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digitalmars.D - Ali's Book - Programming in D - Delivered

reply Ron Tarrant <rontarrant gmail.com> writes:
My copy of Ali's book just came. Holy crap, it's thick!

It's never obvious how much effort goes into a work like this 
until one can hold it in one's hands and leaf through. I'm 
humbled.
Sep 16 2021
next sibling parent Tejas <notrealemail gmail.com> writes:
On Thursday, 16 September 2021 at 17:06:39 UTC, Ron Tarrant wrote:

 My copy of Ali's book just came. Holy crap, it's thick!

 It's never obvious how much effort goes into a work like this 
 until one can hold it in one's hands and leaf through. I'm 
 humbled.


Well, the book assumes you have very little,  if any, programming 
background... you'll breeze the first 300 pages in a few hours, 
then spend a week on the rest :P
Sep 16 2021
prev sibling next sibling parent reply =?UTF-8?Q?Ali_=c3=87ehreli?= <acehreli yahoo.com> writes:
On 9/16/21 10:06 AM, Ron Tarrant wrote:

 My copy of Ali's book just came. Holy crap, it's thick!


Sorry, not very practical as a replacement for watching towels. ;)


 It's never obvious how much effort goes into a work like this until one
 can hold it in one's hands and leaf through. I'm humbled.


I got curious myself and checked: The first mention of drafts of 
chapters is from July 24, 2009; right after I learned about D and 
started a Turkish site:

   https://forum.dlang.org/post/thread-20-post-132 ddili.org

(None of the links to drafts in there are live anymore.)

Then I started translating the existing ones to English (as well as 
writing new chapters), which I announced sporadically. For example, here 
is the one about 62% completion in September 16, 2012:

   https://forum.dlang.org/post/k33s7g$29rr$1 digitalmars.com

Here is the announcement for 100% translation in July 24, 2014 (to the 
day of the first Turkish draft announcement!):

   https://forum.dlang.org/post/lqqf2l$b1u$1 digitalmars.com

I continued working on it after the translation was finished. I think 
one of the last chapters was Operator Precedence, which was in August 
15, 2015:

   https://forum.dlang.org/post/1468.11272 ddili.org

After some loss of motivation, I am slowly getting back to improving the 
book. For example, I went to a coffee shop today to improve the 
Immutability chapter. (Nothing published yet.)

One of my favorite anecdotes about the book is Andrei telling me that 
Scott Meyers liked the format of the book was curious who did the 
formatting. It's been all me! :) DDOC generated HTML pages with the help 
of CSS and passing all that through Prince XML to produce a PDF, which 
is the ultimate format that goes to the printers. (And Calibre for the 
ebook versions.)

Ali
Sep 16 2021
parent reply Bastiaan Veelo <Bastiaan Veelo.net> writes:
On Thursday, 16 September 2021 at 21:39:31 UTC, Ali Çehreli wrote:

 I went to a coffee shop today to improve the Immutability 
 chapter. (Nothing published yet.)


I am looking forward to that! You have stirred my curiosity in
https://forum.dlang.org/post/shfpko$2adb$1 digitalmars.com

— Bastiaan.
Sep 17 2021
parent =?UTF-8?Q?Ali_=c3=87ehreli?= <acehreli yahoo.com> writes:
On 9/17/21 3:15 AM, Bastiaan Veelo wrote:

 On Thursday, 16 September 2021 at 21:39:31 UTC, Ali =C3=87ehreli wrote=


:

 I went to a coffee shop today to improve the Immutability chapter.
 (Nothing published yet.)


 I am looking forward to that! You have stirred my curiosity in
 https://forum.dlang.org/post/shfpko$2adb$1 digitalmars.com


I've been thinking about replacing 'immutable's of the following type=20
with 'const' (which I use in my own code) throughout the book:

void foo() {
   immutable i =3D 42;  // Bad?
   // ...
}

void foo() {
   const i =3D 42;      // Good?
   // ...
}

I started a new discussion to confuse myself even further before=20
committing that change. :)

=20
https://forum.dlang.org/thread/sig2d4$657$1 digitalmars.com#post-sig2d4:2=
4657:241:40digitalmars.com

Ali
Sep 22 2021
prev sibling next sibling parent reply Matheus <matheus gmail.com> writes:
On Thursday, 16 September 2021 at 17:06:39 UTC, Ron Tarrant wrote:

 My copy of Ali's book just came. Holy crap, it's thick!


Is this book a new reference for D programmers since TDPL from AA?

Matheus.
Sep 17 2021
parent bachmeier <no spam.net> writes:
On Friday, 17 September 2021 at 12:37:24 UTC, Matheus wrote:

 On Thursday, 16 September 2021 at 17:06:39 UTC, Ron Tarrant 
 wrote:

 My copy of Ali's book just came. Holy crap, it's thick!


 Is this book a new reference for D programmers since TDPL from 
 AA?

 Matheus.


No. It has long been the "official tutorial" for the language. I 
used it when I started using D in 2013.

http://ddili.org/ders/d.en/index.html
Sep 17 2021
prev sibling next sibling parent reply Johann Lermer <johann.lermer elvin.eu> writes:
On Thursday, 16 September 2021 at 17:06:39 UTC, Ron Tarrant wrote:

 My copy of Ali's book just came. Holy crap, it's thick!


Yeah, but funny enough: Although I have the book, too, I only 
read the online version. And I'm using it almost daily.

Ali: you mentioned, that you improve the book occasionally - will 
those changes be visible in the (online-) book? It would be 
easier to find new or changed chapters.
Sep 18 2021
parent reply =?UTF-8?Q?Ali_=c3=87ehreli?= <acehreli yahoo.com> writes:
On 9/18/21 3:29 AM, Johann Lermer wrote:


 On Thursday, 16 September 2021 at 17:06:39 UTC, Ron Tarrant wrote:

 My copy of Ali's book just came. Holy crap, it's thick!


 Yeah, but funny enough: Although I have the book, too, I only read the
 online version. And I'm using it almost daily.


Someone posted a picture of their physical book being used as a monitor 
stand. :)


 Ali: you mentioned, that you improve the book occasionally - will those
 changes be visible in the (online-) book? It would be easier to find new
 or changed chapters.


That's the idea: The online version is supposed to be fresh, right after 
the copy on my laptop. :) I posted how improvements get published recently:

 
https://forum.dlang.org/thread/lpfwapiajpkpifnnktpw forum.dlang.org#post-shfpko:242adb:241:40digitalmars.com

Ali
Sep 18 2021
parent reply Johann Lermer <johann.lermer elvin.eu> writes:
On Saturday, 18 September 2021 at 14:51:48 UTC, Ali Çehreli wrote:

 The online version is supposed to be fresh,


Of course :-) No, I meant if those changes are marked or maybe 
they are mentioned in a list at the end of the book, so that one 
can easily find them.

Because since D sometimes changes and apart from the occasional 
discussion here there's nowhere one can keep track of those new 
features. So, an up-to-date book would be a good place to present 
new features - but in order to find them easily it would be handy 
if there was a chapter in the book where all these language 
changes would be summarized.
Sep 18 2021
parent =?UTF-8?Q?Ali_=c3=87ehreli?= <acehreli yahoo.com> writes:
On 9/18/21 8:49 AM, Johann Lermer wrote:


 I meant if those changes are marked or maybe they are
 mentioned in a list at the end of the book, so that one can easily find
 them.


Unfortunately, not in the book. The git commits are available but my 
comments are too terse there to be useful:

   https://bitbucket.org/acehreli/ddili/commits/


 Because since D sometimes changes and apart from the occasional
 discussion here there's nowhere one can keep track of those new
 features.


The Change Log is pretty useful though:

   https://dlang.org/changelog/index.html

Ali
Sep 22 2021
prev sibling parent reply tastyminerals <tastyminerals gmail.com> writes:
On Thursday, 16 September 2021 at 17:06:39 UTC, Ron Tarrant wrote:

 My copy of Ali's book just came. Holy crap, it's thick!

 It's never obvious how much effort goes into a work like this 
 until one can hold it in one's hands and leaf through. I'm 
 humbled.


I also bought it, very nice hardcover and yes it is big. It is 
quite slow-paced and very detailed. Although, I should say it 
feels a bit rushed in the second half in some places. Anyway, the 
best D book hands down.
Sep 20 2021
parent bachmeier <no spam.net> writes:
On Monday, 20 September 2021 at 22:05:36 UTC, tastyminerals wrote:

 On Thursday, 16 September 2021 at 17:06:39 UTC, Ron Tarrant 
 wrote:

 My copy of Ali's book just came. Holy crap, it's thick!

 It's never obvious how much effort goes into a work like this 
 until one can hold it in one's hands and leaf through. I'm 
 humbled.


 I also bought it, very nice hardcover and yes it is big. It is 
 quite slow-paced and very detailed. Although, I should say it 
 feels a bit rushed in the second half in some places. Anyway, 
 the best D book hands down.


I think we're lucky to have several options: Ali's, Adam's, and 
Mike's all target different audiences, but they're all high 
quality. I haven't looked at Andrei's book in a long time, but 
everyone seems to agree that it's really good too.
Sep 21 2021