->
implementation, or something like that). This should be keep carefully separate
from the bugs lists as these issues are not related to AN implementation.

Thoughts, comments??



In article <e073o0$1q8p$1 digitaldaemon.com>, Bruno Medeiros says...

All this talk about 1.0 (and other stuff like slogans) makes me worried. 
People talk as if D nearing completion: There is occasionally threads 
about the coming or even requesting the release of 1.0; In a recent 
post(news://news.digitalmars.com:119/dvuc0r$19t3$1 digitaldaemon.com) 
Don Clugston comments that what's left for 1.0 is "Not much more" and 
enumerates just a few items remaining; Other people also don't mention 
much more items; And we have people finding slogans for D mentioning 
about it's uber greatness and simplicity and whatnot; ...

Am I the only one to find that (even besides the library) there is still 
a long way for D to go? And I'm talking about the language itself: it's 
design and not the tools and other stuff from the environment.
I have a list (mirrored in my wiki entry) of pending languages issues 
which I or others have reported/posted about, most of them acknowledged 
issues/problems by the core of the NG.
A recent thread by Oskar Linde 
(news://news.digitalmars.com:119/e00v0m$te2$3 digitaldaemon.com)
brings to attention another issue about associative arrays, which I too 
find important, and which I think are not the only issues regarding 
arrays in general.
Many similar threads exists, (most of them I believe with not very good 
ideas), but some others are very pertinent.
And there is a list of more issues about D that I have pending in my 
mind which I haven't yet the time to "research" and write about (which 
is the case for example of the immutability issue, want to finish 
reading that pdf about Javari).

So in my opinion there is a lot of work to be done in D, and I'm not 
gonna bother thinking about 1.0 or even slogans until these are (at 
least mostly) resolved. Don't get me wrong, I already think D is a great 
language, and much better than C++ (not that hard to be though.. ), but 
much of D's greatness is still in potential only.


-- 
Bruno Medeiros - CS/E student
http://www.prowiki.org/wiki4d/wiki.cgi?BrunoMedeiros#D
Mar 26 2006
prev sibling parent Stewart Gordon <Stewart_member pathlink.com> writes:
In article <e073o0$1q8p$1 digitaldaemon.com>, Bruno Medeiros says...


 All this talk about 1.0 (and other stuff like slogans) makes me 
 worried.  People talk as if D nearing completion: There is 
 occasionally threads about the coming or even requesting the 
 release of 1.0; In a recent 
 post(news://news.digitalmars.com:119/dvuc0r$19t3$1 digitaldaemon.com) 
 Don Clugston comments that what's left for 1.0 is "Not much more" 
 and enumerates just a few items remaining; Other people also don't 
 mention much more items; And we have people finding slogans for D 
 mentioning about it's uber greatness and simplicity and whatnot; ...
 
 Am I the only one to find that (even besides the library) there is 
 still a long way for D to go?


Certainly not.  You've pretty much taken the words out of my mouth.  
There are enough bugs and enough places where the spec needs to be 
cleaned up.

If you haven't noticed already, then I started the pending peeves a 
while ago.  It started as my personal list, but soon turned into a 
list for anybody to contribute to.  It pretty much speaks for itself 
on how far from ready for 1.0 we are.

http://www.prowiki.org/wiki4d/wiki.cgi?PendingPeeves

Stewart.
Mar 27 2006