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digitalmars.D - Has D failed? ( unpopular opinion but I think yes )

reply Tofu Kaitlyn <katemmons0 gmail.com> writes:
Sorry for that title, but this is something I have been thinking 
about for a while...

I honestly feel like D is a failure. I kinda just wanted to vent 
about it and see what other people think.

I have been using D since around 2012 or 2013, instantly fell in 
love, use to post on the forms a lot under the name Tofu Ninja. I 
was convinced D was the future but since then I have become 
disheartened. The biggest thing that makes me feel like this is 
that in the 7 years I have been using D I literally have never 
met another programmer IRL who has even heard of it. I put on my 
resume that I like D and every interview I get asked about it, 
having to explain what D even is because they have never heard of 
it. I have never seen a job posting listing D. Never see any 
projects pop up on /r/programming using D. It feels like to the 
rest of the programming universe, D doesn't even exist. Sometimes 
I see threads on reddit like "what's your favorite programming 
language" and I always look for D but never find it.

And honestly I don't think that is going to change. I feel like D 
has failed.

I duno... what do yall think? Is D going to somehow explode in 
popularity in 5-10 years? Am I missing some part of the picture? 
Or am I right and if so what can be done about it?
Apr 12 2019
next sibling parent reply JN <666total wp.pl> writes:
On Friday, 12 April 2019 at 07:35:05 UTC, Tofu Kaitlyn wrote:

 Sorry for that title, but this is something I have been 
 thinking about for a while...


No. It hasn't failed. However that's true, it doesn't have the 
wide recognition that say Go or Rust get at the moment. It's more 
behind the scenes, around the same level of popularity as Nim, 
Crystal. Also, D community doesn't frequent places like Reddit 
often, most of the activity is done here in forum or through 
Github issues for relevant projects. Still, when a project 
related to D shows up on /r/programming it often brings a lot of 
curiosity or people saying that they use D, it's just they don't 
have anything to show for it yet.

But even these languages are not as popular as one would think. I 
work as a programmer, I often talk to my coworkers and they look 
at me funny when I mention languages like D, Dart, TypeScript, Go 

languages don't exist to them.

I don't think D will explode in popularity in the future. D isn't 
a very opinionated language. It's working through evolution 
rather than revolution. It's based around stable growth rather 
than flashy features.

It could be argued though, that some of the design decisions are 
slowing the growth of the language. For example the whole 
GC/runtime thing makes it hard to deploy to web/webassembly, an 
area that Rust is actively conquering right now. Sure, we have 
betterC, but it's not really helpful in this case.
Apr 12 2019
parent reply SrMordred <patric.dexheimer gmail.com> writes:
On Friday, 12 April 2019 at 08:02:30 UTC, JN wrote:

 more behind the scenes, around the same level of popularity as 
 Nim, Crystal.


Since i think this is a talk about popularity...

I feel that Nim and Crystal have WAY more adoption/popularity 
than D, but im not sure if both are backed by any great group 
(like Rust).

So I think a good point to focus this discussion is, why Nim and 
Crystal got the lead in popularity but not D?
Apr 12 2019
next sibling parent reply Chris <wendlec tcd.ie> writes:
On Friday, 12 April 2019 at 13:50:42 UTC, SrMordred wrote:

 On Friday, 12 April 2019 at 08:02:30 UTC, JN wrote:

 more behind the scenes, around the same level of popularity as 
 Nim, Crystal.


 Since i think this is a talk about popularity...

 I feel that Nim and Crystal have WAY more adoption/popularity 
 than D, but im not sure if both are backed by any great group 
 (like Rust).

 So I think a good point to focus this discussion is, why Nim 
 and Crystal got the lead in popularity but not D?


Crystal and Nim also have C interop and afaik support Android and 
iOS (correct me if I'm wrong) and JS. C interop was one of the 
features that turned me onto D.

https://crystal-lang.org/reference/overview/

https://nim-lang.org/docs/backends.html

Mind you, the first thing a lot of people ask is "Can I use it on 
mobile and is it painless to do so?". This is the reality of 
things. Kotlin devs realized that. Language adoption is not 
_only_ about language features, it's about usefulness too. This 
is why they simplified Scala.

I don't know about Crystal and Nim (they're still very young), 
but Kotlin, for example, ships with certain guarantees that give 
you security. Updates usually bring new and useful features that 
are not random and don't break existing code. I know, some people 
may be tempted to say "Ah, that's a language for mediocre coders, 
real wizards use D, those who read their books in binary format!" 
But what good is a language you cannot really use as a "general 
purpose" language, and general purpose includes multiple 
platforms.
Apr 12 2019
next sibling parent Dukc <ajieskola gmail.com> writes:
On Friday, 12 April 2019 at 14:24:05 UTC, Chris wrote:

 Mind you, the first thing a lot of people ask is "Can I use it 
 on mobile and is it painless to do so?". This is the reality of 
 things. Kotlin devs realized that. Language adoption is not 
 _only_ about language features, it's about usefulness too. This 
 is why they simplified Scala.


I don't think the language features that have been worked on 
lately are because mobile/JS/ect would be considered less 
important. Quite the contrary for many of them, I give you 
examples:

-The idea behind -dip1008 is to eliminate reliance of the garbage 
collector when doing exception handling. If it, or something 
similar, will be succesful, that means you can use exceptions on 
precise real-time enviroments, that can't afford the GC. And you 
can do that without doing any special memory handling. For me, 
that's exactly what counts towards portability and usefulness on 
different platforms.

-Sebastiaan Koppe's excellent spasm library, that allows D code 
on browsers, uses stdx.allocator (essentially the same as 
std.experimental.allocator of Phobos, I'm not sure if they have 
ANY difference). Currently stdx.allocator won't "just work" in 
no-runtime enviroment, you need to do some hacks. But the point 
is, that work done on Phobos allocator module, that hasn't been 
around for long, is exactly what makes it easier to port D 
outside desktop enviroments.

-BetterC. I don't think I need to explain this one.

-Interfacing to C++ and Objective C. No need to maintain a 
separate C interface that always breaks when porting.
Apr 12 2019
prev sibling next sibling parent reply JN <666total wp.pl> writes:
On Friday, 12 April 2019 at 14:24:05 UTC, Chris wrote:

 Mind you, the first thing a lot of people ask is "Can I use it 
 on mobile and is it painless to do so?". This is the reality of 
 things. Kotlin devs realized that. Language adoption is not 
 _only_ about language features, it's about usefulness too. This 
 is why they simplified Scala.


This is an unfair comparison. Kotlin is piggybacking on JVM and 
Java. First few versions of Kotlin were basically Java with 
Project Lombok annotations added as language features rather than 
awkward compilation stage hack. Only later did it start to emerge 
as a new language with its own paradigms.
Apr 12 2019
parent Russel Winder <russel winder.org.uk> writes:
On Fri, 2019-04-12 at 18:05 +0000, JN via Digitalmars-d wrote:

 [=E2=80=A6]
 This is an unfair comparison. Kotlin is piggybacking on JVM and=20
 Java. First few versions of Kotlin were basically Java with=20
 Project Lombok annotations added as language features rather than=20
 awkward compilation stage hack. Only later did it start to emerge=20
 as a new language with its own paradigms.


Please do not forget that a large number of features of Kotlin, even
early versions, stem from things that were started in Groovy.

--=20
Russel.
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D
Dr Russel Winder      t: +44 20 7585 2200
41 Buckmaster Road    m: +44 7770 465 077
London SW11 1EN, UK   w: www.russel.org.uk
Apr 12 2019
prev sibling parent Julian <julian.fondren gmail.com> writes:
On Friday, 12 April 2019 at 14:24:05 UTC, Chris wrote:

 Crystal and Nim also have C interop and afaik support Android
 and iOS (correct me if I'm wrong) and JS. C interop was one of
 the features that turned me onto D.


You're wrong. Android and iOS are both incredibly 
developer-hostile
platforms. There's almost nothing that supports development on
them, and a lot of what support exists is hackish and limited or
massively inconvenient vs. what you get with official development
tools.

It's not a case of "bindings vs. *real* libraries". It's "go write
your GUI with raw X11 networking instead of using any library --
and and BTW we're moving to Wayland and your X11 stuff will stop
working one day for important security reasons."

Some 'support' is even a lie. There's a StackOverflow answer that
earnestly suggested Clojure for Android development--linking to a
page that described Clojure apps as requiring several seconds just
to launch on Android. Scala was also promoted for Android, and
don't you mind that dalvik limitations and Scala class-spam mean
that your app will one day abruptly no longer work for extremely
hard to deal with reasons.

I once built an Android app with some Mercury in it, compiling to
Java. In the same way you can probably put Nim on Android by
compiling to JS and using some JS tool chains. You can also write 
a
Java launcher that manages UI, with other program logic via a
shared library or with IPC to a packaged CLI executable that's
running in the background. That gives you just about any language
with an ARM toolchain or C transpiling. If you don't care about
massive inconvenience vs. using the intended development kits.

I've stopped caring about mobile, but in Termux on a Android 
tablet
right here, I have ldc2 installed with apt, and can compile D code
on the go. For a while you could even build .apks directly on a
device, and install them locally, with 
http://www.spartacusrex.com/terminalide.htm
That made for some quick turn-around and I enjoyed working with it
while it lasted. It still wasn't as good as PalmOS development.
Apr 12 2019
prev sibling next sibling parent JN <666total wp.pl> writes:
On Friday, 12 April 2019 at 13:50:42 UTC, SrMordred wrote:

 On Friday, 12 April 2019 at 08:02:30 UTC, JN wrote:

 more behind the scenes, around the same level of popularity as 
 Nim, Crystal.


 Since i think this is a talk about popularity...

 I feel that Nim and Crystal have WAY more adoption/popularity 
 than D, but im not sure if both are backed by any great group 
 (like Rust).

 So I think a good point to focus this discussion is, why Nim 
 and Crystal got the lead in popularity but not D?


I disagree. Crystal doesn't even have Windows support. Nim is 
very obscure, it rarely pops up even on Reddit. It might seem 
like they have a lot going on for it, because both are developed 
in a very open source way. Everything is done on Github, there's 
a ton of packages and most users are open source enthusiasts. A 
lot of D activity is done here in forums and in bugzilla, a lot 
of code is used in proprietary projects so you don't hear about 
every single application that got created with D.
Apr 12 2019
prev sibling parent reply Margo <margo margotics.des> writes:
On Friday, 12 April 2019 at 13:50:42 UTC, SrMordred wrote:

 On Friday, 12 April 2019 at 08:02:30 UTC, JN wrote:

 more behind the scenes, around the same level of popularity as 
 Nim, Crystal.


 Since i think this is a talk about popularity...

 I feel that Nim and Crystal have WAY more adoption/popularity 
 than D, but im not sure if both are backed by any great group 
 (like Rust).

 So I think a good point to focus this discussion is, why Nim 
 and Crystal got the lead in popularity but not D?


As somebody who programs in Crystal, i find the statement that 
Crystal is leading in popularity is a bit of a overstatement. Nim 
probably has a even lower popularity then Crystal.

Crystal suffers from a lot of the same issues that D does.

Editor support is lacking. D technically has more and better 
Editor support but again but most editor support feel amateurism 
at best with bugs, lockups and more.

Windows support is currently non-existing and being worked upon. 
D has that but ... it tends to be "fragile".

Multithreading is being worked on but again ...

D clearly is a much more advanced programming language with 
BetterC and the whole gamma of options.

And this is where things turn into Crystal its advantage. Despite 
all the missing features, its so easy to get tasks setup and 
going. The roadblocks feel less of a issue. D just feels *old* 
with the 1001 command line options.

I see so many times when a user has a issue, people responds with 
"do -xwys" command. And yes, it works but its a design flaw at 
the same time. A good modern programming language runs almost any 
task without a end user ever needing to learn half a manual of 
command line arguments. Do a search on this very message board 
and compare this to other languages.

Most of my work these days is programming web applications. Lets 
be honest, the web and mobile will keep growing and intermixing 
more and more. Webasm is another sign of this. Yet, it ends up 
being a task and half to get even a basic HTTP solution going for 
D, let alone one that performs.

Vibe-D when tested against real world scenarios makes PHP look 
like a Ferrari. We do not even start on the whole 
incompatibilities between D versions and Vibe-D ( or depending 
packages ).

At my old job i spend a week trying to implement some code in D 
and being unhappy about all the other stuff i needed to write 
just to get it function. I spend a day in PHP and was finished. 
Sure, it was slower, used more memory but my time was way more 
valuable.

Crystal when upgrading tends to be so easy to fix changes, where 
as a lot of the D eco system depends so much on specific versions 
of D. With constant changes for new features and removals of old 
ones, D keeps hurting so many packages. I see plugin authors 
simply giving up and not bothering fixing older code because its 
too much work.

If we compare this to PHP, what gets so much unholy criticism 
from people ( a lot undeserved because years out of date 
information ), there seems to be a much more strong desire to 
keep things going. Because a lot of the eco system does not 
depend on specific PHP versions or it keeps a large amount of 
backward compatibility, we can run old 5.6 code that has not seen 
a update in 4 years without issues. Try running not updated 4 
year old D code that is not a few basic lines and that depends on 
dependencies. Go ahead, i will wait :)

This brings us back to Crystal. Its slow to develop because its 
only a few people also but they do have a main focus on keeping 
compatible with older code. And you feel this in the community 
and responses.

I do not think D is dead but you feel a lot of people are 
somewhat allergic to outsiders here. A lot of topic by simply 
reading almost feel like "My precious!!!(Gollum)" as people are 
helpful but very fast to go apeshit if criticism come up as to 
why things are complicated. Especially if that user compares it 
to other languages.

Now i see people mentioning D3 and i think by myself: If you can 
not make D1 and D2 a success without turning it into a massive 
fuzzball, what makes you think that D3 is any better? All you 
send up with is a even more split community and more resources 
down the drain.

Do you want a solution? Sure and the answer is: There is non that 
people will accept! D is a marvelous piece of compiler but that 
is the issue. Everybody is so focus on the compiler and features 
aspect, that they forget it takes a army of grunds to make the 
eco system, editors etc AND to maintain them!

Without a corporate backer, who wants to put time into your 
system, you have nothing that really lasts. Look at Jetbrain... 
Go got support very fast. Rust got a company and community backed 
plugin. D ... has a best a half supported community plugin that 
depends on one guy for most of the work. Visual Studio Code has 
the same issue. One guy doing most of the work. Their is simply 
very little focus on creating community multi backed solution 
beyond people posting here "why do you not do it".

Somebody mentioned codingame just a few days ago... The first 
responds to this user: "You're probably in the best position, as 
a user of the site, to advocate D's inclusion.". Yes, a random 
newbie who asked why D was not on this website, where you learn 
to program needs to "do the work" to get D on it.

It happens with so many topics and the person leaves, to never 
come back. Or this person will pick a fight as "why do i need to 
do that". So many people here think that if you disagree or find 
a issue, its your task to fix it. And while some people have the 
time, skill and motivation, MOST DO NOT!

I said plenty already on this topic but its really a big part of 
the community here why D itself is not going forward. Too many 
Ph.D type attitudes but it backfires on the "common" man. Say 
what you want about Rust ( and it legion of zealots ) but they 
really worked hard to make community, editor and other support 
easier. Even cross compilation is so easy unlike a aforementioned 
language. And i do not even use Rust in my daily work.

The reality is that a lot of this community is somewhat toxic and 
internally focused without it realizes itself. This is probably 
the main reason for D its failure to really grow outside a few 
companies and projects. People keep forgetting the basics. If its 
not dead simple, you can only sell your product to a already 
existing marked of complex users. Moving those users, with years 
of invested time into your product is HARD!!!! Any good sales 
person will tell you this. And that is a other issue. The lack of 
real useful things that makes a advanced user switch from C/C++ 
or whatever languages and pick up D before a language like Rust.

We can say that D WASTED 20 years time and now has competitors 
that simply have their acts better together. Its like trying to 
piss in a stream, while your standing downstream. It just flows 
back on you.

The reality is, D brings few new things to the market that a 
competitor can not copy ( C++ already did, so why switch ). D 
dropped the ball a long time ago and no offense guys but seeing 
the current state and its evolution, sure, you get a bit more 
attention but your not growing because of all the issues, code 
and more.

I am sure that we shall see each other again in a few months when 
the next topic pops up with people complaining. The reality is, D 
simply does not evolve in a way to really make it gain any 
popularity that is required to grew its eco system. And now with 
competitors like Go, Rust, ... and minor competitors like 
Crystal, Nim, ... and the already established competitors taking 
D features a long time ago.
Apr 18 2019
parent Julian <julian.fondren gmail.com> writes:
On Thursday, 18 April 2019 at 23:43:26 UTC, Margo wrote:

 And this is where things turn into Crystal its advantage.
 Despite all the missing features, its so easy to get tasks
 setup and going. The roadblocks feel less of a issue. D just
 feels *old* with the 1001 command line options.


Crystal merits: it feels easy.

D demerits: it has typical compiler options instead of 
subcommands.

I felt that D was a lot easier than Crystal, but that's feelings
for you. I didn't much like sudden requirements like

   senders = {} of String => Int32

in code that's otherwise free of explicit types. I didn't like
Crystal's compile times. I had a lot more experiences that could 
be
narrated "I bet this will work... oh it does!" in D than in
Crystal.


and I run it like a script, which is pretty good as far as
1001 command line options go.


 At my old job i spend a week trying to implement some code in D
 and being unhappy about all the other stuff i needed to write
 just to get it function. I spend a day in PHP and was finished.
 Sure, it was slower, used more memory but my time was way more
 valuable.


Just PHP, or a PHP framework?

I bet if you just printed HTML from a little CGI script in D it'd
be nearly as easy. I'm saying this seriously. I've written a lot 
of
internal webapps like this, especially where the backend has
very little to do. Nothing I couldn't do in D.


 Crystal when upgrading tends to be so easy to fix changes,
 where as a lot of the D eco system depends so much on specific
 versions of D. With constant changes for new features and
 removals of old ones, D keeps hurting so many packages.


That's too bad. My experience from learning the language from the 
D
Programming Language (released 2010) was just that some of the
imports had to be updated. Maybe that book just didn't cover the
features that changed so much in the meantime.


 PHP, what gets so much unholy criticism
 from people ( a lot undeserved because years out of date
 information ),


Sorry, but this will never, ever, ever be true.


 Somebody mentioned codingame just a few days ago... The first
 responds to this user: "You're probably in the best position,
 as a user of the site, to advocate D's inclusion.". Yes, a
 random newbie who asked why D was not on this website, where
 you learn to program needs to "do the work" to get D on it.


Wow. That guy should be banned. The obviously preferable response
to any question like this is "thanks! I've added this site to a
list or made an issue or ticket out of it and someone will be
emailing the owner to ask how we can help get D supported."

Even if D is never added, this is action in the direction of
spreading D and it's welcoming rather than dismissive. And even if
D is never added, the questioner might choose to learn more about
the language in the meantime, rather than giving up on such a
hostile community.


 The reality is, D brings few new things to the market that a
 competitor can not copy ( C++ already did, so why switch ).


C++ is the only language I've ever stopped learning before even
completing a tutorial, so I can't speak much on it, but every few
years I'll watch a serious presentation about the language that
has this kind of pattern:

   PRESENTER: Here's some code. Raise your hand if you'd write this
              code.

   AUDIENCE: *some hands are raised*

   P: haha, come on. Don't be shy. How many of you, really?

   A: *most hands raised*

   P: OK. Me too: *raises hand*. We're all wrong. This code is
      terrible. Nobody should ever write code like this.

   ...
   P: here's a way that's not so bad, but--
   ...
   P: here's another way, but it--
   ...
   P: this way is ideal, this is how the STL does it, but it is
      actually illegal under seven international anti-torture
      conventions to ask anyone to ever write code similar to this.
      Seven of my coworkers were found dead at their keyboards 
after
      writing such code. Most of the budget of this C++ convention
      is going towards therapists, this year, so that we can keep
      updating the STL without more than expected loss of life.
   ...
   P: and this is how I recommend you do it. This way still has
      some problems, in particular it's much less efficient than 
the
      ideal way, but it's the best compromise without compromising
      quality of life too much.

Ever few years a presentation like that.  The last one was titled
"The Nightmare of Move Semantics for Trivial Classes"

I don't think there's a feature you can add to C++ that will
prevent you from having to know *all* of the options above, even 
if
you only ever write the last, because you can still come across
other people's code.
Apr 18 2019
prev sibling next sibling parent Kagamin <spam here.lot> writes:
On Friday, 12 April 2019 at 07:35:05 UTC, Tofu Kaitlyn wrote:

 It feels like to the rest of the programming universe, D 
 doesn't even exist. Sometimes I see threads on reddit like 
 "what's your favorite programming language" and I always look 
 for D but never find it.


What do you think of other languages? Is java great? Did you 
write an Electron program? Maybe PHP?
Apr 12 2019
prev sibling next sibling parent silentwatcher <silentwatcher aol.com> writes:
On Friday, 12 April 2019 at 07:35:05 UTC, Tofu Kaitlyn wrote:

 Sorry for that title, but this is something I have been 
 thinking about for a while...

 I honestly feel like D is a failure. I kinda just wanted to 
 vent about it and see what other people think.

 I have been using D since around 2012 or 2013, instantly fell 
 in love, use to post on the forms a lot under the name Tofu 
 Ninja. I was convinced D was the future but since then I have 
 become disheartened. The biggest thing that makes me feel like 
 this is that in the 7 years I have been using D I literally 
 have never met another programmer IRL who has even heard of it. 
 I put on my resume that I like D and every interview I get 
 asked about it, having to explain what D even is because they 
 have never heard of it. I have never seen a job posting listing 
 D. Never see any projects pop up on /r/programming using D. It 
 feels like to the rest of the programming universe, D doesn't 
 even exist. Sometimes I see threads on reddit like "what's your 
 favorite programming language" and I always look for D but 
 never find it.

 And honestly I don't think that is going to change. I feel like 
 D has failed.

 I duno... what do yall think? Is D going to somehow explode in 
 popularity in 5-10 years? Am I missing some part of the 
 picture? Or am I right and if so what can be done about it?


if too fell in love with it, about the same time. i completely 
gave up on it.
gc, slow evolution and extremely opinionated group. i watch for 
the sake of the old days.
who knows it? sometimes i meet programmers who know about it, but 
when taking to them nobody plans to do something with it. its an 
gc experiment with endless features - and more coming. They and i 
feel - not usable in the company world.

cheers
Apr 12 2019
prev sibling next sibling parent Andre Pany <andre s-e-a-p.de> writes:
On Friday, 12 April 2019 at 07:35:05 UTC, Tofu Kaitlyn wrote:

 Sorry for that title, but this is something I have been 
 thinking about for a while...

 I honestly feel like D is a failure. I kinda just wanted to 
 vent about it and see what other people think.

 I have been using D since around 2012 or 2013, instantly fell 
 in love, use to post on the forms a lot under the name Tofu 
 Ninja. I was convinced D was the future but since then I have 
 become disheartened. The biggest thing that makes me feel like 
 this is that in the 7 years I have been using D I literally 
 have never met another programmer IRL who has even heard of it. 
 I put on my resume that I like D and every interview I get 
 asked about it, having to explain what D even is because they 
 have never heard of it. I have never seen a job posting listing 
 D. Never see any projects pop up on /r/programming using D. It 
 feels like to the rest of the programming universe, D doesn't 
 even exist. Sometimes I see threads on reddit like "what's your 
 favorite programming language" and I always look for D but 
 never find it.

 And honestly I don't think that is going to change. I feel like 
 D has failed.

 I duno... what do yall think? Is D going to somehow explode in 
 popularity in 5-10 years? Am I missing some part of the 
 picture? Or am I right and if so what can be done about it?


D is a hidden treasure, not many developers know it. But once you 
know it, you immediately fell in love. It is just superior to 
other languages currently available, in my opinion.

At this point in time D got quite mature. It can be used in 
really large companies with great success.

In my opinion it is now at the community to tell other developers 
about this great language, create articles, create content. .
This is now the most important thing, advertising done by the 
people who uses D.

Kind regards
Andre
Apr 12 2019
prev sibling next sibling parent reply Nierjerson <Nierjerson somewhere.com> writes:
On Friday, 12 April 2019 at 07:35:05 UTC, Tofu Kaitlyn wrote:

 Sorry for that title, but this is something I have been 
 thinking about for a while...

 I honestly feel like D is a failure. I kinda just wanted to 
 vent about it and see what other people think.

 I have been using D since around 2012 or 2013, instantly fell 
 in love, use to post on the forms a lot under the name Tofu 
 Ninja. I was convinced D was the future but since then I have 
 become disheartened. The biggest thing that makes me feel like 
 this is that in the 7 years I have been using D I literally 
 have never met another programmer IRL who has even heard of it. 
 I put on my resume that I like D and every interview I get 
 asked about it, having to explain what D even is because they 
 have never heard of it. I have never seen a job posting listing 
 D. Never see any projects pop up on /r/programming using D. It 
 feels like to the rest of the programming universe, D doesn't 
 even exist. Sometimes I see threads on reddit like "what's your 
 favorite programming language" and I always look for D but 
 never find it.

 And honestly I don't think that is going to change. I feel like 
 D has failed.

 I duno... what do yall think? Is D going to somehow explode in 
 popularity in 5-10 years? Am I missing some part of the 
 picture? Or am I right and if so what can be done about it?


Yes D has failed if the goal is wide adoption. It will never gain 
wide recognition and use because the D community fails to realize 
that it's more than just the compiler and libraries.

What makes a compiler successful is not just the compiler itself 
but the easy to create real world business solutions by the mass 
of programmers in the world. Such people are not interested in 
wasting their time trying to get things to work, they want a 
product that will allow them to get as much work done in the 
shorted amount of time. D fails miserably at that in the real 
world.

D has no decent gui, gui designer, no decent audio library, no 
decent graphics library, no decent anything. The D community 
thinks that if it has a binding then it must be the same. 
Bindings are not solutions. One is just working in C, so what is 
the point of D then?

When you look at the most successful compilers you will see they 
have a huge amount of resources available that work without issue.

Essentially D costs too much and has too little in return. After 
all, you can pretty much do everything you want in C++ that you 
can do with D.

Imagine, hypothetically, if when C++ was invented it was actually 
the D language.

The sole reason that D has failed is the management of D has 
failed... and, of course, they will never accept that truth. They 
believe their methods are correct and working and the failure is 
not due to them. D is actually an old language and there are many 
new languages popping up like weeds... eventually D will not be 
so shiny and more and it will just become another weed. That is 
already happening actually.  As many languages modify their 
designs to include what was great about D, D becomes less 
attractive.

So, D started out with a bang but will finish as a whimper. It 
neglected so many important aspects of programming that it shot 
itself in the foot. Over time it won't be able to recover from 
this unless things seriously change about how it is managed. It 
is failed to reach escape velocity.

Most programmers don't give a shit about meta programming and all 
the cool shit D can do. So what is the point of them using it 
when most other things suck? All the effort that D wasted in 
library after library could have been focused on creating the 
things that users want/need but the libraries are now defunct and 
are bit rotting.

Eventually people will give up on maintaining D(in 10-20 years 
when new processors are out that require massive updating of D or 
a new OS comes about). D will die a slow and painful death. It 
didn't have to be that way but that is the outcome when you don't 
plan properly.  It has happened many times with many things... 
It's nature at work.

At most D could hope to do is get a large company with the 
resources to take it over like Microsoft... but they have no 
incentive to do that. Since D can integrate with C/C++ there is 
potential. But why would they do such a thing when they can just 
modify C++?

D has never been used for a major commercial app. It touts all 
it's uses, which is minuscule compared to the major players and 
most of these use cases are more it computing 
applications/utilities than anything major. I believe D is a 
failure for very complex real world apps. It just can't handle 
the load. A large business isn't going to waste it's time with 
something that has so many drawbacks and few benefits... it makes 
no sense to them to use D for anything serious. Even though D can 
be used to write specific code, since it does not perfectly 
integrate what is the point of just not writing it in the main 
language, even if it requires a little more work?

The only thing D has been really successful at is it's language 
design but that isn't enough to do much in this world.
Apr 12 2019
next sibling parent reply Andre Pany <andre s-e-a-p.de> writes:
On Friday, 12 April 2019 at 09:56:48 UTC, Nierjerson wrote:

 On Friday, 12 April 2019 at 07:35:05 UTC, Tofu Kaitlyn wrote:

 [...]


 Yes D has failed if the goal is wide adoption. It will never 
 gain wide recognition and use because the D community fails to 
 realize that it's more than just the compiler and libraries.

 [...]


This seems to be a quite pessimistic view based on wrong 
information. There are definitely succesful companies using D for 
their applications or additional tooling.

Some of these companies you can see in the list on dlang.org, 
some others do just not announce which language they use, they 
simply use the best language for the job, which is D.

Kind regards
Andre
Apr 12 2019
parent reply silentwatcher <silentwatcher aol.com> writes:
On Friday, 12 April 2019 at 10:19:10 UTC, Andre Pany wrote:

 On Friday, 12 April 2019 at 09:56:48 UTC, Nierjerson wrote:

 On Friday, 12 April 2019 at 07:35:05 UTC, Tofu Kaitlyn wrote:

 [...]


 Yes D has failed if the goal is wide adoption. It will never 
 gain wide recognition and use because the D community fails to 
 realize that it's more than just the compiler and libraries.

 [...]


 This seems to be a quite pessimistic view based on wrong 
 information. There are definitely succesful companies using D 
 for their applications or additional tooling.


mini crap


 Some of these companies you can see in the list on dlang.org, 
 some others do just not announce which language they use, they 
 simply use the best language for the job, which is D.

 Kind regards
 Andre


but i understand you, i didn't want think about the dying process 
of my mother either.
the gentleman above was wright:
D has no decent gui, gui designer, no decent audio library, no 
decent graphics library, no decent anything. The D community 
thinks that if it has a binding then it must be the same. 
Bindings are not solutions.
Most programmers don't give a shit about meta programming and all 
the cool shit D can do. So what is the point of them using it 
when most other things suck?
Apr 12 2019
parent Julian <julian.fondren gmail.com> writes:
On Friday, 12 April 2019 at 10:30:56 UTC, silentwatcher wrote:

 D has no decent gui, gui designer, no decent audio library, no
 decent graphics library,


4/4 for libraries I wouldn't care the slightest about, and 
wouldn't
consider when evaluating whether a language was useful or not.

If a server needs a GUI, it can serve HTML.
Apr 12 2019
prev sibling next sibling parent Tofu Kaitlyn <katemmons0 gmail.com> writes:
On Friday, 12 April 2019 at 09:56:48 UTC, Nierjerson wrote:

 Yes D has failed if the goal is wide adoption. It will never 
 gain wide recognition and use because the D community fails to 
 realize that it's more than just the compiler and libraries.

 [.....]



This post sums up a lot of my feelings towards the current state 
of D. The part that stood out to me the most was the part calling 
D an old language. More and more it feels like D is getting 
worse, not better, feels like more half baked language features, 
and almost no progress on things that matter like ease of use and 
tools.
Apr 12 2019
prev sibling next sibling parent reply Chris <wendlec tcd.ie> writes:
On Friday, 12 April 2019 at 09:56:48 UTC, Nierjerson wrote:

 On Friday, 12 April 2019 at 07:35:05 UTC, Tofu Kaitlyn wrote:

 Yes D has failed if the goal is wide adoption. [...]


Well, what can I say that hasn't been said before (including this 
thread)? Since I said good-bye to D last year my productivity has 
increased incredibly. I read a few days ago that Joakim had left 
the community (he once asked me why my attitude had changed so 
drastically). And you know what, it made me kinda sad. Do things 
like that even register with the D Foundation  and / or 
community? One answer was "this would be an excellent topic for 
this year's GSoC", which is a total and utter lack of respect 
(although I hasten to say that I think the poster wasn't aware of 
this and didn't intend it this way). It has never occurred to the 
D leadership that Android and iOS are more important to 
developers than introducing yet another 
RefFancyTemplateCTFERangeAllocator which is memory safe, but not 
really, but it will be after DIP2001.

Now there is talk of re-writing D, after the umpteenth half baked 
feature was introduced. We'll see, we'll see. IMO, the trouble 
really started when the D Foundation was set up. Instead of 
streamlining and stabilizing D, the whole thing turned into a 
closed shop with a "Hey, we are the lads" kinda attitude, and any 
CS theory or fashion of the day would finally be half baked into 
the language without a second thought. Without paying attention 
to users and the answer to complaints would be "we want to turn D 
into a functional style memory safe [...] language, that's why we 
had to introduce RefFancy, so eff your code!", except it still 
isn't and RefFancy has to be removed or replaced! Who would have 
guessed it would be at loggerheads with FancyRange!?

It's the year 2019 (D is almost 20 years old), a lot of new 
languages have a sounder approach than D, they see what works and 
what doesn't, what programmers need (e.g. ARM) and what they 
don't need. Which is being pragmatic, and being pragmatic is a 
thing that D claims to be. A joke. Programmers need to get sh*t 
done, you know?

And apart from all the fancy feature madness, there's this 
arrogant attitude towards users. To avoid criticism my words were 
twisted in such an obvious and blatant way that it was just 
ridiculous. And what's really funny is that mistakes made by the 
leadership, and the leadership alone, are now being socialized as 
in "the community this, the community that, and this has to 
change!". Ah, give me a break.

The sad thing is that D had it all long before younger languages 
had it, but it preferred to drink all its money in the pub, 
dreaming of fancy features, mañana, mañana...

PS For D zealots: add your favorite insult here, e.g. "entitled 
[...]"
Apr 12 2019
next sibling parent silentwatcher <silentwatcher aol.com> writes:
On Friday, 12 April 2019 at 11:52:18 UTC, Chris wrote:

 [...]


AMEN +1
Apr 12 2019
prev sibling next sibling parent reply bachmeier <no spam.net> writes:
On Friday, 12 April 2019 at 11:52:18 UTC, Chris wrote:


 Well, what can I say that hasn't been said before (including 
 this thread)? Since I said good-bye to D last year my 
 productivity has increased incredibly. I read a few days ago 
 that Joakim had left the community (he once asked me why my 
 attitude had changed so drastically). And you know what, it 
 made me kinda sad.


I've been ignoring these comments about Joakim, but since they 
keep coming up...

You can't have a successful organization where you have people 
going off the rails. The things he was posting were downright 
strange, and it would be a massive turnoff to normal people to 
visit the forum and see something like that. To suggest otherwise 
defies logic.


 PS For D zealots: add your favorite insult here, e.g. "entitled 
 [...]"


These statements would be better left on Slashdot...they don't 
help your case, they make it look like you're unreasonable.
Apr 12 2019
parent reply Chris <wendlec tcd.ie> writes:
On Friday, 12 April 2019 at 13:19:01 UTC, bachmeier wrote:

 PS For D zealots: add your favorite insult here, e.g. 
 "entitled [...]"


 These statements would be better left on Slashdot...they don't 
 help your case, they make it look like you're unreasonable.


Ah well, damned if you do and damned if you don't. It's only that 
I've been called names here before and often the replies have 
been more on the esoteric side of things. But what did Joakim 
actually post that was so weird? I think D is getting to a stage 
where it's more of a religion than a tool. The signs are there:

1. criticism is considered weird / unreasonable (blasphemous?), 
sure we all know that Earth is a disc

2. topics are not addressed and the answers are often evasive and 
/ or of a general philosophical or anecdotal nature

3. I've said it before: personal mistakes, wrong design 
decisions, are socialized and the whole community is "guilty" and 
has to "learn". I have a different take on leadership.

4. "At least we're not C++!"

This is usually a sign of decay. But honestly, it's all been said 
over the years and nothing has changed...or changed for the worse.
Apr 12 2019
next sibling parent Tofu Kaitlyn <katemmons0 gmail.com> writes:
On Friday, 12 April 2019 at 13:43:46 UTC, Chris wrote:

 Ah well, damned if you do and damned if you don't.


Ignore criticisms... latch onto one superficial point in 
comment... proceed to call unreasonable...
Apr 12 2019
prev sibling next sibling parent Kagamin <spam here.lot> writes:
On Friday, 12 April 2019 at 13:43:46 UTC, Chris wrote:

 1. criticism is considered weird / unreasonable (blasphemous?), 
 sure we all know that Earth is a disc


That said, I don't know a community that does it better. Any 
examples?


 2. topics are not addressed and the answers are often evasive 
 and / or of a general philosophical or anecdotal nature


Shit is got done by libraries, dub should be enough for you? 
That's how all big languages do it: nuget, npm, maven, uh... C 
just uses tarballs, okay, but it's an exception and people 
complain about it way more than you.


 3. I've said it before: personal mistakes, wrong design 
 decisions, are socialized and the whole community is "guilty" 
 and has to "learn". I have a different take on leadership.


You can write a library with right design decisions and publish 
it on dub.
Apr 12 2019
prev sibling parent reply Nierjerson <Nierjerson somewhere.com> writes:
On Friday, 12 April 2019 at 13:43:46 UTC, Chris wrote:

 On Friday, 12 April 2019 at 13:19:01 UTC, bachmeier wrote:

 PS For D zealots: add your favorite insult here, e.g. 
 "entitled [...]"


 These statements would be better left on Slashdot...they don't 
 help your case, they make it look like you're unreasonable.


 Ah well, damned if you do and damned if you don't. It's only 
 that I've been called names here before and often the replies 
 have been more on the esoteric side of things. But what did 
 Joakim actually post that was so weird? I think D is getting to 
 a stage where it's more of a religion than a tool. The signs 
 are there:

 1. criticism is considered weird / unreasonable (blasphemous?), 
 sure we all know that Earth is a disc

 2. topics are not addressed and the answers are often evasive 
 and / or of a general philosophical or anecdotal nature

 3. I've said it before: personal mistakes, wrong design 
 decisions, are socialized and the whole community is "guilty" 
 and has to "learn". I have a different take on leadership.

 4. "At least we're not C++!"

 This is usually a sign of decay. But honestly, it's all been 
 said over the years and nothing has changed...or changed for 
 the worse.


This is generally what happens when an organization grows without 
proper structural control.

Essentially it becomes a cult. A cult is created when dissenting 
opinions are shut out. It reinforces the main opinions, attracts 
cult followers(generally known as bootlickers, which are people 
who view the world not in intellectual means but in terms of 
master/slave relationships).

There is a very real positive[meaning reinforced] feedback cycle 
that takes place because the negative[meaning opposing] feedback 
cycle has been removed.  One see's this in all cults and 
fanatics. Politics and religion are the biggest cult creators. 
Unfortunately, when one becomes part of a cult, it tends to 
destroy their mind and they then bring their cult mentalities to 
other areas.

Humans are insane, they cannot judge truth properly without 
proper experiences. Since they generally seek out only 
experiences that agree with their previous experiences they 
simply reinforce previously established mentalities. Since all 
mentalities are flawed, it is an unstable process that eventually 
diverges(although in practice, with correct social and parental 
guidance it can produce good results).

Essentially anyone that disagree's with the cult is bludgeoned in 
to leaving. No truly intellectual common ground can be had. Most 
of the cult members are bootlickers and eventually the best 
bootlickers rise to become the leaders from which the cult 
becomes a cancer with no real purpose but to grow and survive.

Ultimately it is the bootlickers, who generally are extremely 
ignorant since they do not know what real intelligence is. They 
simply reinforce the authorities views since they believe 
authorities must have true intelligence. By mimicking authorities 
they believe they will become an authority and become 
intelligent[again, for them authority and intelligence are 
identical, which is the flaw in their mind].


You can always tell a cult exists when people congregate and 
reinforce a singular opinion of leaders and some of them vie for 
"leadership" through what amounts to be a popularity contest. 
Anyone against that opinion is shunned, berated, exiled, etc. 
Now, I know what you are thinking... it sounds like I'm talking 
about pretty much all human organizations... yep... pretty much. 
It's the nature of how feedback works, doesn't matter if it's 
electrical, mechanical, social, mathematical... Hell, it is how 
we train neural nets. It seems to be how nature works itself. 
It's not the bootlickers fault, so to speak, but the leadership, 
who must understand what is going on to prevent the cultism from 
occurring in a negative way. The bootlickers cannot and will not 
change, so it is up to the leaders to guide them. Bootlickers are 
simply the child mind and they are the people who have no grown 
up. They are looking for guidance and acceptance.

There are a few bootlickers in the forums. What you are 
describing is D's decent in to a cult. Most other popular 
programming languages have well established cult's. At least it's 
programming and not politics, religion, or war.
Apr 25 2019
parent reply Claude <no no.no> writes:
On Thursday, 25 April 2019 at 18:21:18 UTC, Nierjerson wrote:

 There are a few bootlickers in the forums. What you are 
 describing is D's decent in to a cult. Most other popular 
 programming languages have well established cult's. At least 
 it's programming and not politics, religion, or war.


More than a thousand lines of bitterness and resentment in that 
thread!... But why? Is it a joke? When's the punch-line coming?

Why don't you just drink a beer or a Suze or whatever chills you 
out and forget a bit about D?

A few years ago, Andrei created a post on this very forum called 
"OurSister" which was talking about RC-string. I won't explain 
the pun (that would be awkward), but that joke alone deserves a 
massive cult and some steady boot-licking.

So please enjoy yourself more and have a good laugh.
Apr 26 2019
parent Nierjerson <Nierjerson somewhere.com> writes:
On Friday, 26 April 2019 at 08:32:47 UTC, Claude wrote:

 On Thursday, 25 April 2019 at 18:21:18 UTC, Nierjerson wrote:

 There are a few bootlickers in the forums. What you are 
 describing is D's decent in to a cult. Most other popular 
 programming languages have well established cult's. At least 
 it's programming and not politics, religion, or war.


 More than a thousand lines of bitterness and resentment in that 
 thread!... But why? Is it a joke? When's the punch-line coming?


Not bitterness, just facts.


 Why don't you just drink a beer or a Suze or whatever chills 
 you out and forget a bit about D?

 A few years ago, Andrei created a post on this very forum 
 called "OurSister" which was talking about RC-string. I won't 
 explain the pun (that would be awkward), but that joke alone 
 deserves a massive cult and some steady boot-licking.

 So please enjoy yourself more and have a good laugh.


Do you realize the amount of pain and suffering cults have caused 
on humanity just in the last century? All the wars, all of 
politics, all the fanatical psychos that root for their favorite 
sports teams and when they lose go on a rampage, all the 
religious nuts, ...

You might find pain and suffering of others a joke or fun but I 
don't. It's completely unnecessary and shows a lack of 
intelligence and compassion.

While D's cult may not create much pain and suffering(Although 
clearly it creates some issues) the point was to explain why, to 
Chris... You failed to understand that point or learn from it.

My point was to tell him a little bit about how the human mind 
works enough to explain why "communities" end up the way they do. 
It's something out of his control for the most part and really, 
ultimately, has nothing to do with the D language and just how 
things work... Just as gravity works a very precise way, as heat, 
as energy, as most things, so does human insanity.

Why is it relevant to understand this rather than just blowing it 
off, chilling, and having a beer? Because most of the people that 
are in to just blowing stuff off, chilling, and having a beer are 
the ones who usually allow cults to grow unabashed because it 
just gets in the way of there having their "fun"... of course, 
they don't realize they too are in a cult perpetuating the same 
insanity.
Apr 26 2019
prev sibling next sibling parent Tofu Kaitlyn <katemmons0 gmail.com> writes:
On Friday, 12 April 2019 at 11:52:18 UTC, Chris wrote:

 [stuff]...


I basically stopped visiting the forums around when the 
foundation started... so sorry if I am not up on all that has 
happened since.

Wut is all this about Joakim?
Apr 12 2019
prev sibling next sibling parent reply Radu <void null.pt> writes:
On Friday, 12 April 2019 at 11:52:18 UTC, Chris wrote:

 On Friday, 12 April 2019 at 09:56:48 UTC, Nierjerson wrote:

 On Friday, 12 April 2019 at 07:35:05 UTC, Tofu Kaitlyn wrote:

 Yes D has failed if the goal is wide adoption. [...]


 Well, what can I say that hasn't been said before (including 
 this thread)? Since I said good-bye to D last year my 
 productivity has increased incredibly. I read a few days ago 
 that Joakim had left the community (he once asked me why my 
 attitude had changed so drastically). And you know what, it 
 made me kinda sad. Do things like that even register with the D 
 Foundation  and / or community? One answer was "this would be 
 an excellent topic for this year's GSoC", which is a total and 
 utter lack of respect (although I hasten to say that I think 
 the poster wasn't aware of this and didn't intend it this way). 
 It has never occurred to the D leadership that Android and iOS 
 are more important to developers than introducing yet another 
 RefFancyTemplateCTFERangeAllocator which is memory safe, but 
 not really, but it will be after DIP2001.

 Now there is talk of re-writing D, after the umpteenth half 
 baked feature was introduced. We'll see, we'll see. IMO, the 
 trouble really started when the D Foundation was set up. 
 Instead of streamlining and stabilizing D, the whole thing 
 turned into a closed shop with a "Hey, we are the lads" kinda 
 attitude, and any CS theory or fashion of the day would finally 
 be half baked into the language without a second thought. 
 Without paying attention to users and the answer to complaints 
 would be "we want to turn D into a functional style memory safe 
 [...] language, that's why we had to introduce RefFancy, so eff 
 your code!", except it still isn't and RefFancy has to be 
 removed or replaced! Who would have guessed it would be at 
 loggerheads with FancyRange!?

 It's the year 2019 (D is almost 20 years old), a lot of new 
 languages have a sounder approach than D, they see what works 
 and what doesn't, what programmers need (e.g. ARM) and what 
 they don't need. Which is being pragmatic, and being pragmatic 
 is a thing that D claims to be. A joke. Programmers need to get 
 sh*t done, you know?

 And apart from all the fancy feature madness, there's this 
 arrogant attitude towards users. To avoid criticism my words 
 were twisted in such an obvious and blatant way that it was 
 just ridiculous. And what's really funny is that mistakes made 
 by the leadership, and the leadership alone, are now being 
 socialized as in "the community this, the community that, and 
 this has to change!". Ah, give me a break.

 The sad thing is that D had it all long before younger 
 languages had it, but it preferred to drink all its money in 
 the pub, dreaming of fancy features, mañana, mañana...

 PS For D zealots: add your favorite insult here, e.g. "entitled 
 [...]"


Interesting.

While I don't know your work with Dlang, I quite regret having 
Joaking leaving the community.
He contributed greatly to the Android port, code reviews, and 
LDC, to name a few. He helped me alot with reviews and feedback 
on bugs.
I hope he would change his mind someday.

I'm fascinated on what makes you, or any other poster vent on the 
forums?
Assuming trolling is out of the question.

If you find that Dlang doesn't work for you, and there is no 
match between expectations and reality, I think one would just 
mind their business and move on.
One would think that having so vivid reactions on things that 
don't work out for you, would mean that you have a vested 
interest.

There are open PRs that sit on Github rotting, you have a list of 
bugs that you added but you got no response or some 
unsatisfactory response, you donated a bunch of money for a goal 
that was not realized. Something?

I can see that constructive criticism can be applied anytime, 
this is desired and healthy. There are really annoying things 
with Dlang management, I really hate the whole Interpolated 
Strings debacle for example, but I see that there is wish to 
improve and steps are made to fix them.

Anyhow, as strange as it sounds, I just wish that there would be 
more of Joakim's type in the detractors list then whatever we 
have now.
Apr 12 2019
parent reply Chris <wendlec tcd.ie> writes:
On Friday, 12 April 2019 at 13:57:24 UTC, Radu wrote:

 Interesting.

 While I don't know your work with Dlang, I quite regret having 
 Joaking leaving the community.
 He contributed greatly to the Android port, code reviews, and 
 LDC, to name a few. He helped me alot with reviews and feedback 
 on bugs.
 I hope he would change his mind someday.


The question is: What made him leave? Nobody seems to care about 
that, which I find both surprising and sad. He wasn't just a 
random user, you know?


 I'm fascinated on what makes you, or any other poster vent on 
 the forums?
 Assuming trolling is out of the question.


No, I'm not trolling, I don't even visit the forum regularly 
anymore.


 If you find that Dlang doesn't work for you, and there is no 
 match between expectations and reality, I think one would just 
 mind their business and move on.


The blame is constantly put on the user "your expectations were 
too high, what did you expect?". It doesn't occur to anyone that 
the completely chaotic language development may turn people off? 
As you mentioned (high) expectations, you're indirectly admitting 
that D is sub-substandard. "D is great! But don't expect too 
much!" That's funny.


 One would think that having so vivid reactions on things that 
 don't work out for you, would mean that you have a vested 
 interest.


Conjecture and assumptions. Now you tell me what possible vested 
interest I could have. Do you think I'm a shill of Big Software 
that wants to destroy small software? Yeah no, don't address the 
criticism but accuse critics of having a vested interest. It's an 
all too common pattern when people begin to realize that the 
emperor is wearing no clothes.[1]


 There are open PRs that sit on Github rotting, you have a list 
 of bugs that you added but you got no response or some 
 unsatisfactory response, you donated a bunch of money for a 
 goal that was not realized. Something?


Where should I start?


 I can see that constructive criticism can be applied anytime, 
 this is desired and healthy. There are really annoying things 
 with Dlang management, I really hate the whole Interpolated 
 Strings debacle for example, but I see that there is wish to 
 improve and steps are made to fix them.


D would have to be rewritten. It's become unmaintainable. Also, 
constructive criticism is usually shrugged off with the remark 
"What did you expect? A functional language? Go on!"


[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Emperor%27s_New_Clothes
Apr 12 2019
next sibling parent Timon Gehr <timon.gehr gmx.ch> writes:
On 12.04.19 16:44, Chris wrote:

 As you mentioned (high) expectations


In the real world, things cannot always be totally ordered.
Apr 12 2019
prev sibling next sibling parent reply Kagamin <spam here.lot> writes:
On Friday, 12 April 2019 at 14:44:06 UTC, Chris wrote:

 The blame is constantly put on the user "your expectations were 
 too high, what did you expect?". It doesn't occur to anyone 
 that the completely chaotic language development may turn 
 people off? As you mentioned (high) expectations, you're 
 indirectly admitting that D is sub-substandard. "D is great! 
 But don't expect too much!" That's funny.


The ecosystem may be. But what is standard? Are Qt bindings 

With visual designers for all of them. And it must be effortless 
too.
Apr 12 2019
parent Paolo Invernizzi <paolo.invernizzi gmail.com> writes:
On Friday, 12 April 2019 at 15:46:45 UTC, Kagamin wrote:

 On Friday, 12 April 2019 at 14:44:06 UTC, Chris wrote:

 The blame is constantly put on the user "your expectations 
 were too high, what did you expect?". It doesn't occur to 
 anyone that the completely chaotic language development may 
 turn people off? As you mentioned (high) expectations, you're 
 indirectly admitting that D is sub-substandard. "D is great! 
 But don't expect too much!" That's funny.


 The ecosystem may be. But what is standard? Are Qt bindings 

 With visual designers for all of them. And it must be 
 effortless too.


Qt it's covering it's field pretty well...

PHP? You can stream a QT UI from an embedded ARM device to you 
iPad via WebGL *right now*: it's covering the need to use it from 
a browser.

Javascript? Qt QML can use javascript libraries,  *right now*: 
it's covering the need to use the enormous amount of JS code for 
spice the UI


since long time, and they are now official supported bindings 
till 5.12, the LTS release: they are covering QT usage from the 
enormous ecosystem that's python.

The visual designer part of the QT Creator is not perfect, but 
I've used it personally to design the UI of a PySide (PyQT) SQL 
application more than *ten years ago*: they are covering the 
Designer needs.

With a clever modification of C++ (signal / slot) and a clever, 
consistent *battery included* standard library (yes, the "old 
way" of thinking about standard libraries) they are simply 
dominating a huge market...

- P
Apr 12 2019
prev sibling parent Nicholas Wilson <iamthewilsonator hotmail.com> writes:
On Friday, 12 April 2019 at 14:44:06 UTC, Chris wrote:

 The question is: What made him leave?


A combination of him seeing the foundation as wasting money on 
the idea of conferences, a traditional D forum debate™ that 
followed, deletion of some posts by moderators, and their 
refusing to go back on that.


 Nobody seems to care about that, which I find both surprising 
 and sad.


I care, and was very annoyed about the response.


 He wasn't just a random user, you know?


I know, it is a great loss.


 There are open PRs that sit on Github rotting, you have a list 
 of bugs that you added but you got no response or some 
 unsatisfactory response, you donated a bunch of money for a 
 goal that was not realized. Something?


 Where should I start?


I do the Pull Request management these days. Assuming your own 
PRs: rebase it, then ping me (I'm a bit busy at the moment with 
conferences and my regular mail client is geolocked (stupid MS 
security setting that I can't figure out how to change so I 
apologise for any late replies).


 I can see that constructive criticism can be applied anytime, 
 this is desired and healthy. There are really annoying things 
 with Dlang management, I really hate the whole Interpolated 
 Strings debacle for example, but I see that there is wish to 
 improve and steps are made to fix them.


 D would have to be rewritten. It's become unmaintainable.


I don't think its quite there yet, but it is getting dangerously 
close to the brink, hence the AGM for sorting this stuff out. If 
you have any topics that you feel need discussing and are not on 
the list[1] already, please make a PR.

[1]: https://github.com/thewilsonator/Dlang-AGM
Apr 12 2019
prev sibling next sibling parent reply Kagamin <spam here.lot> writes:
On Friday, 12 April 2019 at 11:52:18 UTC, Chris wrote:

 (e.g. ARM)


There's 
https://github.com/ldc-developers/ldc/releases/download/v1.15.0/ldc2-1.15.0-linux-aarch64.tar.xz
Apr 12 2019
parent Chris <wendlec tcd.ie> writes:
On Friday, 12 April 2019 at 14:34:10 UTC, Kagamin wrote:

 On Friday, 12 April 2019 at 11:52:18 UTC, Chris wrote:

 (e.g. ARM)


 There's 
 https://github.com/ldc-developers/ldc/releases/download/v1.15.0/ldc2-1.15.0-linux-aarch64.tar.xz


Great stuff, seriously. But painless?

D could come very close to this too:

https://kotlinlang.org/docs/reference/native-overview.html

But imagine one day you have a great infrastructure and you can 
compile to Android and iOS with a switch -android / -ios etc. 
Then the D Foundation announces new features that will break old 
code or "Phobos is in maintenance mode now, we are working on 
Phobos2", ah and did I mention autodecode? Who wants to risk it? 
You know, people have to make a living, it's not just a game of 
features.
Apr 12 2019
prev sibling parent reply Paolo Invernizzi <paolo.invernizzi gmail.com> writes:
On Friday, 12 April 2019 at 11:52:18 UTC, Chris wrote:

 On Friday, 12 April 2019 at 09:56:48 UTC, Nierjerson wrote:

 [...]


 Well, what can I say that hasn't been said before (including 
 this thread)? Since I said good-bye to D last year my 
 productivity has increased incredibly. I read a few days ago 
 that Joakim had left the community (he once asked me why my 
 attitude had changed so drastically). And you know what, it 
 made me kinda sad. Do things like that even register with the D 
 Foundation  and / or community? One answer was "this would be 
 an excellent topic for this year's GSoC", which is a total and 
 utter lack of respect (although I hasten to say that I think 
 the poster wasn't aware of this and didn't intend it this way). 
 It has never occurred to the D leadership that Android and iOS 
 are more important to developers than introducing yet another 
 RefFancyTemplateCTFERangeAllocator which is memory safe, but 
 not really, but it will be after DIP2001.

 [...]


I understand your feeling, but I think that D is approaching a 
pivotal point: the recent post of Andrei and Walter on the forum 
are fresh air to breath...

On one point I agree: It's time to get rid of all the wrong 
decisions done in the past, and simplify the language, founding 
it over the strong points learned from D2.

It's time for D3.

- Paolo
Apr 12 2019
parent reply bachmeier <no spam.net> writes:
On Friday, 12 April 2019 at 15:49:48 UTC, Paolo Invernizzi wrote:



 It's time for D3.

 - Paolo


The first step will be to stop saying D2 almost killed the 
language. I was not a user of the language at that time, but my 
reading is that the transition was a massive screwup. If the 
language doesn't evolve it will die.
Apr 12 2019
next sibling parent reply Paolo Invernizzi <paolo.invernizzi gmail.com> writes:
On Friday, 12 April 2019 at 15:58:54 UTC, bachmeier wrote:

 On Friday, 12 April 2019 at 15:49:48 UTC, Paolo Invernizzi 
 wrote:



 It's time for D3.

 - Paolo


 The first step will be to stop saying D2 almost killed the 
 language. I was not a user of the language at that time, but my 
 reading is that the transition was a massive screwup. If the 
 language doesn't evolve it will die.


The transition between D1 and D2 was problematic, that's true, 
(but the problem was the duality between Phobos/Tango), but 
happened, successfully at the end.

The transition between Python 2 and Python 3 was problematic, but 
happened, and Python is flourishing...  does it worth? Being 
someone who worked with Python strings / bytes in both 2 and 3, 
yes, it worths!

- P
Apr 12 2019
parent reply "H. S. Teoh" <hsteoh quickfur.ath.cx> writes:
On Fri, Apr 12, 2019 at 04:31:51PM +0000, Paolo Invernizzi via Digitalmars-d
wrote:

 On Friday, 12 April 2019 at 15:58:54 UTC, bachmeier wrote:

 On Friday, 12 April 2019 at 15:49:48 UTC, Paolo Invernizzi wrote:

 It's time for D3.
 
 - Paolo


 
 The first step will be to stop saying D2 almost killed the language.
 I was not a user of the language at that time, but my reading is
 that the transition was a massive screwup. If the language doesn't
 evolve it will die.




+1.

This is why I heartily support Andrei's recent stance about std.v2.  I
don't agree with his claim that it can't be done because of our present
(lack of) manpower.  There are other issues involved with that, that I
don't want to get into here, but D really needs to embrace change rather
than fear it.  Trying to get something as complex as a programming
language right from the get-go is impossible.  What you lay down at
first can only be an approximation at best, and is bound to need
revision later as your direction becomes clearer.  Whatever D started
out as was only a faint shadow of what it became today, and similarly
what we have today is only a faint shadow of what it might become in the
future.  The moment we let the past stop the future is the moment D is
dead.



 The transition between D1 and D2 was problematic, that's true, (but
 the problem was the duality between Phobos/Tango), but happened,
 successfully at the end.
 
 The transition between Python 2 and Python 3 was problematic, but
 happened, and Python is flourishing...  does it worth? Being someone
 who worked with Python strings / bytes in both 2 and 3, yes, it
 worths!


[...]

Yes, and I hope std.v2 will happen. And not just happen, I hope there
will be a std.v3 in the future, and a std.v4 in the distant future.


T

-- 
Not all rumours are as misleading as this one.
Apr 12 2019
parent Nierjerson <Nierjerson somewhere.com> writes:
On Friday, 12 April 2019 at 16:56:25 UTC, H. S. Teoh wrote:

 On Fri, Apr 12, 2019 at 04:31:51PM +0000, Paolo Invernizzi via 
 Digitalmars-d wrote:

 On Friday, 12 April 2019 at 15:58:54 UTC, bachmeier wrote:

 On Friday, 12 April 2019 at 15:49:48 UTC, Paolo Invernizzi 
 wrote:

 It's time for D3.
 
 - Paolo


 
 The first step will be to stop saying D2 almost killed the 
 language. I was not a user of the language at that time, but 
 my reading is that the transition was a massive screwup. If 
 the language doesn't evolve it will die.




 +1.

 This is why I heartily support Andrei's recent stance about 
 std.v2.  I don't agree with his claim that it can't be done 
 because of our present (lack of) manpower.  There are other 
 issues involved with that, that I don't want to get into here, 
 but D really needs to embrace change rather than fear it.  
 Trying to get something as complex as a programming language 
 right from the get-go is impossible.  What you lay down at 
 first can only be an approximation at best, and is bound to 
 need revision later as your direction becomes clearer.  
 Whatever D started out as was only a faint shadow of what it 
 became today, and similarly what we have today is only a faint 
 shadow of what it might become in the future.  The moment we 
 let the past stop the future is the moment D is dead.


I agree with this. Also, one must build it for them to come, 
meaning that the manpower comes with progress. It is a illogical 
thing to believe that we can't do something because X is not in 
place when the very fact that X is an effect from doing that 
thing.

See, if people saw that D was headed in the right direction they 
would be more likely too invest their time, and as some of these 
people do it, D has more man power, and more progress is made, 
and then more people come, and more man power exists and more 
people come.

It's sort of like the avalanche effect with transistors. It 
really works this way with humans(as if humans were electrons).

The argument should be "How much time do we want to allocate this 
week to task X: 5 days?  4 hours? 1 minute?" and so the time is 
allocated and progress is made. That is all that matters. It's 
basic scheduling and project management.

The thing is, allocating 0s to something stops all progress. Even 
1s is better than 0. At least with 1s, in theory, the goal will 
be reached. [Good project management comes from trying to 
optimize the completion time of all tasks. There is even software 
that helps optimize this using advanced mathematics and takes in 
to account many of the standard issues. It would be a good thing 
for D, if it cares about progress, to invest in such a tool.]



 The transition between D1 and D2 was problematic, that's true, 
 (but the problem was the duality between Phobos/Tango), but 
 happened, successfully at the end.
 
 The transition between Python 2 and Python 3 was problematic, 
 but happened, and Python is flourishing...  does it worth? 
 Being someone who worked with Python strings / bytes in both 2 
 and 3, yes, it worths!


 [...]

 Yes, and I hope std.v2 will happen. And not just happen, I hope 
 there will be a std.v3 in the future, and a std.v4 in the 
 distant future.


It can only happen by planning. Without proper planning there is 
an inevitable end.[Of course, there is an end to all things I 
suppose but that is completely out of our control]
Apr 12 2019
prev sibling parent reply Nicholas Wilson <iamthewilsonator hotmail.com> writes:
On Friday, 12 April 2019 at 15:58:54 UTC, bachmeier wrote:

 On Friday, 12 April 2019 at 15:49:48 UTC, Paolo Invernizzi 
 wrote:



 It's time for D3.

 - Paolo


 The first step will be to stop saying D2 almost killed the 
 language. I was not a user of the language at that time, but my 
 reading is that the transition was a massive screwup. If the 
 language doesn't evolve it will die.


You mean D1? I hope we're not there already with D2!
Apr 12 2019
parent reply bachmeier <no spam.net> writes:
On Friday, 12 April 2019 at 18:22:04 UTC, Nicholas Wilson wrote:

 On Friday, 12 April 2019 at 15:58:54 UTC, bachmeier wrote:

 On Friday, 12 April 2019 at 15:49:48 UTC, Paolo Invernizzi 
 wrote:



 It's time for D3.

 - Paolo


 The first step will be to stop saying D2 almost killed the 
 language. I was not a user of the language at that time, but 
 my reading is that the transition was a massive screwup. If 
 the language doesn't evolve it will die.


 You mean D1? I hope we're not there already with D2!


I was referring to the D1 -> D2 transition. It has been claimed 
by Walter that it nearly killed the language so he doesn't want 
D2 -> D3.
Apr 12 2019
parent "H. S. Teoh" <hsteoh quickfur.ath.cx> writes:
On Fri, Apr 12, 2019 at 06:29:01PM +0000, bachmeier via Digitalmars-d wrote:

 On Friday, 12 April 2019 at 18:22:04 UTC, Nicholas Wilson wrote:

 On Friday, 12 April 2019 at 15:58:54 UTC, bachmeier wrote:

 On Friday, 12 April 2019 at 15:49:48 UTC, Paolo Invernizzi wrote:

 It's time for D3.
 
 - Paolo


 
 The first step will be to stop saying D2 almost killed the
 language.  I was not a user of the language at that time, but my
 reading is that the transition was a massive screwup. If the
 language doesn't evolve it will die.


 
 You mean D1? I hope we're not there already with D2!


 
 I was referring to the D1 -> D2 transition. It has been claimed by
 Walter that it nearly killed the language so he doesn't want D2 -> D3.


Yes, that's been Walter & Andrei's motto for the last X number of years
now.  Thing is, though, that at *some* point you just have to move on.
The only unchanging language is a dead one; this applies both in natural
language and programming languages.

That's why it was so refreshing to hear Andrei propose std.v2 recently.
That's a good first step from the past few years' worth of "we dare not
fix X because it might break code".  I hope there will eventually be a
D3.  And a D4.


T

-- 
Живёшь только однажды.
Apr 12 2019
prev sibling next sibling parent reply thedeemon <dlang thedeemon.com> writes:
 On Friday, 12 April 2019 at 07:35:05 UTC, Tofu Kaitlyn wrote:

 The biggest thing that makes me feel like this is that in the 
 7 years I have been using D I literally have never met another 
 programmer IRL who has even heard of it. I put on my resume 
 that I like D and every interview I get asked about it, having 
 to explain what D even is because they have never heard of it. 
 I have never seen a job posting listing D. Never see any 
 projects pop up on /r/programming using D. It feels like to 
 the rest of the programming universe, D doesn't even exist.




Personally I've noticed both on reddit and on some 
non-English-speaking social networks that at least awareness 
about D has risen a lot in last 2-3 years. More people know it 
exists and some are at least familiar with its nicer features. 
Maybe a lot less who actually use it. IRL around me everyone 
knows about D, but that's because I work in a D-using company. ;)

But in general I understand your feeling. There are so many 
languages now, not everyone can be in top 10, so there is a lot 
of second-tier ones. Usable for whoever is brave enough to use 
them, but not mainstream. D is one of them, that's ok for me. I 
love such languages, be it D, OCaml, Clean, Pony or even less 
known ones. Shall we call "not in top-10" a failure? Depends on 
the original goals, I guess.


On Friday, 12 April 2019 at 09:56:48 UTC, Nierjerson wrote:

 Yes D has failed if the goal is wide adoption. It will never 
 gain wide recognition and use because the D community fails to 
 realize that it's more than just the compiler and libraries.


With a small community, without a big corporation behind a 
language, it's hard to expect anything else. The situation is 
very similar for most second-tier languages.



 D has no decent gui, gui designer, no decent audio library, no 
 decent graphics library, no decent anything.


Back in 2012 I used DFL for GUI on Windows (pretty decent) and it 
came with Entice Designer - a GUI tool for building GUIs with 
DFL. I guess now it's probably abandoned, but it did work ok back 
then. I've made a few apps with DFL. Then some more with DLangUI, 
another fine GUI library, even cross-platform this time. Graphics 
library? I dunno, what should be there that's not already in one 
of D libs available? For me, if it's raster graphics, being able 
to create bitmaps and output them is usually enough, I can do the 
rest by hand (I started doing graphics when it was just "mov ax, 
13h; call 10h; now we have a memory-mapped 320x200 bitmap with 
256 colours palette, enjoy!") People make 3D engines in D, I've 
made a video processing app in D and another about photo 
processing.
Audio processing? Probably. That's niche enough, people like 
p0nce do it manually in D but professionaly. Again, it's hard to 
expect a big variety of high-quality tools and libraries from a 
small community of enthusiasts. But that's only natural.
Apr 12 2019
parent thedeemon <dlang thedeemon.com> writes:
On Friday, 12 April 2019 at 13:10:15 UTC, thedeemon wrote:

  "mov ax, 13h; call 10h;


Correction: "int 10h", of course. B81300CD10.
Apr 12 2019
prev sibling parent Nicholas Wilson <iamthewilsonator hotmail.com> writes:
On Friday, 12 April 2019 at 09:56:48 UTC, Nierjerson wrote:

 Yes D has failed if the goal is wide adoption. It will never 
 gain wide recognition and use because the D community fails to 
 realize that it's more than just the compiler and libraries.

 What makes a compiler successful is not just the compiler 
 itself but the easy to create real world business solutions by 
 the mass of programmers in the world. Such people are not 
 interested in wasting their time trying to get things to work, 
 they want a product that will allow them to get as much work 
 done in the shorted amount of time. D fails miserably at that 
 in the real world.


I think you will find that D _is_ used successfully in 
businesses, if not the businesses you'd like to see it be used in.


 D has no decent gui, gui designer, no decent audio library, no 
 decent graphics library, no decent anything.


Dlangui is fine, Guillaume Piolat does Audio in D, I presume his 
libraries are good, vibe. is pretty awesome, but I take your 
point.


 The D community thinks that if it has a binding then it must be 
 the same. Bindings are not solutions. One is just working in C, 
 so what is the point of D then?


Au contraire, a good binding means interoperability and you don't 
have to design, engineer, develop, and document (as much) the 
thing you want to do.


 Essentially D costs too much and has too little in return.


That is a business decision that you need to evaluate.


 After all, you can pretty much do everything you want in C++ 
 that you can do with D.


Most certainly not, anything that requires reflection you can't.


 The sole reason that D has failed is the management of D has 
 failed...


It hasn't failed completely, yet... the dconf AGM will hopefully 
change things.


 Most programmers don't give a shit about meta programming and 
 all the cool shit D can do.


Even if they don't care directly, the cascade effects are 
significant, i.e. they don't care that they can do it directly, 
they care that they can use what someone else has written.


 So what is the point of them using it when most other things 
 suck? All the effort that D wasted in library after library 
 could have been focused on creating the things that users 
 want/need but the libraries are now defunct and are bit rotting.


c.f. bindings


 Eventually people will give up on maintaining D(in 10-20 years 
 when new processors are out that require massive updating of D 
 or a new OS comes about). D will die a slow and painful death. 
 It didn't have to be that way but that is the outcome when you 
 don't plan properly.  It has happened many times with many 
 things... It's nature at work.


Maybe, maybe not.


 At most D could hope to do is get a large company with the 
 resources to take it over like Microsoft... but they have no 
 incentive to do that. Since D can integrate with C/C++ there is 
 potential. But why would they do such a thing when they can 
 just modify C++?

 D has never been used for a major commercial app. It touts all 
 it's uses, which is minuscule compared to the major players and 
 most of these use cases are more it computing 
 applications/utilities than anything major. I believe D is a 
 failure for very complex real world apps. It just can't handle 
 the load. A large business isn't going to waste it's time with 
 something that has so many drawbacks and few benefits... it 
 makes no sense to them to use D for anything serious. Even 
 though D can be used to write specific code, since it does not 
 perfectly integrate what is the point of just not writing it in 
 the main language, even if it requires a little more work?


Just because you don't see then doesn't mean they don't exist.
Apr 12 2019
prev sibling next sibling parent Radu <void null.pt> writes:
On Friday, 12 April 2019 at 07:35:05 UTC, Tofu Kaitlyn wrote:

 Sorry for that title, but this is something I have been 
 thinking about for a while...

 I honestly feel like D is a failure. I kinda just wanted to 
 vent about it and see what other people think.

 I have been using D since around 2012 or 2013, instantly fell 
 in love, use to post on the forms a lot under the name Tofu 
 Ninja. I was convinced D was the future but since then I have 
 become disheartened. The biggest thing that makes me feel like 
 this is that in the 7 years I have been using D I literally 
 have never met another programmer IRL who has even heard of it. 
 I put on my resume that I like D and every interview I get 
 asked about it, having to explain what D even is because they 
 have never heard of it. I have never seen a job posting listing 
 D. Never see any projects pop up on /r/programming using D. It 
 feels like to the rest of the programming universe, D doesn't 
 even exist. Sometimes I see threads on reddit like "what's your 
 favorite programming language" and I always look for D but 
 never find it.

 And honestly I don't think that is going to change. I feel like 
 D has failed.

 I duno... what do yall think? Is D going to somehow explode in 
 popularity in 5-10 years? Am I missing some part of the 
 picture? Or am I right and if so what can be done about it?


Meeting your popularity expectations, yes, I would say it has 
failed.

But, I would say this is also a great thing, being popular is not 
necessary a good thing all the time.
I'm amazed by how much a group of passionate people with little 
corporate support can achieve, you have to check the PRs on 
Github and the lively discussions on this forum.

I would be more worried if Dlang would lose its contributors 
critical mass. I have witnessed during the years some talented 
people leaving the community, mostly due to friction with how 
things were run or communicated. Recently there is a breath of 
fresh air, as vision and attitude toward setting goals and 
clearly communicating them to the community coming from Andrei 
and Walter. The result, some old dissharted contributors have 
re-joined and started to do Great&Right Work™.

There are also pretty encouraging signals from the students 
joining the D GSoC program. We should capture their interest, and 
keep some of the talented ones as contributors.

What matters in the end is that Dlang stays true to its core 
principles, native system programing with pragmatic productivity, 
and keeps improving quality across the board.

People, including myself, are using Dlang for interesting work, 
so for a group of us this is not a silly language experiment. It 
brings home the bacon, so to speak.
Maybe we are not very vocal as other communities are but D runs a 
bunch of systems, commercial or not, already.
Apr 12 2019
prev sibling next sibling parent bachmeier <no spam.net> writes:
On Friday, 12 April 2019 at 07:35:05 UTC, Tofu Kaitlyn wrote:


 And honestly I don't think that is going to change. I feel like 
 D has failed.

 I duno... what do yall think? Is D going to somehow explode in 
 popularity in 5-10 years? Am I missing some part of the 
 picture? Or am I right and if so what can be done about it?


You have a very specific (and arbitrary) definition of failure. 
If the only reason to use a language is "popularity", presumably 
so you can financially benefit from it, then go with one of the 
small number of languages that are heavily used today. Language 
use has very little to do with the language itself. The biggest 
factor i determining language popularity today is language 
popularity five years ago. The cost to changing is too high and 
the benefits too small for companies to make a change.

D has succeeded in my opinion. It provides me with a language I 
can use to get things done. That's really all a language can do.

Are there areas that D is not the best choice? Of course. Folks 
complain "D doesn't work for my use case." Well C++ isn't a good 
choice for web development, Ruby isn't a good choice for high 
performance computing, Java isn't a good choice for embedded 
programming, and Javascript isn't a good choice for writing an 
operating system. That doesn't mean any of those languages has 
failed. There are plenty of cases where D is a good choice.
Apr 12 2019
prev sibling next sibling parent reply Timon Gehr <timon.gehr gmx.ch> writes:
On 12.04.19 09:35, Tofu Kaitlyn wrote:

 
 I honestly feel like D is a failure. I kinda just wanted to vent about 
 it and see what other people think.


I honestly feel like D is a big success. The failure is your own.
Apr 12 2019
parent reply Tofu Kaitlyn <katemmons0 gmail.com> writes:
On Friday, 12 April 2019 at 13:22:32 UTC, Timon Gehr wrote:

 On 12.04.19 09:35, Tofu Kaitlyn wrote:

 
 I honestly feel like D is a failure. I kinda just wanted to 
 vent about it and see what other people think.


 I honestly feel like D is a big success. The failure is your 
 own.


Thank You for this well thought out response, you completely 
changed my mind, it's obvious you took my feelings/opinion 
seriously...
Apr 12 2019
parent Timon Gehr <timon.gehr gmx.ch> writes:
On 12.04.19 15:37, Tofu Kaitlyn wrote:

 On Friday, 12 April 2019 at 13:22:32 UTC, Timon Gehr wrote:

 On 12.04.19 09:35, Tofu Kaitlyn wrote:

 I honestly feel like D is a failure. I kinda just wanted to vent 
 about it and see what other people think.


 I honestly feel like D is a big success. The failure is your own.


 
 Thank You for this well thought out response,


You are welcome.


 you completely changed my 
 mind, it's obvious you took my feelings/opinion seriously...
 


On the off chance that this is sarcasm, let me elaborate: It seems like 
you picked up D hoping it would become more popular than it has. 
Personally, I don't care about popularity.
Apr 12 2019
prev sibling next sibling parent reply "H. S. Teoh" <hsteoh quickfur.ath.cx> writes:
On Fri, Apr 12, 2019 at 07:35:05AM +0000, Tofu Kaitlyn via Digitalmars-d wrote:
[...]

 I honestly feel like D is a failure.


[...]

 I duno... what do yall think? Is D going to somehow explode in
 popularity in 5-10 years?


[...]

There lies the problem: you're equating success with popularity.  They
can be correlated, to some extent, but they are certainly not the same
thing.

Personally, I couldn't care less about popularity. After what I've seen
in the industry over the past 2-3 decades, I've become very cynical
about popularity.  What I *do* care for is a language with strong
technical merit. D has that, to some extent -- I'm not going to pretend
D is perfect either, as I do find a lot to be desired in it.  But it's
much better than the alternatives I've tried, so for the time being,
it's my language of choice.

But obviously, YMMV.


T

-- 
War doesn't prove who's right, just who's left. -- BSD Games' Fortune
Apr 12 2019
parent reply Nierjerson <Nierjerson somewhere.com> writes:
On Friday, 12 April 2019 at 14:30:53 UTC, H. S. Teoh wrote:

 On Fri, Apr 12, 2019 at 07:35:05AM +0000, Tofu Kaitlyn via 
 Digitalmars-d wrote: [...]

 I honestly feel like D is a failure.


 [...]

 I duno... what do yall think? Is D going to somehow explode in 
 popularity in 5-10 years?


 [...]

 There lies the problem: you're equating success with 
 popularity.  They can be correlated, to some extent, but they 
 are certainly not the same thing.

 Personally, I couldn't care less about popularity. After what 
 I've seen in the industry over the past 2-3 decades, I've 
 become very cynical about popularity.  What I *do* care for is 
 a language with strong technical merit. D has that, to some 
 extent -- I'm not going to pretend D is perfect either, as I do 
 find a lot to be desired in it.  But it's much better than the 
 alternatives I've tried, so for the time being, it's my 
 language of choice.

 But obviously, YMMV.


And this is the problem. Those hard core users like yourself that 
pretend that popularity doesn't matter. What are you going to do 
in 10-15 years(depending on how old you are) when Walter is 
dead(isn't he like 70 now?) or simply cares even less about D and 
moves on to dying? Popularity is what grows something.  You might 
not care about it, but without it D is definitely dead and it is 
just a matter of time.

So many users here think "I like D and it is good enough for me" 
not realizing that not catering to the masses is putting nails in 
the coffin.

See, most of you guys think that your experiences actually matter 
to the rest of the world, yet you won't even begin to accept 
their experiences. You think if it's this or that then it is.

MOST programmers are not you, you are the exception! You have an 
exceptional language and it will die and exceptional death. You 
think you are getting a great deal... D is great. But you don't 
realize it could be so much better. Imagine having 100k 
programmers using D, how much shit they would add to it. Better 
IDE's, better libraries, better performance, better stability, 
etc.

Yeah, you can ignore popularity if it it's meaningless. It just 
shows your ignorance or your selfishness or both.

Once the popularity of D = 0 D is dead. That is a fact. Do you 
want D dead? or do you like playing risky games? If you think D 
is so great then why would you not want it to be more popular? If 
D is better then C++ in every regard then why would you not want 
everyone using D instead of C++?

See, your perceptions are illogical and detrimental to the very 
thing you claim to like. You haven't really thought it all the 
way through. You've got to the point "It works great for me" and 
have stopped there. You are not the average programmer. Also, you 
alone cannot make D better.

It takes a village and you are scoffing at that idea like it is 
meaningless when it is absolute reality. All you are really doing 
is putting the nails in the coffin by contributing to that 
mentality. D has grown at a snails pace... as many new people 
entering in to the community, many leave. This mean's D is not 
really growing and without growth there is only death.

The die hard fan boys scoff at the idea of doing anything that 
makes D commercially appealing like having a great IDE and 
debugger, or making error messages make sense(such as with 
templates that just spew out nonsense over and over requiring one 
to spend more than a few seconds to figure out what is going on 
UNLESS they have been programming in D for a few years(which 
means most people will give up on D pretty quick). Proper 
libraries that draw people in and work properly so that they do 
not experience problems which then causes them to exit.

D will not survive another decade at the rate it is going. If you 
truly care about it as much as you say then you might want to 
take heed and at least make sure I'm not right. Of course, in a 
decade you will have quit using D because some better language 
will have come out that does everything you want over D(after 
all, you know there are things about D you do not like)... but 
someone else will fill your place and say the same nonsense like 
"D is great, Does everything for me, I don't care about 
popularity!" as if we are talking about a popularity contest then 
what what is really mean, which is the growth of D in to a real 
force in the programming world. You would think Walter, of all 
people, would care about such things but he seems to be like you.

D is dead, at least it is on deaths door, you can stick your head 
in the sand and pretend it isn't, the mere fact these topics come 
up over and over proves it. You don't see C++ having such topics 
in any serious manner. It's the industrial standard. Maybe in 10 
years it will start to happen, but D has had this conversation 
over 5 years ago.

See, it is not that D itself is a bad language, it is that the 
whole atmosphere surrounding it, how it is managed, is the 
problem. Some things are done well but others poorly, eventually 
those things that are neglected will catch up because the 
community seems to care not one bit about them. The cracks are 
getting bigger and bigger, I'm sorry you can't see them.







 T
Apr 12 2019
next sibling parent reply bachmeier <no spam.net> writes:
On Friday, 12 April 2019 at 15:25:05 UTC, Nierjerson wrote:


 And this is the problem. Those hard core users like yourself 
 that pretend that popularity doesn't matter.


The D language is sort of like the Arch Linux community used to 
be (and maybe still is, but I no longer use it). New users would 
come in and comment "you need more GUI support", "you need to 
stop expecting people to compile their own software", and "your 
distro will never become popular with an attitude like this 
community". The goal of the Arch Linux project was very 
explicitly to provide a high quality option for users that wanted 
a distro following a particular philosophy. The D language offers 
what it offers. If anything, the complaints are that the things 
it offers should be of higher quality, that the project needs to 
scale back further.

I don't think anyone is saying we should drive away users. But 
that is different from saying that popularity will drive all 
decisions and all contributions to D.


 So many users here think "I like D and it is good enough for 
 me" not realizing that not catering to the masses is putting 
 nails in the coffin.


If you have a few million to contribute to hiring a team to cater 
to the masses, this is a sensible argument. As things currently 
stand, catering to the masses will not happen, because there are 
no resources to do so. Sun had the money to do it, the D Language 
Foundation does not.


 See, it is not that D itself is a bad language, it is that the 
 whole atmosphere surrounding it, how it is managed, is the 
 problem. Some things are done well but others poorly, 
 eventually those things that are neglected will catch up 
 because the community seems to care not one bit about them. The 
 cracks are getting bigger and bigger, I'm sorry you can't see 
 them.


To the extent that this is true, we are still constrained by 
reality. Without resources there is no point in talking about 
changes that have to happen. It's easy to come up with ideas for 
work other should do. It's a bit harder to come up with ideas and 
then make them happen.

My recommendation is that you move on to another language if you 
don't like the current state of affairs. I don't see it changing 
in the next decade. (Interpret that statement as you wish, but 
this is reality, there is no reason to pretend otherwise or talk 
about changes that "should" happen.)

The D language works very well for me. It may not work for 
others. And that's okay.
Apr 12 2019
next sibling parent reply Nierjerson <Nierjerson somewhere.com> writes:
On Friday, 12 April 2019 at 15:52:17 UTC, bachmeier wrote:

 On Friday, 12 April 2019 at 15:25:05 UTC, Nierjerson wrote:


 And this is the problem. Those hard core users like yourself 
 that pretend that popularity doesn't matter.


 The D language is sort of like the Arch Linux community used to 
 be (and maybe still is, but I no longer use it). New users 
 would come in and comment "you need more GUI support", "you 
 need to stop expecting people to compile their own software", 
 and "your distro will never become popular with an attitude 
 like this community". The goal of the Arch Linux project was 
 very explicitly to provide a high quality option for users that 
 wanted a distro following a particular philosophy. The D 
 language offers what it offers. If anything, the complaints are 
 that the things it offers should be of higher quality, that the 
 project needs to scale back further.


Um, Everything offers what it offers. It is nonsensical response 
because it is always true and hence says nothing about what D 
does.

Why would anyone put in years of their life in to something just 
to throw it away?

If D's goal was to provide a few decades of a marginal language, 
then it has achieved that, but I somehow doubt that was what it 
was written for.

https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2019?utm_source=so-owned&utm_medium=announcement-banner&utm_campaign=dev-survey-2019

You can see that D doesn't show up at all anywhere and also what 
most programmers do and expect. If one is serious about creating 
useful programming platform, to ignore such things is ignorant 
and detrimental.




 I don't think anyone is saying we should drive away users. But 
 that is different from saying that popularity will drive all 
 decisions and all contributions to D.


I never said that. I said popularity brings benefits and 
popularity IS required for longevity. Popularity is longevity. 
Popularity is a function of time AND when it reaches 0 then what 
the popularity represents is dead.

What I'm saying is those that believe D will survive and be a 
useful platform and ignore all the things that drive useful 
platforms is being ignorant. No one knows exactly what it takes 
to make anything successful, but there are fundamental principles 
involved and when they are ignored then there is no success.




 So many users here think "I like D and it is good enough for 
 me" not realizing that not catering to the masses is putting 
 nails in the coffin.


 If you have a few million to contribute to hiring a team to 
 cater to the masses, this is a sensible argument. As things 
 currently stand, catering to the masses will not happen, 
 because there are no resources to do so. Sun had the money to 
 do it, the D Language Foundation does not.


No, your argument is not sensible. Why? Because the only way to 
cater to the masses is to cater to them.  You say there are no 
resources... why? Because You haven't fucking catered to the 
masses. What do you expect, a flip to switch and then the masses 
come?

That is not how things work. It must be built. If the D community 
gave a rates ass about the bigger picture, it would have done 
things that would have attracted more people, then those people 
would then contribute more, and it would feed back in to itself. 
It D this to some degree but only attracted more die hard 
programmers who were willing to invest their time or hoped for 
the best.

D has had 20 years to build a huge community and it has failed. 
It's simple as that... the reason why it has failed is because 
building a large community was never accepted as necessary to 
help D progress.

With most language, or anything really, when you have 1M people 
using it, they will create shit for it on their own without any 
regard for anything. This is what humans do. D has had that. But 
D never had 1M, it might have had 10k at most. That means the 
maximum that can be achieved is from 10k, not 1M, or 10M, or 
100M. So D has shot itself in the head by not making community 
building apart of it's plan of success.

The attitude "We will not cater to the mass of moron programmers" 
has hurt D, possibly been the one thing that is killing it.

I see many of you guys that refuse to accept the need to proper 
tooling that appeals to the masses. You pretend that all the new 
programmers that could help D thrive who are used to using GUI's 
and tooling of modern languages should be forced to use tooling 
20+ years ago.


Most new programmers who are looking for languages to latch on to 
are kids who have certain mentalities and ideas... and trying to 
force them to go back in time isn't going to attract them. There 
is a huge misconception in by the management and leadership of D 
related to this.


Oh, and to pretend the masses don't matter yet here and there one 
of the leaders will post stats about how D is becoming more 
popular. So, yes they do think about it but no the increase is 
not significant.



 See, it is not that D itself is a bad language, it is that the 
 whole atmosphere surrounding it, how it is managed, is the 
 problem. Some things are done well but others poorly, 
 eventually those things that are neglected will catch up 
 because the community seems to care not one bit about them. 
 The cracks are getting bigger and bigger, I'm sorry you can't 
 see them.


 To the extent that this is true, we are still constrained by 
 reality. Without resources there is no point in talking about 
 changes that have to happen. It's easy to come up with ideas 
 for work other should do. It's a bit harder to come up with 
 ideas and then make them happen.



AGAIN, the reason why there are no resources is BECAUSE you don't 
have the people BECAUSE you don't attract the people. It is not a 
switch!!! It is a process. You do shit to attract people, some 
come, then you take those people and do some more shit and more 
people come, and so forth. When you do the WRONG shit, you don't 
attract anyone AND so you MUST stop doing that. The management 
loves to do the wrong shit and pretend it is right.

and THIS is why D will die. Because it has not built up over the 
20 years the resources it could have now. It is a rocket that 
didn't have enough thrust to get escape velocity. At some point 
it will start falling. [The difference is that a rocket can't 
change but management can]

Your logic is exactly this: "I have no money so I can't be a 
millionaire which will let me make more money". It's nonsensical.

The only way to make money is to make money, the millions come 
from that process.

If D focused more on building a larger community then it more 
people will come and the community will grow and more things will 
happen such as more resources(which, for programming is 99% human 
effort so it is PURELY humans that are required).



 My recommendation is that you move on to another language if 
 you don't like the current state of affairs. I don't see it 
 changing in the next decade. (Interpret that statement as you 
 wish, but this is reality, there is no reason to pretend 
 otherwise or talk about changes that "should" happen.)


I already have. I only use D for minor things that it works well 
for. I do not use it for anything serious any more. It's cut my 
productivity by a quarter if not more. I have over 10 languages I 
program in and D is my last choice for anything that involves $$$ 
and complexity. And guess what! It's all precisely due to the 
tooling. The language itself impedes me very little(there are 
problems here and there but it seems have become much more stable 
than it was when I first started using it).


  The D language works very well for me. It may not work for

 others. And that's okay.


Yep, exactly, and that is why you are part of the problem. This 
is why I stopped taking D seriously. Because it's all the people 
in the community are "It's about me, Id on't give a shit about 
you!" attitude. See, you are not the first one that has said that 
in this thread. I've seen it by two other people.

It's people like you that are the problem. One day you will reap 
what you sow. You have invested years in to D, probably suck at 
most other languages now, and when D falls through(What happens 
when Walter dies? It's coming, it's not a macabre thing, it's 
just a fact of life) what are you going to do? Are you going to 
take it over and keep the train going? Do you think the rest of 
the guys are going to help you? How many people you got? how many 
will it take?

What I tend to find in the D community is a lot of people with no 
real understanding of how project management works and the real 
issues projects face. They don't understand complexity nor 
simplicity. It's true that they understand these things better 
that most programmers such as most JS programmers, but most JS 
programmers don't have any control in any way what so ever about 
their language.

With D, people like you get to reinforce the illogical 
mentalities of the management and so actually do much harm to the 
success of D. You can't be told other wise because you are right. 
You won't listen to facts, even facts that you know are true and 
state yourself. You always find some justification that does not 
prove your conclusions wrong.

D as a language is great, D as a community/management is 
terrible. There is a huge imbalance between the two and 
unfortunately D won't survive the latter[Although someone might 
come along and reincarnate it in to something new, that can't be 
bet on to have any significance].

If you actually look at the D forums you will see only maybe 40 
active regulars. Seriously, at MOST. Even if we make that in to 
1000, or 10000, it compares NOTHING to the main language D 
competes against. C++ has hundreds of millions of active regulars 
in forums all across the web.

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/d

Look how dead it is! Your perception is not reality. You can 
pretend everything is peachy perfect but the facts show that you 
are blind... and you are digging your own grave(D wise).

It is not pessimism to speak the truth. I want D to succeed just 
as much as anyone else here, but it isn't. I'm stating these 
things to try to wake up people like you so that maybe you will 
change and get with the program to try and save D, but like most 
things, you will choose to ignore reality until it strangles you 
and you are forced to realize what has happened.

Even, if I'm exaggerating, even if the numbers were all off by a 
few orders of magnitude, they are still far too low compared to 
comparable languages or where D should be by now.

It is people like you that are the problem. I truly don't think 
you get it. I think your logic is warped and you conclude the 
wrong things. I could be wrong and I'm not saying you are moron 
or that everything you conclude is wrong... but in certain things 
you either fail to be logical or fail to measure correctly(you 
over or under estimate and then never double check yourself by 
converse logic to see if you are even in the same ball bark as 
the truth).


..and, basically you have already said it, as others have, you 
don't really care... and that, ultimately, is the real problem. 
You simply do not care enough about D to criticize it enough to 
have it do better. If you raised kids your parenting style is "Go 
out and play, you can do your homework tomorrow" because you 
really don't care enough about your kids to do the hard work so 
that it pays off for you and them. I feel Walter is in that boat 
and many others. It's as if you guys really think it's suppose to 
be easy and everything is suppose to just magically come together 
without any blood sweat and tears. It really has nothing to do 
with D ultimately, it is just the thing we happen to all cross 
paths with. If we were in another universe it would be a similar 
thing but over something different. It seems to be a human thing 
when the human mind just ultimately gives up the war and only 
fights the battles to safe face or to keep the charade going on.
Apr 12 2019
parent reply silentwatcher <silentwatcher aol.com> writes:
On Friday, 12 April 2019 at 16:49:02 UTC, Nierjerson wrote:

 On Friday, 12 April 2019 at 15:52:17 UTC, bachmeier wrote:

 [...]


 Um, Everything offers what it offers. It is nonsensical 
 response because it is always true and hence says nothing about 
 what D does.

 [...]


you are absolutely wright. i wished i could express this a good 
as you do, but english is not my native language.

but aren't all you guys stunned how Andrei and Walter come to 
rescue of there creation and failed management?
what a yelling silence.
well this is the usual way - stand by and/or don't care. the 
idiots will calm down after they are made trolls or are told to 
move on.
should we?
Apr 12 2019
parent reply Nicholas Wilson <iamthewilsonator hotmail.com> writes:
On Friday, 12 April 2019 at 18:00:32 UTC, silentwatcher wrote:

 but aren't all you guys stunned how Andrei and Walter come to 
 rescue of there creation and failed management?
 what a yelling silence.


I'm having a hard time spring that sentence, but I hoping that 
the dconf AGM will set a new direction / management policy.


 well this is the usual way - stand by and/or don't care. the 
 idiots will calm down after they are made trolls or are told to 
 move on.
 should we?


If and only if you are a troll, I'm jet lagged and can't tell.
Apr 12 2019
parent silentwatcher <silentwatcher aol.com> writes:
On Friday, 12 April 2019 at 18:26:26 UTC, Nicholas Wilson wrote:

 On Friday, 12 April 2019 at 18:00:32 UTC, silentwatcher wrote:

 but aren't all you guys stunned how Andrei and Walter come to 
 rescue of there creation and failed management?
 what a yelling silence.


 I'm having a hard time spring that sentence, but I hoping that 
 the dconf AGM will set a new direction / management policy.


 well this is the usual way - stand by and/or don't care. the 
 idiots will calm down after they are made trolls or are told 
 to move on.
 should we?


 If and only if you are a troll, I'm jet lagged and can't tell.


no, not a troll. there was a time i used d regularly and even 
tried our company to use it (2011), but thanks haven that failed.
what is the opinion of Andrei and Walter?
it's kind of funny that they don't have one.
Apr 12 2019
prev sibling parent silentwatcher <silentwatcher aol.com> writes:
On Friday, 12 April 2019 at 15:52:17 UTC, bachmeier wrote:

 On Friday, 12 April 2019 at 15:25:05 UTC, Nierjerson wrote:



 My recommendation is that you move on to another language if 
 you don't like the current state of affairs. I don't see it 
 changing in the next decade. (Interpret that statement as you 
 wish, but this is reality, there is no reason to pretend 
 otherwise or talk about changes that "should" happen.)


no, i am not a troll!
but this is the kind of group treatment that makes you guys 
famous.
it works for you hobbyists, so who are other idiots.


 The D language works very well for me. It may not work for 
 others. And that's okay.


for you privately it works well - ok. does it have a chance for 
companies?
no
Apr 12 2019
prev sibling next sibling parent reply Timon Gehr <timon.gehr gmx.ch> writes:
On 12.04.19 17:25, Nierjerson wrote:

 
 Yeah, you can ignore popularity if it it's meaningless.


That seems obvious.


 It just shows your ignorance or your selfishness or both.
 ...


Right, because supporting an open source language and toolchain is so 
selfish and ignorant. I won't try to force you to use it for your own 
good. If that's selfish, so be it.


 Once the popularity of D = 0 D is dead. That is a fact.


As long as I am using it, the popularity of D ≠ 0. Fact.
(In fact, D has plenty of users.)


 If you think D is so great 


It's fine, not great, but better than would-be competitors for my 
current use cases.


 then why would you not want it to be more popular?


When everything else is the same, having more users is a liability.
In any case, if you want to invest time and effort into a marketing 
campaign, be my guest. I'm not actively opposed to popularity, even 
though it would probably further diminish the average quality of 
discourse on the forums.


 If D is better then C++ in every regard


(That's not even close to what anyone in this thread claimed.)


 then why would you not want everyone using D instead 
 of C++?
 ...


Competitive advantage.


 See, your perceptions are illogical and detrimental to the very thing 
 you claim to like.


D is a tool. You are arguing as if it was a person whom I wish to marry.
Apr 12 2019
parent reply Nierjerson <Nierjerson somewhere.com> writes:
On Friday, 12 April 2019 at 16:42:46 UTC, Timon Gehr wrote:

 On 12.04.19 17:25, Nierjerson wrote:

 
 Yeah, you can ignore popularity if it it's meaningless.


 That seems obvious.


 It just shows your ignorance or your selfishness or both.
 ...


 Right, because supporting an open source language and toolchain 
 is so selfish and ignorant. I won't try to force you to use it 
 for your own good. If that's selfish, so be it.


Um, I didn't say that. I said that if you only support the 
language features that you use then it is selfishness. There is a 
difference, you are trying to warp what I said to suit your 
beliefs.

What I'm saying is that there are a lot of D users that use D for 
X... and people that use it for Y and have Y-issues are 
irrelevant for these people. For them, because D does X well they 
are happy, and they careless about the other users. That is 
selfishness.



 Once the popularity of D = 0 D is dead. That is a fact.


 As long as I am using it, the popularity of D ≠ 0. Fact.
 (In fact, D has plenty of users.)


And you fail to realize it doesn't have to be 0 to be practically 
dead. It's a theoretical statement and all theoretical statements 
constrain reality. I mean, are you going to make me spell out 
every little detail just to prove you wrong? Do we have to figure 
out exactly how many users D requires to not end up dead?


 If you think D is so great


 It's fine, not great, but better than would-be competitors for 
 my current use cases.


My point above. For YOU. You care less about other users and 
their use cases. D is fine for you, so why do you want to keep it 
bad for others rather than help it work for them too? That is 
very selfish.



 then why would you not want it to be more popular?


 When everything else is the same, having more users is a 
 liability.


True, but one can make such blanket statements about everything. 
It's nonsensical in practice because nothing can ever be the 
same. The amount of manhours that are invested in D is 
proportional to the "popularity". By forcing everything else the 
same you remove that condition and so it then becomes pointless.

This isn't a business selling things where the more customers are 
more liability because one can just raise the prices of their 
product to decrease the customers but maintain the same revenue. 
There isn't a trade off here with D's community. The larger the 
community the more investment those people put in to D and that 
helps D as a language and compiler grow and that helps everyone 
that uses it and draws in more people who invest more time.

These people invest their time willingly, they don't have to pay 
anything else for it. There is a huge difference.



 In any case, if you want to invest time and effort into a 
 marketing campaign, be my guest. I'm not actively opposed to 
 popularity, even though it would probably further diminish the 
 average quality of discourse on the forums.


Popularity automatically does not cause problems. It is the state 
of the human race that causes the problems. If the logic is "We 
don't want D popular because it will cause problems in the 
forums" then D is shooting itself in the head. There are ways to 
alleviate such problems so one doesn't have to sacrifice one for 
the other.

The logic then should be "Ok, we need to build a larger community 
for D, we know it that this will generally create a problem A. 
How can we minimize the effects of A"?

This is basic calculus. Even computer scientists deal with 
min/max type of problems. You don't throw the baby out with the 
bath water, you find a balanced solution that gives the results 
one wants. Meaning one finds appropriate solutions for the 
appropriate problems.



 If D is better then C++ in every regard


 (That's not even close to what anyone in this thread claimed.)


That is why I said "IF" it was a hypothetical.


 then why would you not want everyone using D instead of C++?
 ...


 Competitive advantage.


 See, your perceptions are illogical and detrimental to the 
 very thing you claim to like.


 D is a tool. You are arguing as if it was a person whom I wish 
 to marry.


lol, I do not think I was posting to you specifically.

In some ways it is someone you wish to marry, or you already have.

How many years have you invested with D? Seriously, when you are 
on your death bed those years might mean something. Your time 
should be important too you and so wasting it on things you don't 
take seriously will only harm you. It is your choice to live your 
life that way but, for example, you shouldn't marry the first 
broad that you see because that is years of your life that are 
"wasted"(in the sense that if you could spend them better). Most 
people though just accept whatever and they end up paying for 
you. You can't get the time back so why not make sure it is 
invested well?
Apr 12 2019
parent Timon Gehr <timon.gehr gmx.ch> writes:
On 12.04.19 20:13, Nierjerson wrote:

 ... I said that if you only support the language 
 features that you use then it is selfishness. [...]
 


And I have in fact added some compiler features that I'll most likely 
never use myself. But I won't go ahead and sink >1k hours into a spare 
time project (e.g. IDE) that I don't primarily care for. If that's 
selfish, then everyone is selfish. If everyone works on something that 
is missing and they care about enough, then everything that someone 
cares about enough will eventually get worked on. Having people who 
don't care about certain things work on them while they have other 
things to do is just bad resource allocation. Furthermore, you need to 
have a strange notion of "selfishness" to think that sharing your work 
is selfish just because you happened to work on something that benefits 
yourself in addition to others.


 ...

 It's fine, not great, but better than would-be competitors for my 
 current use cases.


 
 My point above. For YOU. You care less about other users and their use 
 cases. D is fine for you, so why do you want to keep it bad for others 


That's a loaded question, and it is bullshit.


 rather than help it work for them too? That is very selfish.
 ...


And demanding that others work on your problems for free is not?


 

 then why would you not want it to be more popular?


 When everything else is the same, having more users is a liability.


 
 True, but one can make such blanket statements about everything. It's 
 nonsensical in practice because nothing can ever be the same. The amount 
 of manhours that are invested in D is proportional to the "popularity". 
 By forcing everything else the same you remove that condition and so it 
 then becomes pointless.
 
 This isn't a business selling things


You mean like, demanding money to compensate for invested time and 
resources spent on someone else's problems? How selfish.


 ... There isn't a 
 trade off here with D's community.


Well, clearly you are trying to tell someone to do something 
differently. It's unlikely to have no cost. (Otherwise you could just do 
it yourself instead of wasting time writing long forum posts, hoping 
that other people will do as you say.)


 The larger the community the more 
 investment those people put in to D and that helps D as a language and 
 compiler grow and that helps everyone that uses it and draws in more 
 people who invest more time.
 ...


There can also be more users without there being more people working on 
open-source projects. It seems that the people who complain about D in 
the forums in the fashion you are doing are rarely active contributors.


 

 In any case, if you want to invest time and effort into a marketing 
 campaign, be my guest. I'm not actively opposed to popularity, even 
 though it would probably further diminish the average quality of 
 discourse on the forums.


 
 Popularity automatically does not cause problems. It is the state of the 
 human race that causes the problems. If the logic is "We don't want D 
 popular because it will cause problems in the forums" then D is shooting 
 itself in the head.


That is literally the opposite of the statement I made, but fine.


 There are ways to alleviate such problems so one 
 doesn't have to sacrifice one for the other.
 ...


Even if so, you will sacrifice some third thing.
Apr 12 2019
prev sibling parent reply "H. S. Teoh" <hsteoh quickfur.ath.cx> writes:
On Fri, Apr 12, 2019 at 03:25:05PM +0000, Nierjerson via Digitalmars-d wrote:

 On Friday, 12 April 2019 at 14:30:53 UTC, H. S. Teoh wrote:


[...]

 Personally, I couldn't care less about popularity. After what I've
 seen in the industry over the past 2-3 decades, I've become very
 cynical about popularity.  What I *do* care for is a language with
 strong technical merit. D has that, to some extent -- I'm not going
 to pretend D is perfect either, as I do find a lot to be desired in
 it.  But it's much better than the alternatives I've tried, so for
 the time being, it's my language of choice.
 
 But obviously, YMMV.
 


 
 And this is the problem. Those hard core users like yourself that
 pretend that popularity doesn't matter. What are you going to do in
 10-15 years(depending on how old you are) when Walter is dead(isn't he
 like 70 now?) or simply cares even less about D and moves on to dying?


There are enough of us around to keep it going without Walter, and that
number is growing.  It may not be growing as fast as you might want, but
it's growing.



 Popularity is what grows something.  You might not care about it, but
 without it D is definitely dead and it is just a matter of time.


Bold statement for a language that has a good number of companies using
it in production, with a small group of dedicated contributors.  Yeah,
it may be no C++ megalith, but honestly? I can live with that. In fact,
I like it.  Popularity usually also equates to lowering your standards
to the lowest common denominator.  I've seen enough of that in my career
to be extremely cynical about it.


[...]

 Once the popularity of D = 0 D is dead. That is a fact. Do you want D
 dead?  or do you like playing risky games? If you think D is so great
 then why would you not want it to be more popular? If D is better then
 C++ in every regard then why would you not want everyone using D
 instead of C++?


[...]

Ah, the good old strawman argument. I never said I don't *want* D to be
popular.  I said that popularity is irrelevant *to me*.  I want D to
grow *by technical merit*, not than by pandering to whatever fashion
trend the masses are clamoring for today that will inevitably change
again tomorrow. Popularity is not a reliable measure of technical merit.



 See, it is not that D itself is a bad language, it is that the whole
 atmosphere surrounding it, how it is managed, is the problem. Some
 things are done well but others poorly, eventually those things that
 are neglected will catch up because the community seems to care not
 one bit about them.  The cracks are getting bigger and bigger, I'm
 sorry you can't see them.


[...]

To be honest, I've seriously thought about forking D on several
occasions.  I haven't gone through with it yet, for many reasons.  But
if push comes to shove, I'm ready to take it on, and I'm pretty certain
that I'm not alone.


T

-- 
People say I'm arrogant, and I'm proud of it.
Apr 12 2019
next sibling parent Nierjerson <Nierjerson somewhere.com> writes:
On Friday, 12 April 2019 at 16:45:04 UTC, H. S. Teoh wrote:

 On Fri, Apr 12, 2019 at 03:25:05PM +0000, Nierjerson via 
 Digitalmars-d wrote:

 On Friday, 12 April 2019 at 14:30:53 UTC, H. S. Teoh wrote:


 [...]

 Personally, I couldn't care less about popularity. After 
 what I've seen in the industry over the past 2-3 decades, 
 I've become very cynical about popularity.  What I *do* care 
 for is a language with strong technical merit. D has that, 
 to some extent -- I'm not going to pretend D is perfect 
 either, as I do find a lot to be desired in it.  But it's 
 much better than the alternatives I've tried, so for the 
 time being, it's my language of choice.
 
 But obviously, YMMV.
 


 
 And this is the problem. Those hard core users like yourself 
 that pretend that popularity doesn't matter. What are you 
 going to do in 10-15 years(depending on how old you are) when 
 Walter is dead(isn't he like 70 now?) or simply cares even 
 less about D and moves on to dying?


 There are enough of us around to keep it going without Walter, 
 and that number is growing.  It may not be growing as fast as 
 you might want, but it's growing.


Even one man can "keep it going" in theory. In practice that is 
now how it works. When the "team leader" goes everything almost 
always falls apart. In war, if the commander gets killed there 
are specific processes to deal with the inevitable outcome of the 
company being obliterated. This is why their are chains of 
command and shut. You won't be able to keep anything together in 
any significant way without some organized structure. It is pipe 
dream because EVEN if it were true, it is only true in theory or 
in some astronomical chance. In reality, that is, when we want to 
actually not take huge risks, things work a certain way.

It has nothing to do with D specifically, it is true in general 
for all things. It is not that the outcome is always known but 
that why go down that path? It doesn't have to go that way and it 
will only be a tough road. There is no point except to be lazy 
and ignorant. Proper planning is what has proven itself time and 
again in all complex things. No need to throw it out the window 
just because you guys want to gamble.



 Popularity is what grows something.  You might not care about 
 it, but without it D is definitely dead and it is just a 
 matter of time.


 Bold statement for a language that has a good number of 
 companies using it in production, with a small group of 
 dedicated contributors.  Yeah, it may be no C++ megalith, but 
 honestly? I can live with that. In fact, I like it.  Popularity 
 usually also equates to lowering your standards to the lowest 
 common denominator.  I've seen enough of that in my career to 
 be extremely cynical about it.


Seriously? You do realize that the companies that use D are a 
drop in the bucket compared to most other popular languages? 
Also, most of these companies would drop D in a heart beat if 
something better came along to make them more money.

Look, this is what you are saying: "Too much `popularity` is bad 
because of X, I've seen it in the past so we won't have any 
popularity".

That makes no sense. How bout you find a better way to do it? I 
agree that popularity in and of itself is not necessarily good, 
but the right popularity is the best. What if D had a community 
of 1M programmers that were identical to you? Would you not 
accept it because it's too popular? Or would you all start making 
D the most amazing language and compiler that you can conceive of?

You are throwing out the baby with the bath water. There has to 
be a balance in everything. To choose an extreme is idiotic all 
virtually all cases no matter hat the extreme is. Choosing one 
extreme over some other is just as bad as choosing another 
extreme over some other extreme. [i.e., saying "My extreme is 
better than yours" is a destructive statement unless it can be 
proved mathematically to be true or beyond all meaningful doubt]


 [...]

 Once the popularity of D = 0 D is dead. That is a fact. Do you 
 want D dead?  or do you like playing risky games? If you think 
 D is so great then why would you not want it to be more 
 popular? If D is better then C++ in every regard then why 
 would you not want everyone using D instead of C++?


 [...]

 Ah, the good old strawman argument. I never said I don't *want* 
 D to be popular.  I said that popularity is irrelevant *to me*.
  I want D to grow *by technical merit*, not than by pandering 
 to whatever fashion trend the masses are clamoring for today 
 that will inevitably change again tomorrow. Popularity is not a 
 reliable measure of technical merit.


It is not a straw man. It is fact. I didn't say you wanted it, 
you might not verbalize that or even believe that is what you 
want, but actions are what counts. If your actions causally lead 
to a specific outcome(and all things are cause and effect) then 
you wanted it whether you realize it or not.

For example, if a girl has sex with a boy not realizing that she 
will get pregnant and it will potentially ruin her life, she has 
set up a domino effect and the outcome, while not 100% is 
statistically determinable... and if she ignores that she will 
become a statistic.


Do you agree with me that if no one uses D in any way shape or 
form, by I which I mean popularity(t) = 0 for all t > T, then D 
is what we could say is "dead"?

If so then D's popularity is related to it's heath. You can't 
argue that and if your logic does not in some way conform to the 
constraint above, you will almost surely be hurting D than 
helping it.

My point IS NOT that D should just base everything on popularity. 
That is not what I'm arguing at all. What I am arguing is that 
without some focus on it D is doing far more damage than good and 
eventually it will catch up with it. I'm also not saying that D 
has 0 focus on "popularity", I'm simply saying that there is a 
very significant likelihood that D's lack of focus on building 
community is significantly hurting it's growth(growth in it's 
capabilities that all D users can benefit from, including you).




 See, it is not that D itself is a bad language, it is that the 
 whole atmosphere surrounding it, how it is managed, is the 
 problem. Some things are done well but others poorly, 
 eventually those things that are neglected will catch up 
 because the community seems to care not one bit about them.  
 The cracks are getting bigger and bigger, I'm sorry you can't 
 see them.


 [...]

 To be honest, I've seriously thought about forking D on several 
 occasions.  I haven't gone through with it yet, for many 
 reasons.  But if push comes to shove, I'm ready to take it on, 
 and I'm pretty certain that I'm not alone.


And that alone proves there is something fundamentally wrong with 
D's community. Why would you ever even think about that if the 
community was properly functioning?

I have not only thought about forking D but writing my own 
compiler. The problem is I know I'm not willing to put in the 
effort to make it successful because it is just too much work for 
me(and I'm real with myself about it). I've had many long years 
been wanting a compiler that I works the way I believe compilers 
should, take all the short comings of all the languages I have 
learned and with all the things I have learned and try to make 
something better. But it is a long process because I would go in 
to uncharted territory. I don't believe in having to follow the 
status quo and I'd solely write the compiler for myself. It would 
be a 10-20 year project, an investment I am not willing to make.

Imagine this: Take any aspect of D, be it an audio library, an 
IDE, debugging, whatever... imagine it was as far ahead of what 
else is out there in the same way it is ahead with it's meta 
programming. This is how D should be as a goal. Rather than "Our 
meta programming is light years head of everything else but 
everything else we do is light years beyond anything else". I 
realize it is a pipe dream, but without dreaming reality never 
changes.

It's as If D one a trophy for it's meta programming and said "We 
won! Time to go home!" and stopped competing in everything else.

I really believe the leadership believes there are only a few 
aspects of D that matters like it's meta programming or it's 
stability and that everything else is irrelevant. I think they 
believe this precisely in the same way that you and others 
believe in D: "It works for me"... so, audio people are ignored 
because the leadership doesn't do audio, so it's irrelevant do 
them. Graphics are ignored because the leaders only use and write 
programs and code in text. These things then only get any support 
from individuals that say "Man, I love D but I need X" and so 
create X themselves. This approach then creates a huge mess for 
many reasons(maintenance, integrability, cohesiveness, etc).

I'm not trying to pain the picture that D sucks all around, just 
that D could do a lot better in it's weakest areas instead of 
essentially ignoring them. Remember, something is only as strong 
as it's weakest link. It is tautological. It can't be argued. It 
means that if D wants to be strong it should work on it's weak 
points and not sweep them under the rug.
Apr 12 2019
prev sibling parent reply Mike Franklin <slavo5150 yahoo.com> writes:
On Friday, 12 April 2019 at 16:45:04 UTC, H. S. Teoh wrote:


 To be honest, I've seriously thought about forking D on several 
 occasions.  I haven't gone through with it yet, for many 
 reasons.  But if push comes to shove, I'm ready to take it on, 
 and I'm pretty certain that I'm not alone.


Yes, you're not alone.

Mike
Apr 13 2019
next sibling parent reply silentwatcher <silentwatcher aol.com> writes:
On Saturday, 13 April 2019 at 14:19:51 UTC, Mike Franklin wrote:

 On Friday, 12 April 2019 at 16:45:04 UTC, H. S. Teoh wrote:


 To be honest, I've seriously thought about forking D on 
 several occasions.  I haven't gone through with it yet, for 
 many reasons.  But if push comes to shove, I'm ready to take 
 it on, and I'm pretty certain that I'm not alone.


 Yes, you're not alone.

 Mike


are there more people who would like to fork?
Apr 13 2019
parent silentwatcher <silentwatcher aol.com> writes:
On Saturday, 13 April 2019 at 14:40:10 UTC, silentwatcher wrote:

 On Saturday, 13 April 2019 at 14:19:51 UTC, Mike Franklin wrote:

 On Friday, 12 April 2019 at 16:45:04 UTC, H. S. Teoh wrote:


 To be honest, I've seriously thought about forking D on 
 several occasions.  I haven't gone through with it yet, for 
 many reasons.  But if push comes to shove, I'm ready to take 
 it on, and I'm pretty certain that I'm not alone.


 Yes, you're not alone.

 Mike


 are there more people who would like to fork?


there is already http://www.volt-lang.org wouldn't that be 
something to wander to?
Apr 13 2019
prev sibling next sibling parent reply Suleyman <sahmi.soulaimane gmail.com> writes:
On Saturday, 13 April 2019 at 14:19:51 UTC, Mike Franklin wrote:

 On Friday, 12 April 2019 at 16:45:04 UTC, H. S. Teoh wrote:


 To be honest, I've seriously thought about forking D on 
 several occasions.  I haven't gone through with it yet, for 
 many reasons.  But if push comes to shove, I'm ready to take 
 it on, and I'm pretty certain that I'm not alone.


 Yes, you're not alone.

 Mike


Instead of making a fork which is equivalent to making a coup 
d'état why not try the election first Andrei said they need 
managers I would contribute to that if I could do any good.
Apr 13 2019
next sibling parent reply Nicholas Wilson <iamthewilsonator hotmail.com> writes:
On Saturday, 13 April 2019 at 17:03:23 UTC, Suleyman wrote:

 On Saturday, 13 April 2019 at 14:19:51 UTC, Mike Franklin wrote:

 On Friday, 12 April 2019 at 16:45:04 UTC, H. S. Teoh wrote:


 To be honest, I've seriously thought about forking D on 
 several occasions.  I haven't gone through with it yet, for 
 many reasons.  But if push comes to shove, I'm ready to take 
 it on, and I'm pretty certain that I'm not alone.


 Yes, you're not alone.

 Mike


 Instead of making a fork which is equivalent to making a coup 
 d'état why not try the election first


*cough* AGM *cough*


 Andrei said they need managers I would contribute to that if I 
 could do any good.


Awesome.
Apr 13 2019
parent Suleyman <sahmi.soulaimane gmail.com> writes:
On Saturday, 13 April 2019 at 19:32:55 UTC, Nicholas Wilson wrote:

 Awesome.


I didn't mean myself there I'm not a senior in anything but I'm 
sure we have enough seniors that good do the job maybe yourself.
Apr 13 2019
prev sibling parent reply Mike Franklin <slavo5150 yahoo.com> writes:
On Saturday, 13 April 2019 at 17:03:23 UTC, Suleyman wrote:


 Instead of making a fork which is equivalent to making a coup 
 d'état why not try the election first Andrei said they need 
 managers I would contribute to that if I could do any good.


What election?  D is now embracing democracy?  I might go for a 
republic.

Anyway, forking does not mean the end of D any more than than 
having children means the end of their parents.  It's not a coup; 
it's natural evolution.

Lately, I've been contributing to D every day, as have a *very* 
few others.  But Walter, Andrei, and I seldom see eye to eye 
about what's important.  They've told me on more than one 
occasion that what I'm doing and what I want for D is not 
important (e.g. 
https://forum.dlang.org/post/pffvdn$v2$1 digitalmars.com).  I 
know of a couple others who have left the D scene over that.  In 
fact, I find that D has a major turnover problem largely stemming 
from that.

I've asked Walter and Andrei for their priorities so I could find 
something to work on that both I and they want.  They only gave 
me a few items (I wish they would have given me more), but I 
didn't find any of them all that important compared to other 
things I had on my list.

Lately, I find the things that Walter is doing in DMD to be a 
very low priority compared to all of the bugs in bugzilla for 
which only he is qualified to fix.  I wish he'd stop refactoring 
code and start fixing bugs, but, maybe his refactorings of late 
are laying some groundwork for more important stuff.  I don't 
know.  His work to convert the DMD backend to D last year was 
*most* welcome.

I almost never see Andrei doing much visible work.  Maybe he's 
too busy doing other things that I don't realize need done, or 
doing work through others, like his students.  I don't know.

I don't see what goes on behind the scenes, but from my 
perspective the majority of good work on D is done by handful of 
passionate volunteers who hold no real position in D.

Some transparency about what's going on, and where things are 
heading might go a long way.  If I see common ground, I'm in.

Andrei got me fired up about std.v2, "worrying too much about 
changing things", and "druntime must go...[we need an] opt-in 
continuum".  That's exactly what I've been trying to do in D for 
the past 5 years (understand I had to learn before I could 
actually do anything).  Finally, common ground.  I'm in, and I'm 
going to try to make that a reality.  However, if that does not 
materialize, I see too much adversity to change, I see things 
going in the wrong direction, or I face unnecessary obstruction, 
I'm not going to complain, lobby, etc; I'm going to go back to 
planning my alternative.

With regard to what motivates me to volunteer time and effort to 
a project, I have much in common with Howard Roark.

Mike
Apr 13 2019
parent reply Walter Bright <newshound2 digitalmars.com> writes:
On 4/13/2019 2:35 PM, Mike Franklin wrote:

 Lately, I find the things that Walter is doing in DMD to be a very low
priority 
 compared to all of the bugs in bugzilla for which only he is qualified to fix.
 
 I wish he'd stop refactoring code and start fixing bugs, but, maybe his 
 refactorings of late are laying some groundwork for more important stuff.


I gave a list a couple times on technical debt in DMD, and nobody picked up the 
flag. So I've been doing it.

If this is let go for too long, the code becomes unmaintainable.
Apr 13 2019
next sibling parent reply silentwatcher <silentwatcher aol.com> writes:
On Sunday, 14 April 2019 at 04:48:00 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:

i think there are some other things you don't understand yet.
go back in this thread and read what people think about D and why 
they think it should be forked.
you guys made lab experiment of it instead of finding out what 
the real world programming needs. why are people dissatisfied?
stop finding all those mediocre things/solutions like help here 
or do that. i admire the gdc project but i would not use it.
my experience is, that programmers (at work) look at D and are 
afraid of using it. to large, to many features that are nice but 
nobody needs, web like syntax, the GC and after reading in the 
forum, they are even more afraid to use an unstructured 
experiment.
then there no tools, libraries etc., just visuald and that is the 
only reason why some try D for a short time.
well now will tell us again - write the tools/libraries, but in a 
business you don't have the time to do that. all those things 

into D?
no time to experiment.
i like D, followed it for a long, long time, but it turned into a 
moloch. some of us still use D1 for little tasks. i hope somebody 
takes D1, strips the gc, adds templates, cleans up this mess and 
forgets about the rest of the bloat.
Apr 13 2019
next sibling parent reply Andre Pany <andre s-e-a-p.de> writes:
On Sunday, 14 April 2019 at 05:35:41 UTC, silentwatcher wrote:

 On Sunday, 14 April 2019 at 04:48:00 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:

 i think there are some other things you don't understand yet.
 go back in this thread and read what people think about D and 
 why they think it should be forked.
 you guys made lab experiment of it instead of finding out what 
 the real world programming needs. why are people dissatisfied?
 stop finding all those mediocre things/solutions like help here 
 or do that. i admire the gdc project but i would not use it.
 my experience is, that programmers (at work) look at D and are 
 afraid of using it. to large, to many features that are nice 
 but nobody needs, web like syntax, the GC and after reading in 
 the forum, they are even more afraid to use an unstructured 
 experiment.
 then there no tools, libraries etc., just visuald and that is 
 the only reason why some try D for a short time.
 well now will tell us again - write the tools/libraries, but in 
 a business you don't have the time to do that. all those things 

 into D?
 no time to experiment.
 i like D, followed it for a long, long time, but it turned into 
 a moloch. some of us still use D1 for little tasks. i hope 
 somebody takes D1, strips the gc, adds templates, cleans up 
 this mess and forgets about the rest of the bloat.


I am working in the "business" 9 to 5 and I can say 90% of what 
you write is just wrong. It seems you had a look 5 years ago at D 
and all the improvements and community effort since then you 
haven't noticed.
The D Language is used at companies and the tooling, libraries 
have greatly improved. I enjoy every day I can write D coding at 
work because it works so much better than other languages.

Please take the time to validate what you say.

Kind regards
Andre
Apr 14 2019
next sibling parent silentwatcher <silentwatcher aol.com> writes:
On Sunday, 14 April 2019 at 08:00:16 UTC, Andre Pany wrote:

 On Sunday, 14 April 2019 at 05:35:41 UTC, silentwatcher wrote:

 [...]


 I am working in the "business" 9 to 5 and I can say 90% of what 
 you write is just wrong. It seems you had a look 5 years ago at 
 D and all the improvements and community effort since then you 
 haven't noticed.
 The D Language is used at companies and the tooling, libraries 
 have greatly improved. I enjoy every day I can write D coding 
 at work because it works so much better than other languages.

 Please take the time to validate what you say.

 Kind regards
 Andre


in your setting it might be wrong - not in mine.
i love disciples - but maybe you are right, i will shut up and 
hope something will change.
good luck in your endeavors.
Apr 14 2019
prev sibling parent silentwatcher <silentwatcher aol.com> writes:
On Sunday, 14 April 2019 at 08:00:16 UTC, Andre Pany wrote:

 On Sunday, 14 April 2019 at 05:35:41 UTC, silentwatcher wrote:

 [...]


 I am working in the "business" 9 to 5 and I can say 90% of what 
 you write is just wrong. It seems you had a look 5 years ago at 
 D and all the improvements and community effort since then you 
 haven't noticed.
 The D Language is used at companies and the tooling, libraries 
 have greatly improved. I enjoy every day I can write D coding 
 at work because it works so much better than other languages.

 Please take the time to validate what you say.

 Kind regards
 Andre


in your setting it might be my observations could be wrong - not 
in mine.
i love disciples/evangelists - but maybe you are right, i will 
shut up and hope something will change.
good luck in your endeavors.
Apr 14 2019
prev sibling parent reply Laeeth Isharc <laeeth kaleidic.io> writes:
On Sunday, 14 April 2019 at 05:35:41 UTC, silentwatcher wrote:

 On Sunday, 14 April 2019 at 04:48:00 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:

 i think there are some other things you don't understand yet.
 go back in this thread and read what people think about D and 
 why they think it should be forked.
 you guys made lab experiment of it instead of finding out what 
 the real world programming needs. why are people dissatisfied?
 stop finding all those mediocre things/solutions like help here 
 or do that. i admire the gdc project but i would not use it.
 my experience is, that programmers (at work) look at D and are 
 afraid of using it. to large, to many features that are nice 
 but nobody needs, web like syntax, the GC and after reading in 
 the forum, they are even more afraid to use an unstructured 
 experiment.
 then there no tools, libraries etc., just visuald and that is 
 the only reason why some try D for a short time.
 well now will tell us again - write the tools/libraries, but in 
 a business you don't have the time to do that. all those things 

 into D?
 no time to experiment.
 i like D, followed it for a long, long time, but it turned into 
 a moloch. some of us still use D1 for little tasks. i hope 
 somebody takes D1, strips the gc, adds templates, cleans up 
 this mess and forgets about the rest of the bloat.


Maintenance constitutes the largest part of the total cost of 
ownership of code.  In other words when the code is 'finished' 
then you have made only a down-payment.

If you don't want to invest your own time into working with D, 
then I don't think you should.  I wouldn't dream of trying to 
change your mind.  But there's clearly some ambivalence there 
because why else would you be posting.

The most important aspects of D might be the values and good 
taste.  When I decided to learn D, there was nothing calculating 
about it - I just wanted to find a language I could stand to 
program in because otherwise I wouldn't be doing much programming 
as life is too short and it's not my only interest.  One thing 
led to another and working from my home office led to consulting 
and then being in charge of technology and part of research for a 
150 odd person firm.  I don't know, and it's a longer story but 
probably that wouldn't have happened if I hadn't been drawn to D.

Turns out also that the values that characterise the language and 
the community are peculiarly suitable for the commercial context 
of what's still an early stage firm that has grown very quickly.

It's true that there's a high barrier to entry in the beginning 
with D - much better now, but if you are put off by discomfort 
and needing to figure things out for yourself then it's going to 
be quite a tough experience.  D doesn't place a high value on 
being accessible and if that's what is important then maybe 
somewhere else would be a better fit.  On the other hand it's 
also a moat that constitutes a filter - as it happens 
commercially people who are okay with being uncomfortable, with 
having to figure stuff out, are quite a good fit for our 
business, especially at the stage we are at.

It's a really very big world, not like it was when I started to 
learn to program in 1983.  Most software is developed by private 
organisations that don't talk much about what they are doing.

I never thought that D would be considered a  substitute for Ada 
and Pascal but that's been the case in one quite interesting 
commercial application for ship design.  Similarly for us D - and 
a little functional domain specific language written in D - has 
been a replacement for Excel spreadsheets and SQL reports.

Brutal upfront sometimes, but the upfront emotional experience is 
the least important part of the cost of developing and 
maintaining software.

The productivity experience has a different profile too - you 
spend time at different points on different things, but looking 
at our own experience from a commercially perspective I really 
don't think it would have been possible to be as productive 
taking a different route.

There are quite a lot of libraries now - 1500 last I checked on 
code.dlang.org

Calling python libraries is easy and calling C libraries using 
DPP is also easy.  DPP keeps improving and in time it will handle 
much more of C++ headers.

Yes - the tolerance for experimentation is an important question. 
  In firms where there isn't much of a tolerance for experimenting 
and for some of those experiments to fail then it's probably not 
the right environment to use D.  But I think the more interesting 
places to work are quite different.
Apr 14 2019
next sibling parent Guillaume Piolat <first.last gmail.com> writes:
On Sunday, 14 April 2019 at 09:42:01 UTC, Laeeth Isharc wrote:

 Brutal upfront sometimes, but the upfront emotional experience 
 is the least important part of the cost of developing and 
 maintaining software.


100% agree.

That's exactly my experience, the upfront payment of creating D 
software was sometimes brutal the first year - even for a 
seasoned D programmer - and afterwards it yielded dividends in 
lower Cost Of Ownership quite evidently.

And a lot of it is thanks to DUB/SemVer I must say, without it I 
wouldn't even dare maintaining that much projects else, and 
another big part is thanks to the community that comes with a 
particular culture. It really changes your perspective over time.

It's very important to keep the complexity down (not only code) 
in an organization and D is an integral part of this **because it 
scales from disposable code to production code**.

My _solo_ organization has 62 projects in 4 years, all in D 
(dub.json):
- 2 are open-source to eventually keep costs down, if other 
companies have similar views eventually,
- about 20 of which have to be maintained privately with  (Cost 
of Ownership),
- 27 are only maintained lazily when needed, they are absolutely 
needed for experimentation
- about 15 were thrown away and won't ever have to be maintained

If the rate of maintained-LOC _production_ was higher than 
that(it's hard not to produce code), it would lead to a worse 
outcome in the exponential curve of software size.

The future of D is perhaps more shared costs between D users, 
hiring reputed library designers, with a shared understanding 
that value must flow back to the D Foundation.

Only this can solve software size.
Apr 14 2019
prev sibling next sibling parent reply Chris <wendlec tcd.ie> writes:
On Sunday, 14 April 2019 at 09:42:01 UTC, Laeeth Isharc wrote:
[...]


 Yes - the tolerance for experimentation is an important 
 question.
  In firms where there isn't much of a tolerance for 
 experimenting and for some of those experiments to fail then 
 it's probably not the right environment to use D.  But I think 
 the more interesting places to work are quite different.


That's all good and well and I sincerely congratulate you on your 
success. But what I see is the following divide: those who say 
that D works for their business usually use it for very specific 
purposes with a custom made ecosystem they've built up over the 
years (as I did too) maybe bound to a particular version of dmd 
or D1, and it's often for in-house purposes, e.g. analyzing the 
stock market or optimizing internet ads or machine learning. D is 
of course a good tool for that kinda stuff (as is Lisp or Scala). 
But once you have to step out of your biotope things get hairy. 
Once customers depend on your software directly (as in: 
installing it directly on a machine, interfacing with it via plug 
ins or accessing an API on your web server), you're out in the 
wild with D as far as tooling and stability (breaking changes) 
are concerned. In other words, D is good for fenced off software 
that is built for very specific purposes. When it comes to 
"general purpose", however, it's a different story all together. 
This is what I'm trying to convey.

D was a personal success for you, good, but I'm sure in a few 
years people will tell similar stories about Crystal, Nim and 
whatnot. When you started using D it had the edge over other 
languages in some respects, but other languages have caught up 
and offer ease of use on top of that. This is what doesn't 
register with the D community. Some users live happily in their 
respective self-made D biotopes, while others want more, a 
broader focus (and they mean well as they want D to be suceessful 
in the world not just in niches). These are the two factions, and 
it's the biotope faction that dominates the Foundation and the 
forum, indeed the "biotopeism" in the community is so far 
advanced that people have stared to fork D, the ultimate stage of 
"Ok, I'll do my own thing.", which is of course only a logical 
consequence of the insular mentality that permeates D culture. 
You encourage people to do it themselves, they will finally fork.

As there is no way the two factions can communicate with each 
other, there is only one logical consequence. The faction with 
the broader focus (like myself) wanders off and what remains are 
the die hard users who are happy in their biotope, so D will 
remain a niche language and, of course, there's the danger that 
some people will break off, fork D and add to the general chaos 
(and you may read questions like this on Stackoverflow: "Which D 
should I use? There are N implementations. Dragon, Volt, BetterD, 
CleanD, SaneD...").
Apr 14 2019
next sibling parent reply Andre Pany <andre s-e-a-p.de> writes:
On Sunday, 14 April 2019 at 12:34:12 UTC, Chris wrote:

 On Sunday, 14 April 2019 at 09:42:01 UTC, Laeeth Isharc wrote:
 [...]


 [...]


 That's all good and well and I sincerely congratulate you on 
 your success. But what I see is the following divide: those who 
 say that D works for their business usually use it for very 
 specific purposes with a custom made ecosystem they've built up 
 over the years (as I did too) maybe bound to a particular 
 version of dmd or D1, and it's often for in-house purposes, 
 e.g. analyzing the stock market or optimizing internet ads or 
 machine learning. D is of course a good tool for that kinda 
 stuff (as is Lisp or Scala). But once you have to step out of 
 your biotope things get hairy. Once customers depend on your 
 software directly (as in: installing it directly on a machine, 
 interfacing with it via plug ins or accessing an API on your 
 web server), you're out in the wild with D as far as tooling 
 and stability (breaking changes) are concerned. In other words, 
 D is good for fenced off software that is built for very 
 specific purposes. When it comes to "general purpose", however, 
 it's a different story all together. This is what I'm trying to 
 convey.

 [...]


While I would agree with your arguments 5 years ago, I can't 
agree these days. So much happened which made D and its eco 
system usuable from small companies to big companies.

Please provide details where you see the issues, otherwise it is 
impossible to understand what you mean.

Kind regards
Andre
Apr 14 2019
parent reply Chris <wendlec tcd.ie> writes:
On Sunday, 14 April 2019 at 12:49:04 UTC, Andre Pany wrote:

 On Sunday, 14 April 2019 at 12:34:12 UTC, Chris wrote:

 While I would agree with your arguments 5 years ago, I can't 
 agree these days. So much happened which made D and its eco 
 system usuable from small companies to big companies.

 Please provide details where you see the issues, otherwise it 
 is impossible to understand what you mean.

 Kind regards
 Andre


One example is vibe.d, I used it until roughly a year ago (I had 
used it for years) and I remember the dozens of compiler warnings 
with every new version of dmd. Sönke / vibe.d devs were (and 
still are?) playing catch-up with dmd. See, the more you use 
third party stuff in D the more you have to worry about, it's no 
loner only your own code you have to worry about. What if the 
maintainer doesn't have the time to fix it? You'll be stuck with 
a particular version of dmd and vibe.d or any other third party 
software. This actually makes you think twice if you wanna depend 
on a lib in D. It's a constant gamble as it may hit you any time. 
It doesn't happen to me in other languages, funny that.

Another one is the eternal issue of autodecode - and now there's 
talk of std.v2. Every time I come back to have a look at what's 
going on in D, I think "Thank God I made the switch!" Nowadays I 
spend more time writing new code (= new features = happier users) 
instead of fixing / worrying about old code. D may be a bit more 
stable now, as you say, but we can see autodecode and std.v2 on 
the horizon. The calm before the storm.
Apr 14 2019
next sibling parent reply Seb <seb wilzba.ch> writes:
On Sunday, 14 April 2019 at 13:08:36 UTC, Chris wrote:

 On Sunday, 14 April 2019 at 12:49:04 UTC, Andre Pany wrote:

 On Sunday, 14 April 2019 at 12:34:12 UTC, Chris wrote:

 While I would agree with your arguments 5 years ago, I can't 
 agree these days. So much happened which made D and its eco 
 system usuable from small companies to big companies.

 Please provide details where you see the issues, otherwise it 
 is impossible to understand what you mean.

 Kind regards
 Andre


 One example is vibe.d, I used it until roughly a year ago (I 
 had used it for years) and I remember the dozens of compiler 
 warnings with every new version of dmd. Sönke / vibe.d devs 
 were (and still are?) playing catch-up with dmd.


FYI: those are just deprecations. This thing that allows us to 
slowly change DMD, but still have stability.

Since a bit more than a year, vibe.d is part of the project 
tester and thus is ensured to always compile as its testsuite is 
run on every PR.
Apr 14 2019
parent Chris <wendlec tcd.ie> writes:
On Sunday, 14 April 2019 at 13:30:45 UTC, Seb wrote:

 FYI: those are just deprecations. This thing that allows us to 
 slowly change DMD, but still have stability.

 Since a bit more than a year, vibe.d is part of the project 
 tester and thus is ensured to always compile as its testsuite 
 is run on every PR.


Thanks. Good to know that, however, a lot of that stuff came too 
late for me personally (and it wasn't lack of patience but 
necessity), and while vibe.d may be stable - for now - what about 
all the other libs out there? It's still a big gamble with all 
that talk of std.v2 (which I think is necessary). But if I'll 
have to rewrite my D code one day anyway, I might as well switch 
to a different language all together, do it once and be done with 
it. I don't think I'm alone in this respect. Other users seem to 
have made similar experiences.
Apr 14 2019
prev sibling parent Tourist <gravatar gravatar.com> writes:
On Sunday, 14 April 2019 at 13:08:36 UTC, Chris wrote:

 Another one is the eternal issue of autodecode - and now 
 there's talk of std.v2. Every time I come back to have a look 
 at what's going on in D, I think "Thank God I made the switch!" 
 Nowadays I spend more time writing new code (= new features = 
 happier users) instead of fixing / worrying about old code. D 
 may be a bit more stable now, as you say, but we can see 
 autodecode and std.v2 on the horizon. The calm before the storm.


As far as I understand std.v2 is meant to preserve compatibility 
not mess it up. It is a change of direction from changing to 
adding.
Apr 14 2019
prev sibling next sibling parent reply Laeeth Isharc <laeeth kaleidic.io> writes:
On Sunday, 14 April 2019 at 12:34:12 UTC, Chris wrote:

 On Sunday, 14 April 2019 at 09:42:01 UTC, Laeeth Isharc wrote:
 [...]


 Yes - the tolerance for experimentation is an important 
 question.
  In firms where there isn't much of a tolerance for 
 experimenting and for some of those experiments to fail then 
 it's probably not the right environment to use D.  But I think 
 the more interesting places to work are quite different.


 That's all good and well and I sincerely congratulate you on 
 your success. But what I see is the following divide: those who 
 say that D works for their business usually use it for very 
 specific purposes with a custom made ecosystem they've built up 
 over the years (as I did too) maybe bound to a particular 
 version of dmd or D1, and it's often for in-house purposes, 
 e.g. analyzing the stock market or optimizing internet ads or 
 machine learning. D is of course a good tool for that kinda 
 stuff (as is Lisp or Scala). But once you have to step out of 
 your biotope things get hairy. Once customers depend on your 
 software directly (as in: installing it directly on a machine, 
 interfacing with it via plug ins or accessing an API on your 
 web server), you're out in the wild with D as far as tooling 
 and stability (breaking changes) are concerned. In other words, 
 D is good for fenced off software that is built for very 
 specific purposes. When it comes to "general purpose", however, 
 it's a different story all together. This is what I'm trying to 
 convey.


Yes well I don't claim to know about the demands of a business 
having lots of customers.  I would prefer to have as few 
customers as possible just due to temperament.

And it's about who your customers are, not just the number of 
them.

Weka.io have done well but they distribute binaries not source.

Like I say - I think most code is developed behind closed walls.  
And I would guess that it's a minority of commercial code that is 
distributed as source libraries.



 D was a personal success for you, good, but I'm sure in a few 
 years people will tell similar stories about Crystal, Nim and 
 whatnot.


Of course and I hope those languages succeed. Zig too. It's a big 
world and there is room for plenty of emerging languages.  I 
don't think the success of one must come at the expense of others 
- I don't believe life is a zero-sum game as it's inherently 
generative.


 When you started using D it had the edge over other languages 
 in some respects, but other languages have caught up and offer 
 ease of use on top of that.


No I don't think so.  I think it was better for me and it still 
is.  That doesn't mean it's better for you because you are a 
different person doing different things.

If you come to dconf I will show you some of the things we are 
doing.  Or there's an event the day before that might be 
interesting.  Laeeth at kaleidic dot io


  > This is what doesn't

 register with the D community. Some users live happily in their 
 respective self-made D biotopes, while others want more, a 
 broader focus (and they mean well as they want D to be 
 suceessful in the world not just in niches). These are the two 
 factions, and it's the biotope faction that dominates the 
 Foundation and the forum,


The Foundation is a new creature that doesn't do that much right 
now.  People talk of it like an empire!  Bearing in mind Ali 
wrote a book making it easy to learn D and he is helping the 
Foundations I hardly think one had grounds to say the Foundation 
is oriented towards narrow uses of D.

I sponsored the Autumn of Code and the projects selected weren't 
things that are the biggest priority for me personally, but they 
were good projects that would benefit D overall.  So I don't 
really recognise your assertion there either.

Maybe I will have another announcement ready by Dconf, but we 
shall see.

Importing C and later C++ headers - do you see that as a niche 
thing?  How about making it possible to write Excel add-ins and 
Jupyter kernels in D?  In my opinion you need to justify your 
assertion better.

  indeed the "biotopeism" in the

 community is so far advanced that people have stared to fork D, 
 the ultimate stage of "Ok, I'll do my own thing.", which is of 
 course only a logical consequence of the insular mentality that 
 permeates D culture. You encourage people to do it themselves, 
 they will finally fork.


Yes it's a bunch of opinionated individualists.  Plenty of people 
forked D already but I wouldn't say there's much information in 
that - rather I would be extremely puzzled if people weren't 
forking D.  Whether anything should come of it I don't know.



 As there is no way the two factions can communicate with each 
 other, there is only one logical consequence. The faction with 
 the broader focus (like myself) wanders off and what remains 
 are the die hard users who are happy in their biotope, so D 
 will remain a niche language and, of course, there's the danger 
 that some people will break off, fork D and add to the general 
 chaos (and you may read questions like this on Stackoverflow: 
 "Which D should I use? There are N implementations. Dragon, 
 Volt, BetterD, CleanD, SaneD...").


It's really strange to me.  You seem happier not using D and 
maybe it was the right decision for you given the business you 
are in.  But without skin in the game you have very strong 
opinions about the direction the language ecosystem should 
develop towards.

If you look at the companies using D, how would you describe the 
niche of D commercially?  I don't think it's possible to do so 
based on domain.  And note that certain others make the opposite 
complaint - that D doesn't have a niche and that people should 
decide what it should be.

I think that adoption is driven by the kinds of people that use D 
rather than the domain - it's a question of capabilities, culture 
and values.

Early adopters aren't like normal people.  D isn't ready for 
adoption by the masses yet, and that's entirely normal and just 
how the innovation cycle tends to unfold.
Apr 14 2019
parent reply Chris <wendlec tcd.ie> writes:
On Sunday, 14 April 2019 at 13:47:04 UTC, Laeeth Isharc wrote:

 It's really strange to me.  You seem happier not using D and 
 maybe it was the right decision for you given the business you 
 are in.  But without skin in the game you have very strong 
 opinions about the direction the language ecosystem should 
 develop towards.


I simply see what others do right and tell you guys about it so 
it may help D to thrive (and I have a few years of (good and bad) 
experience with D too).


 If you look at the companies using D, how would you describe 
 the niche of D commercially?  I don't think it's possible to do 
 so based on domain.  And note that certain others make the 
 opposite complaint - that D doesn't have a niche and that 
 people should decide what it should be.


It's pretty niche, as far as I know, very specific software, 
Assembly is still being used for specific tasks too and the 
companies using it may be very successful, but that doesn't say 
anything about the overall qualities of the language.


 I think that adoption is driven by the kinds of people that use 
 D rather than the domain - it's a question of capabilities, 
 culture and values.


Yes, very specific use cases, crafted by expert programmers. But 
the same could be said about Assembly, Lisp and C/C++.


 Early adopters aren't like normal people.  D isn't ready for 
 adoption by the masses yet, and that's entirely normal and just 
 how the innovation cycle tends to unfold.


I'd agree if you were talking about Crystal, but D after 20 
years??? Nah!
Apr 14 2019
parent reply Chris <wendlec tcd.ie> writes:
On Sunday, 14 April 2019 at 14:04:53 UTC, Chris wrote:

[...]


One thing I always notice when I look at young languages like 
Crystal, Zig, Kotlin etc is that they are very carefully crafted, 
while D just throws in random features that seem cool and fun to 
work with but are never really finished.
Apr 14 2019
parent reply Julian <julian.fondren gmail.com> writes:
On Sunday, 14 April 2019 at 14:17:20 UTC, Chris wrote:

 On Sunday, 14 April 2019 at 14:04:53 UTC, Chris wrote:

[...]


 One thing I always notice when I look at young languages like 
 Crystal, Zig, Kotlin etc is that they are very carefully 
 crafted, while D just throws in random features that seem cool 
 and fun to work with but are never really finished.


This kind of language is just boring. How about a table?

You can make one in Emacs org-mode very easily:

| D feature          | random? | seems cool | fun? | incomplete?  
           |
|--------------------+---------+------------+------+------------------------|
| scope(exit) et al. | ???     | sure       | yes? | where's 
scope(enter) ? |
|                    |         |            |      |              
           |

Data's great. You can add to it, explain it, debate it. None
of the vague impressions posted to this thread are ever even
answered.
Apr 14 2019
parent reply Chris <wendlec tcd.ie> writes:
On Sunday, 14 April 2019 at 15:10:35 UTC, Julian wrote:


 This kind of language is just boring. How about a table?

 You can make one in Emacs org-mode very easily:

 | D feature          | random? | seems cool | fun? | incomplete?
           |
 |--------------------+---------+------------+------+------------------------|
 | scope(exit) et al. | ???     | sure       | yes? | where's 
 scope(enter) ? |
 |                    |         |            |      |
           |

 Data's great. You can add to it, explain it, debate it. None
 of the vague impressions posted to this thread are ever even
 answered.


Uh, what is this talk of RefRange all about, partial 
constructors, but no partial destructors? There are so many 
broken features, ... Other languages might be boring when they 
are young, but I prefer stability and sound principles over 
fanciness - and don' forget that those languages also progress 
over the years. It's like building up muscle. The slower you do 
it the longer the muscle will remain strong.
Apr 14 2019
parent reply Julian <julian.fondren gmail.com> writes:
On Sunday, 14 April 2019 at 15:25:50 UTC, Chris wrote:

 On Sunday, 14 April 2019 at 15:10:35 UTC, Julian wrote:


 This kind of language is just boring. How about a table?

 You can make one in Emacs org-mode very easily:

 | D feature          | random? | seems cool | fun? | 
 incomplete?
           |
 |--------------------+---------+------------+------+------------------------|
 | scope(exit) et al. | ???     | sure       | yes? | where's 
 scope(enter) ? |
 |                    |         |            |      |
           |

 Data's great. You can add to it, explain it, debate it. None
 of the vague impressions posted to this thread are ever even
 answered.


 Uh, what is this talk of RefRange all about, partial 
 constructors, but no partial destructors? There are so many 
 broken features,


So you don't have a clear idea either. This is where the 
discipline of
actually listing things out and being specific can help you. Maybe
you've had a few clear ideas, after encountering some problems, 
but
then since you only ever complained them with vague language, you
forgot what you wanted to complain about.
Apr 14 2019
parent reply Chris <wendlec tcd.ie> writes:
On Sunday, 14 April 2019 at 15:29:26 UTC, Julian wrote:

 On Sunday, 14 April 2019 at 15:25:50 UTC, Chris wrote:

 On Sunday, 14 April 2019 at 15:10:35 UTC, Julian wrote:


 [...]


 Uh, what is this talk of RefRange all about, partial 
 constructors, but no partial destructors? There are so many 
 broken features,


 So you don't have a clear idea either. This is where the 
 discipline of
 actually listing things out and being specific can help you. 
 Maybe
 you've had a few clear ideas, after encountering some problems, 
 but
 then since you only ever complained them with vague language, 
 you
 forgot what you wanted to complain about.


My biggest chagrin has always been the whole string handling 
issue, but seriously so many issues have come up over the year 
that I don't actually care to remember.
Apr 14 2019
parent Julian <julian.fondren gmail.com> writes:
On Sunday, 14 April 2019 at 15:46:11 UTC, Chris wrote:

 My biggest chagrin has always been the whole string handling 
 issue,


Great. What's that?
Apr 14 2019
prev sibling next sibling parent Nierjerson <Nierjerson somewhere.com> writes:
On Sunday, 14 April 2019 at 12:34:12 UTC, Chris wrote:

 On Sunday, 14 April 2019 at 09:42:01 UTC, Laeeth Isharc wrote:
 [...]


 Yes - the tolerance for experimentation is an important 
 question.
  In firms where there isn't much of a tolerance for 
 experimenting and for some of those experiments to fail then 
 it's probably not the right environment to use D.  But I think 
 the more interesting places to work are quite different.


 That's all good and well and I sincerely congratulate you on 
 your success. But what I see is the following divide: those who 
 say that D works for their business usually use it for very 
 specific purposes with a custom made ecosystem they've built up 
 over the years (as I did too) maybe bound to a particular 
 version of dmd or D1, and it's often for in-house purposes, 
 e.g. analyzing the stock market or optimizing internet ads or 
 machine learning. D is of course a good tool for that kinda 
 stuff (as is Lisp or Scala). But once you have to step out of 
 your biotope things get hairy. Once customers depend on your 
 software directly (as in: installing it directly on a machine, 
 interfacing with it via plug ins or accessing an API on your 
 web server), you're out in the wild with D as far as tooling 
 and stability (breaking changes) are concerned. In other words, 
 D is good for fenced off software that is built for very 
 specific purposes. When it comes to "general purpose", however, 
 it's a different story all together. This is what I'm trying to 
 convey.

 D was a personal success for you, good, but I'm sure in a few 
 years people will tell similar stories about Crystal, Nim and 
 whatnot. When you started using D it had the edge over other 
 languages in some respects, but other languages have caught up 
 and offer ease of use on top of that. This is what doesn't 
 register with the D community. Some users live happily in their 
 respective self-made D biotopes, while others want more, a 
 broader focus (and they mean well as they want D to be 
 suceessful in the world not just in niches). These are the two 
 factions, and it's the biotope faction that dominates the 
 Foundation and the forum, indeed the "biotopeism" in the 
 community is so far advanced that people have stared to fork D, 
 the ultimate stage of "Ok, I'll do my own thing.", which is of 
 course only a logical consequence of the insular mentality that 
 permeates D culture. You encourage people to do it themselves, 
 they will finally fork.


I agree with this. This is one of the major issues with the 
general type of personality of those in the D community.[which 
are going to have certain traits]

They fail to see the bigger picture. Most people are not like D 
users. Also most D users do not program long the same patterns. 
Basically D users are outliers but they believe they are 
representatives of the whole. This is only bad because it is 
myopic and advances D in a certain direction while limiting it in 
others. They can't understand the limitations because for them 
they are not limitations. They cannot see the big picture, the 
forest but they have no clue they can't and they think they do. 
This is problem of all humans, it's very difficult to get people 
that don't get it to get it unfortunately... maybe that is a good 
thing though ultimately.

Basically many cults are formed because of this. A cult starts 
off with a group of people with a central concept that they all 
agree on and work for. They attract others who have that similar 
principle.

there are only two things that happen:

1. Some people that connect to the group eventually leave because 
it isn't what they "thought". That is, their principle does not 
mesh and they are not willing change their principle and leave.

2. Some people that connect have exactly the same principle and 
so become part of the organization(these usually are the die hard 
fans)

3. Some people that connect have no real principle and latch on 
for various reasons but eventually either leave because it isn't 
what they want or stay for various reasons(acceptance, 
brainwashing, etc).

The outcome though is always the same, the "cult" forms. It 
consists of people accept the fundamental principles(which may 
change over time but at any point in time is reinforced as the 
principle which is generally accepted).

What happens though is that it becomes a positive feedback cycle. 
The principles are reinforced to the lower level people who then 
reinforce it back. If dissension(which is almost always valid) 
comes in to play, the dissenters are usually pushed out and this 
then reinforces the mentalities which become concentrated.

It's basically a sort of chemical reaction that occurs. There are 
so many cults. Basically all large organizations are cults. Some 
cults are just evil, but not all. But all cults usually end up 
very myopic. Religion works this way, corporations work this way, 
government works this way, even colleges work this way.





 As there is no way the two factions can communicate with each 
 other, there is only one logical consequence. The faction with 
 the broader focus (like myself) wanders off and what remains 
 are the die hard users who are happy in their biotope, so D 
 will remain a niche language and, of course, there's the danger 
 that some people will break off, fork D and add to the general 
 chaos (and you may read questions like this on Stackoverflow: 
 "Which D should I use? There are N implementations. Dragon, 
 Volt, BetterD, CleanD, SaneD...").



Yep, this is the problem with cults. You get it in your way of 
thinking. Just realize it is a natural tendency of the 
universe... if we were talking about religion we'd have Baptists, 
protestants, catholics, buddhists, etc... It it were governments 
we have communists, democracies, monarchies, dictatorships, etc...

It's not that humans do this, it is part of life to fracture like 
this. We see it in evolution. Species fracture in to sub-species. 
Materials fracture(like attracts like)

It's an unfortunate consequence of existence I believe. The 
problem is that most people don't understand these things at 
work. There is always some insane justification: e.g., "He's a 
moron that he thinks this verse means this, we need to push him 
out because he isn't aligned with our belief and I think he's 
must be a sinner! I think I hear him talking about sacrificing 
sheep, we can't have that! We are allowed only to sacrifice 
cows!".

Almost always the fracturing is based in ignorance. The reason is 
that the truth does not fracture, it is what it is.

See, both you and I are probably completely different, have come 
to similar conclusions, ideas... but even our ideas are 
different... because we are different. I'm sure we can understand 
our differences, but even if we formed some organization 
eventually our misunderstands(or ignorance) will cause fractures 
between us... although maybe we could deal with it better. My 
point is that these issues are much deeper than any singular 
individuals. I also believe that the better one understands it 
the better one can adapt and use it for positive things(I do 
think there is a "direction" to the universe, fracturing might be 
a way to isolate the bad things and get rid of them, survival of 
the fittest type of thing at play).

Unfortunately people who are deepest in the cult are the hardest 
to change. It's easy to leave something when you are on the 
fringes.  The seed crystals(What we are talking about is a sort 
of crystallization process that takes place in all things) are 
the generators that the molecules attach too and grow off of.  
The seeds end up surrounded and "supported" by all the other 
similar molecules. The outside has to dissolve before the seed 
does(since it's generally a uniform crystallization). I don't 
know if this is true, but there is evidence things work this 
way... and if it is true, it means that we will never get 
anywhere with our logic. No matter what kinda of works we use, it 
will essentially be worthless.

That is, we can't convince the leadership here that there is 
another way(rather, that there is a broader way) because the 
universe isn't going to let that happen. At most if we wanted 
things to change it would have to be from the outside in, but 
hoping for an inside out change is trying to move a mountain with 
a spoon... it can be done, and sometimes it is done, but I'm not 
going to do it and I doubt you will want to try to do it either.

My main point with all this is that maybe these things are beyond 
our abilities to change. Change seems so easy for some and so 
hard for others(and depends on what is to be changed). It may 
have nothing to do with those individuals and completely to do 
with the universe forcing them not change(although, I think we 
both would agree that we can't prove this is absolutely true so 
it's worth trying to move the mountain... who knows, maybe there 
is a secret button somewhere that will teleport it to where we 
want!)
Apr 14 2019
prev sibling parent silentwatcher <silentwatcher aol.com> writes:
On Sunday, 14 April 2019 at 12:34:12 UTC, Chris wrote:

 On Sunday, 14 April 2019 at 09:42:01 UTC, Laeeth Isharc wrote:
 [...]

 As there is no way the two factions can communicate with each 
 other, there is only one logical consequence. The faction with 
 the broader focus (like myself) wanders off and what remains 
 are the die hard users who are happy in their biotope, so D 
 will remain a niche language and, of course, there's the danger 
 that some people will break off, fork D and add to the general 
 chaos (and you may read questions like this on Stackoverflow: 
 "Which D should I use? There are N implementations. Dragon, 
 Volt, BetterD, CleanD, SaneD...").


i think you are right.
Apr 14 2019
prev sibling parent reply Jon Degenhardt <jond noreply.com> writes:
On Sunday, 14 April 2019 at 09:42:01 UTC, Laeeth Isharc wrote:

 It's true that there's a high barrier to entry in the beginning 
 with D - much better now, but if you are put off by discomfort 
 and needing to figure things out for yourself then it's going 
 to be quite a tough experience.  D doesn't place a high value 
 on being accessible and if that's what is important then maybe 
 somewhere else would be a better fit.


Interesting. This appears to be a common sentiment, but it's 
opposite of mine and many other folks I talk to. I've programmed 
in a number of languages, and I'd say that Python is easier to 
get started in, but that most other languages are materially 
harder.

Might be useful to understand why some people find D easy and 
others find it hard. It could be related to past programming 
experience, but also might be related to the types of tasks being 
performed, the way people learn, or differences in approach to 
programming. (e.g. Perhaps early success or not is being 
determined by role the ecosystem plays in initial tasks chosen or 
programming approach used.) This is a material topic because 
programming model simplicity is, or should be, a strength of D.


 Yes - the tolerance for experimentation is an important 
 question.
  In firms where there isn't much of a tolerance for 
 experimenting and for some of those experiments to fail then 
 it's probably not the right environment to use D.  But I think 
 the more interesting places to work are quite different.


The computing landscape is changing rapidly, and there are many 
technologies companies need to consider experimental investments 
in, not just programming languages. In effect, when it comes to 
investments in advanced/experimental technology a company might 
choose to make, programming languages are competing with many 
other technologies, not just other programming languages.
Apr 14 2019
parent Laeeth Isharc <laeeth kaleidic.io> writes:
On Sunday, 14 April 2019 at 19:47:59 UTC, Jon Degenhardt wrote:

 On Sunday, 14 April 2019 at 09:42:01 UTC, Laeeth Isharc wrote:

 It's true that there's a high barrier to entry in the 
 beginning with D - much better now, but if you are put off by 
 discomfort and needing to figure things out for yourself then 
 it's going to be quite a tough experience.  D doesn't place a 
 high value on being accessible and if that's what is important 
 then maybe somewhere else would be a better fit.


 Interesting. This appears to be a common sentiment, but it's 
 opposite of mine and many other folks I talk to. I've 
 programmed in a number of languages, and I'd say that Python is 
 easier to get started in, but that most other languages are 
 materially harder.


Thanks for sharing your experience, Jon - I very much appreciate 
it.

I actually found it easier to learn D the language than Python.
Just at the time the library documentation and some compiler 
problems
made some aspects harder.  The situation there is remarkably 
better
than it once was - to the extent that I can actually show the 
Phobos
docs (with editable, runnable examples) to colleagues and say we
should aim to have documentation for internal libraries as good as
this.

But I did know C pretty well (by the standards of the era I 
learnt it,
not by modern standards) and to me at least D felt very natural.

I think the accessibility is more when it comes to rough edges.  
It's
not that D is difficult, but that making D as accessible as 
possible
isn't a priority of the community when a choice has to be made.

Whereas by all accounts Rust is not easy to learn, but they seem 
to
place a great deal of effort in making it accessible.  I'm not 
saying
that's a good thing - it's just a question of different community 
values.


 Might be useful to understand why some people find D easy and 
 others find it hard. It could be related to past programming 
 experience, but also might be related to the types of tasks 
 being performed, the way people learn, or differences in 
 approach to programming. (e.g. Perhaps early success or not is 
 being determined by role the ecosystem plays in initial tasks 
 chosen or programming approach used.) This is a material topic 
 because programming model simplicity is, or should be, a 
 strength of D.


If you are coming from C, at least the old-school way I learnt it
(reading sources of Fidonet, BinkleyTerm, things like that) then
I think D is quite easy.  You can write D like C and when you have
a problem where a feature of D would be helpful it's easy to 
remind
yourself about it and learn it that way.  It sounds like the same
is true for C++ programmers.

Getting people to recognise that object-orientation isn't the only
way to solve problems might be harder, though that's a broader
question.


 Yes - the tolerance for experimentation is an important 
 question.
  In firms where there isn't much of a tolerance for 
 experimenting and for some of those experiments to fail then 
 it's probably not the right environment to use D.  But I think 
 the more interesting places to work are quite different.


 The computing landscape is changing rapidly, and there are many 
 technologies companies need to consider experimental 
 investments in, not just programming languages. In effect, when 
 it comes to investments in advanced/experimental technology a 
 company might choose to make, programming languages are 
 competing with many other technologies, not just other 
 programming languages.


Yes - I've met senior people (C level of important divisions) at
Citibank and my colleague similarly at JPM.  It's a matter of
public record that they are partitioning their efforts, creating
incubators,startups within the larger firm.  You would expect
them not to be at all interested in what we are doing, but they
are a little bit.  It's a time of change and nobody has a monopoly
on insights about what might work.

Ocaml makes D look popular, but I understand Bloomberg are doing 
some
interesting work there.

Language choices are probably the least interesting aspect of 
broader
technical and strategic decisions.  But strangely people get
inordinately emotionally involved in them.
Apr 20 2019
prev sibling next sibling parent Nicholas Wilson <iamthewilsonator hotmail.com> writes:
On Sunday, 14 April 2019 at 04:48:00 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:

 On 4/13/2019 2:35 PM, Mike Franklin wrote:

 Lately, I find the things that Walter is doing in DMD to be a 
 very low priority compared to all of the bugs in bugzilla for 
 which only he is qualified to fix.  I wish he'd stop 
 refactoring code and start fixing bugs, but, maybe his 
 refactorings of late are laying some groundwork for more 
 important stuff.


 I gave a list a couple times on technical debt in DMD, and 
 nobody picked up the flag. So I've been doing it.


Uh, yes we have, and you response was not far from get stuffed 
(maybe that was Andrei's, don't remember).


 If this is let go for too long, the code becomes unmaintainable.


You don't say.
Apr 14 2019
prev sibling next sibling parent silentwatcher <silentwatcher aol.com> writes:
On Sunday, 14 April 2019 at 04:48:00 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:

 On 4/13/2019 2:35 PM, Mike Franklin wrote:

 Lately, I find the things that Walter is doing in DMD to be a 
 very low priority compared to all of the bugs in bugzilla for 
 which only he is qualified to fix.  I wish he'd stop 
 refactoring code and start fixing bugs, but, maybe his 
 refactorings of late are laying some groundwork for more 
 important stuff.


 I gave a list a couple times on technical debt in DMD, and 
 nobody picked up the flag. So I've been doing it.

 If this is let go for too long, the code becomes unmaintainable.


you need to stop whining and start to organize something.
stop the development, stabilize and eradicate the experiments.
find out what people need and implement that first - treat this 
like a business.

stop whining - do something
Apr 14 2019
prev sibling next sibling parent reply Mike Franklin <slavo5150 yahoo.com> writes:
On Sunday, 14 April 2019 at 04:48:00 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:


 I gave a list a couple times on technical debt in DMD, and 
 nobody picked up the flag. So I've been doing it.

 If this is let go for too long, the code becomes unmaintainable.


I understand.  I'll give the list another look and maybe make a 
few PRs in passing.

You could make things a lot easier on everyone and just adopt The 
D Style for DMD:  
https://dlang.org/dstyle.html#phobos_documentation

For those who don't know and want to help Walter out, the list is 
here:  https://forum.dlang.org/post/p6oibo$1lmi$1 digitalmars.com

Mike
Apr 14 2019
parent reply Walter Bright <newshound2 digitalmars.com> writes:
On 4/14/2019 1:01 AM, Mike Franklin wrote:

 For those who don't know and want to help Walter out, the list is here:  
 https://forum.dlang.org/post/p6oibo$1lmi$1 digitalmars.com



And some examples of what I'm trying to accomplish:

https://github.com/dlang/dmd/pull/9510
https://github.com/dlang/dmd/pull/9527

Like:

     super(ident);
     this.loc = loc;

replaced with:

     super(loc, ident);

https://github.com/dlang/dmd/commit/033879a6b733aa121e354b4399ecdb7fa59cc923#diff-e9eb240d8785a5470c85ca78b4145383R125

This is more than just cosmetic. The first method cannot be used to build a 
const object, the second can.

Also, upending the code base with large changes and reorganizations is not 
likely to get incorporated, and be aware that people can and do disagree 
strongly about what constitutes improvement and what doesn't. When in doubt, do 
a small version and see how it goes.
Apr 14 2019
parent reply Nicholas Wilson <iamthewilsonator hotmail.com> writes:
On Sunday, 14 April 2019 at 08:21:38 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:

 Also, upending the code base with large changes and 
 reorganizations is not likely to get incorporated, and be aware 
 that people can and do disagree strongly about what constitutes 
 improvement and what doesn't. When in doubt, do a small version 
 and see how it goes.


The DMD codebase suffers from systemic misorganisation, both on 
the massive function level, and the complete lack of organisation 
of the files in the source directory. Small change are never 
going to fix those issues.

You are trying to find a local optimum, we need to find a more 
global one, and that involves doing things like 
https://github.com/dlang/dmd/pull/9511#discussion_r270614236
Apr 14 2019
next sibling parent reply Walter Bright <newshound2 digitalmars.com> writes:
On 4/14/2019 1:33 AM, Nicholas Wilson wrote:

 The DMD codebase suffers from systemic misorganisation, both on the massive 
 function level, and the complete lack of organisation of the files in the
source 
 directory.


We're not going to get anywhere litigating that here. Defer to DConf.


 Small change are never going to fix those issues.


There's an lot of low hanging fruit that needs doing. I know it's not as 
exciting or fulfilling as giant reshuffles, which is why I wind up doing it.
Apr 14 2019
parent reply Nicholas Wilson <iamthewilsonator hotmail.com> writes:
On Sunday, 14 April 2019 at 08:47:18 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:

 On 4/14/2019 1:33 AM, Nicholas Wilson wrote:

 The DMD codebase suffers from systemic misorganisation, both 
 on the massive function level, and the complete lack of 
 organisation of the files in the source directory.


 We're not going to get anywhere litigating that here. Defer to 
 DConf.


I plan to ;)


 Small change are never going to fix those issues.


 There's an lot of low hanging fruit that needs doing.


Be that as it may, I'm interested in bang for buck 
comprehensibility and navigability improvements. The low hanging 
stuff you're doing, while nice, is rather lower down my, and I'm 
sure many others, list of perceived bang for buck improvements.
Apr 14 2019
parent reply Tourist <gravatar gravatar.com> writes:
On Sunday, 14 April 2019 at 10:48:15 UTC, Nicholas Wilson wrote:

 On Sunday, 14 April 2019 at 08:47:18 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:

 On 4/14/2019 1:33 AM, Nicholas Wilson wrote:

 The DMD codebase suffers from systemic misorganisation, both 
 on the massive function level, and the complete lack of 
 organisation of the files in the source directory.


 We're not going to get anywhere litigating that here. Defer to 
 DConf.


 I plan to ;)


 Small change are never going to fix those issues.


 There's an lot of low hanging fruit that needs doing.


 Be that as it may, I'm interested in bang for buck 
 comprehensibility and navigability improvements. The low 
 hanging stuff you're doing, while nice, is rather lower down 
 my, and I'm sure many others, list of perceived bang for buck 
 improvements.


I'm going by what I see in the discussion and the links shown, 
not familiar with the codebase. YMMV.

Walter refactors on timeless programming principles, more 
functional, more immutable, more encapsulation, more information 
hiding. You don't care for those. You want to refactor file and 
directory organization fluff based on personal preference and 
fads.

The greatest mistake W&A did was to get contributors incapable of 
doing original work. They bicker forever about reorganizations 
that do nothing.
Apr 14 2019
parent reply Nicholas Wilson <iamthewilsonator hotmail.com> writes:
On Sunday, 14 April 2019 at 15:16:09 UTC, Tourist wrote:

 I'm going by what I see in the discussion and the links shown, 
 not familiar with the codebase. YMMV.

 Walter refactors on timeless programming principles, more 
 functional, more immutable, more encapsulation, more 
 information hiding. You don't care for those.


No, those are useful. I think that there are more impactful 
things that can be done.


 You want to refactor file and directory organization


Because we have ~120 source files in the same directory that do 
vastly different things and alphabetic sorting doesn't work when 
the files name need a 'd' prepended because otherwise the module 
name will collide with a keyword. Its a PITA to navigate.


 fluff based on personal preference and fads.


I'm certainly not the only one who wants that.


 The greatest mistake W&A did was to get contributors incapable 
 of doing original work.


I suggest you do some original work (and some research) before 
you accuse others of being incapable of original work. FYI, I 
wrote dcompute, and most of the DMD/Druntime/Phobos PRs merged in 
the last 6 months went through me.


 They bicker forever about reorganizations that do nothing.


That you think the expected value of the reorganisations is zero 
shows you have no idea what you're talking about. I'd recommend 
dropping dropping that attitude until you do.
Apr 14 2019
parent reply Rose <rose sarajevo.com> writes:
On Sunday, 14 April 2019 at 19:13:19 UTC, Nicholas Wilson wrote:

 On Sunday, 14 April 2019 at 15:16:09 UTC, Tourist wrote:

 I'm going by what I see in the discussion and the links shown, 
 not familiar with the codebase. YMMV.

 Walter refactors on timeless programming principles, more 
 functional, more immutable, more encapsulation, more 
 information hiding. You don't care for those.


 No, those are useful. I think that there are more impactful 
 things that can be done.


 You want to refactor file and directory organization


 Because we have ~120 source files in the same directory that do 
 vastly different things and alphabetic sorting doesn't work 
 when the files name need a 'd' prepended because otherwise the 
 module name will collide with a keyword. Its a PITA to navigate.


 fluff based on personal preference and fads.


 I'm certainly not the only one who wants that.


 The greatest mistake W&A did was to get contributors incapable 
 of doing original work.


 I suggest you do some original work (and some research) before 
 you accuse others of being incapable of original work. FYI, I 
 wrote dcompute, and most of the DMD/Druntime/Phobos PRs merged 
 in the last 6 months went through me.


 They bicker forever about reorganizations that do nothing.


 That you think the expected value of the reorganisations is 
 zero shows you have no idea what you're talking about. I'd 
 recommend dropping dropping that attitude until you do.


Argument by majority. Good Work.

I know od your work on dcompute. You should stick to that. 
Language work and community work is different.

The past years of pull requests:
https://github.com/pulls?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=is%3Apr+user%3Adlang+closed%3A2015-01-01..2015-04-14+
https://github.com/pulls?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=is%3Apr+user%3Adlang+closed%3A2016-01-01..2016-04-14+
https://github.com/pulls?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=is%3Apr+user%3Adlang+closed%3A2017-01-01..2017-04-14+
https://github.com/pulls?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=is%3Apr+user%3Adlang+closed%3A2018-01-01..2018-04-14+
https://github.com/pulls?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=is%3Apr+user%3Adlang+closed%3A2019-01-01..2019-04-14+

1149 in 2015
851 in 2016
934 in 2017
1789 in 2018
933 in 2019

Not great. But you say 6 months previous from now:
https://github.com/pulls?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=is%3Apr+user%3Adlang+closed%3A2014-10-14..2015-04-14+
https://github.com/pulls?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=is%3Apr+user%3Adlang+closed%3A2015-10-14..2016-04-14+
https://github.com/pulls?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=is%3Apr+user%3Adlang+closed%3A2016-10-14..2017-04-14+
https://github.com/pulls?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=is%3Apr+user%3Adlang+closed%3A2017-10-14..2018-04-14+
https://github.com/pulls?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=is%3Apr+user%3Adlang+closed%3A2018-10-14..2019-04-14+

1710 in 2014-2015
1271 in 2015-2016
1399 in 2016-2017
2699 in 2017-2018
1717 in 2018-2019

You are earning 3000 dollars from our donations to bearly match 
work that was done for free. Good Work.
Apr 14 2019
parent Nicholas Wilson <iamthewilsonator hotmail.com> writes:
On Sunday, 14 April 2019 at 22:57:48 UTC, Rose wrote:

 On Sunday, 14 April 2019 at 19:13:19 UTC, Nicholas Wilson wrote:

 On Sunday, 14 April 2019 at 15:16:09 UTC, Tourist wrote:

 fluff based on personal preference and fads.


 I'm certainly not the only one who wants that.


 Argument by majority. Good Work.


Lolwat? How else do you suggest I argue that it is not personal 
preference?


 I know od[sic] your work on dcompute. You should stick to that. 
 Language work and community work is different.


The dcompute project, in terms of work, is like 90% language and 
compiler. I'm the one that started the DLF quarterly meetings, 
I'm the one that proposed the Dconf AGM,


 [stats]

 You are earning 3000 dollars from our donations to bearly match 
 work that was done for free. Good Work.


Ahh, the fallacy that past trends will continue.

First of all, the number of PRs being submitted has changed over 
time, you should de-trend that, as has the number of reviewers, 
ditto. I was asked to take on that role because there was an 
ever-growing queue of stagnant PRs and a dearth of reviewers.

If you don't want to donate to the work I have done, thats fine, 
but don't go making fallacious insults. That kind of behaviour is 
not welcome here.
Apr 14 2019
prev sibling parent reply Tourist <gravatar gravatar.com> writes:
On Sunday, 14 April 2019 at 08:33:29 UTC, Nicholas Wilson wrote:

 On Sunday, 14 April 2019 at 08:21:38 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:

 Also, upending the code base with large changes and 
 reorganizations is not likely to get incorporated, and be 
 aware that people can and do disagree strongly about what 
 constitutes improvement and what doesn't. When in doubt, do a 
 small version and see how it goes.


 The DMD codebase suffers from systemic misorganisation, both on 
 the massive function level, and the complete lack of 
 organisation of the files in the source directory. Small change 
 are never going to fix those issues.

 You are trying to find a local optimum, we need to find a more 
 global one, and that involves doing things like 
 https://github.com/dlang/dmd/pull/9511#discussion_r270614236


Long functions and files not "well" organized are the typical 
issues noticed by an incompetent maintainer.
Apr 14 2019
parent Nicholas Wilson <iamthewilsonator hotmail.com> writes:
On Sunday, 14 April 2019 at 12:34:44 UTC, Tourist wrote:

 On Sunday, 14 April 2019 at 08:33:29 UTC, Nicholas Wilson wrote:

 On Sunday, 14 April 2019 at 08:21:38 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:

 Also, upending the code base with large changes and 
 reorganizations is not likely to get incorporated, and be 
 aware that people can and do disagree strongly about what 
 constitutes improvement and what doesn't. When in doubt, do a 
 small version and see how it goes.


 The DMD codebase suffers from systemic misorganisation, both 
 on the massive function level, and the complete lack of 
 organisation of the files in the source directory. Small 
 change are never going to fix those issues.

 You are trying to find a local optimum, we need to find a more 
 global one, and that involves doing things like 
 https://github.com/dlang/dmd/pull/9511#discussion_r270614236


 Long functions and files not "well" organized are the typical 
 issues noticed by an incompetent maintainer.


Hahahaha!

Please, for my amusement, give me a summary of what 
Semantic3Visitor.visit(FuncDeclaration) does and tell me with a 
strait face that it took you less than 3 hours to find out.
Apr 14 2019
prev sibling parent Tourist <gravatar gravatar.com> writes:
On Sunday, 14 April 2019 at 04:48:00 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:

 On 4/13/2019 2:35 PM, Mike Franklin wrote:

 Lately, I find the things that Walter is doing in DMD to be a 
 very low priority compared to all of the bugs in bugzilla for 
 which only he is qualified to fix.  I wish he'd stop 
 refactoring code and start fixing bugs, but, maybe his 
 refactorings of late are laying some groundwork for more 
 important stuff.


 I gave a list a couple times on technical debt in DMD, and 
 nobody picked up the flag. So I've been doing it.

 If this is let go for too long, the code becomes unmaintainable.


Everyone is busy doing Good Work so the only who can do Great 
Work must do Right Work.
Apr 14 2019
prev sibling parent Seb <seb wilzba.ch> writes:
On Saturday, 13 April 2019 at 14:19:51 UTC, Mike Franklin wrote:

 On Friday, 12 April 2019 at 16:45:04 UTC, H. S. Teoh wrote:


 To be honest, I've seriously thought about forking D on 
 several occasions.  I haven't gone through with it yet, for 
 many reasons.  But if push comes to shove, I'm ready to take 
 it on, and I'm pretty certain that I'm not alone.


 Yes, you're not alone.

 Mike


Yes, you're most definitely not alone:

https://github.com/dragon-lang/dc (complete fork)

https://github.com/wilzbach/dts (proposal for a new standard 
library)

The main reason dts isn't existing yet is that I am currently 
really low on time.
Apr 13 2019
prev sibling next sibling parent wjoe <fake example.com> writes:
The D Language frontend merged into GCC9 [0]. Why would they add 
support for a failed language ?

[0] https://www.gnu.org/software/gcc/gcc-9/changes.html
Apr 12 2019
prev sibling next sibling parent Guillaume Piolat <first.last gmail.com> writes:
On Friday, 12 April 2019 at 07:35:05 UTC, Tofu Kaitlyn wrote:

 I have been using D since around 2012 or 2013, instantly fell 
 in love, use to post on the forms a lot under the name Tofu 
 Ninja. I was convinced D was the future but since then I have 
 become disheartened. The biggest thing that makes me feel like 
 this is that in the 7 years I have been using D I literally 
 have never met another programmer IRL who has even heard of it.


I'm fortunate to know about 10 other D programmers (or people 
that had to work with D) personally. I don't think anyone didn't 
like the language.




 I feel like D has failed.


I think D provides lasting value very easily and you can tell 
this by the increased support in 
https://dlang.org/orgs-using-d.html (Mercedes benz coming lastly, 
and sponsoring DConf).

It has the right attributes to create added value.



 I duno... what do yall think? Is D going to somehow explode in 
 popularity in 5-10 years?


Not so soon because the picture is darkened by increasingly 
nihilistic language that removes time-proven approaches like good 
syntax, OOP and exceptions... See the history of scorbut to know 
how availability of multiple solutions can obscure the picture 
for a long time.

D is typically the product that doesn't succeed in internet 
forums, but is popular in the trenches.

There really are two classes of products, "good-for-status" 
products you can talk about when describing your taste, and 
"good-at-home" products you can actually use intimately. D is 
"good at home".
Apr 12 2019
prev sibling next sibling parent reply Nicholas Wilson <iamthewilsonator hotmail.com> writes:
On Friday, 12 April 2019 at 07:35:05 UTC, Tofu Kaitlyn wrote:

 The biggest thing that makes me feel like this is that in the 7 
 years I have been using D I literally have never met another 
 programmer IRL who has even heard of it.


I'm at ACCU ATM and most of the people I've talked to about have 
heard of it,


 I duno... what do yall think? Is D going to somehow explode in 
 popularity in 5-10 years? Am I missing some part of the 
 picture? Or am I right and if so what can be done about it?


If the vision can be revitalised and the processes streamlined to 
extract value out of ideas then it has a great future. If not, 
well...
Apr 12 2019
parent Russel Winder <russel winder.org.uk> writes:
On Fri, 2019-04-12 at 17:50 +0000, Nicholas Wilson via Digitalmars-d
wrote:
[=E2=80=A6]

 I'm at ACCU ATM and most of the people I've talked to about have=20
 heard of it,


A few ACCU attenders are even using D. But not many. If D claims to be
a C++ replacement then ACCU conferences really should have a D track
every year as justification of that claim. This year Rust has a strong
showing as does Kotlin and Kotlin/Native. Go is not really represented.

[=E2=80=A6]

--=20
Russel.
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D
Dr Russel Winder      t: +44 20 7585 2200
41 Buckmaster Road    m: +44 7770 465 077
London SW11 1EN, UK   w: www.russel.org.uk
Apr 12 2019
prev sibling next sibling parent reply Walter Bright <newshound2 digitalmars.com> writes:
On 4/12/2019 12:35 AM, Tofu Kaitlyn wrote:

 I have been using D since around 2012 or 2013, instantly fell in love, use to 
 post on the forms a lot under the name Tofu Ninja. I was convinced D was the 
 future but since then I have become disheartened. The biggest thing that makes 
 me feel like this is that in the 7 years I have been using D I literally have 
 never met another programmer IRL who has even heard of it. I put on my resume 
 that I like D and every interview I get asked about it, having to explain what
D 
 even is because they have never heard of it. I have never seen a job posting 
 listing D. Never see any projects pop up on /r/programming using D. It feels 
 like to the rest of the programming universe, D doesn't even exist. Sometimes
I 
 see threads on reddit like "what's your favorite programming language" and I 
 always look for D but never find it.


It's up to all of us whenver we see a thread like that, to respond 
appropriately. Don't wait for someone else to.

For example, whenever there's a post about D on reddit, someone from Rust, 
usually Steve Blatnick, pops up and starts talking about Rust.
Apr 12 2019
next sibling parent reply Suleyman <sahmi.soulaimane gmail.com> writes:
I think the problem with D is that it started getting a mass 
adoption and this requires a bigger management, for example: 
regular user polls, prioritization, concentration of efforts, 
friendly contribution guides, time limits on issue resolutions, 
regular health stats, coordination with sponsors, maybe even a 
podcast especially for what would be a lightning for introducing 
libraries and new features... etc. D is no longer a niche 
language and this is a problem.
Apr 12 2019
next sibling parent reply Walter Bright <newshound2 digitalmars.com> writes:
On 4/12/2019 5:25 PM, Suleyman wrote:

 I think the problem with D is that it started getting a mass adoption and this 
 requires a bigger management, for example: regular user polls, prioritization, 
 concentration of efforts, friendly contribution guides, time limits on issue 
 resolutions, regular health stats, coordination with sponsors, maybe even a 
 podcast especially for what would be a lightning for introducing libraries and 
 new features... etc. D is no longer a niche language and this is a problem.


Something you can do to help is as I said - when you see other languages 
mentioned, mention D. It helps a lot more than you might think.
Apr 12 2019
next sibling parent silentwatcher <silentwatcher aol.com> writes:
On Saturday, 13 April 2019 at 03:46:51 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:

 On 4/12/2019 5:25 PM, Suleyman wrote:

 I think the problem with D is that it started getting a mass 
 adoption and this requires a bigger management, for example: 
 regular user polls, prioritization, concentration of efforts, 
 friendly contribution guides, time limits on issue 
 resolutions, regular health stats, coordination with sponsors, 
 maybe even a podcast especially for what would be a lightning 
 for introducing libraries and new features... etc. D is no 
 longer a niche language and this is a problem.


 Something you can do to help is as I said - when you see other 
 languages mentioned, mention D. It helps a lot more than you 
 might think.


great, you are avoiding to talk about the problems again.
how about:
The sole reason that D has failed is the management of D has 
failed... and, of course, they will never accept that truth. They 
believe their methods are correct and working and the failure is 
not due to them. D is actually an old language and there are many 
new languages popping up like weeds... eventually D will not be 
so shiny and more and it will just become another weed. That is 
already happening actually.  As many languages modify their 
designs to include what was great about D, D becomes less 
attractive.

or

Now there is talk of re-writing D, after the umpteenth half baked 
feature was introduced. We'll see, we'll see. IMO, the trouble 
really started when the D Foundation was set up. Instead of 
streamlining and stabilizing D, the whole thing turned into a 
closed shop with a "Hey, we are the lads" kinda attitude, and any 
CS theory or fashion of the day would finally be half baked into 
the language without a second thought. Without paying attention 
to users and the answer to complaints would be "we want to turn D 
into a functional style memory safe [...] language, that's why we 
had to introduce RefFancy, so eff your code!", except it still 
isn't and RefFancy has to be removed or replaced! Who would have 
guessed it would be at loggerheads with FancyRange!?

or

And apart from all the fancy feature madness, there's this 
arrogant attitude towards users. To avoid criticism my words were 
twisted in such an obvious and blatant way that it was just 
ridiculous. And what's really funny is that mistakes made by the 
leadership, and the leadership alone, are now being socialized as 
in "the community this, the community that, and this has to 
change!". Ah, give me a break.

or

See, it is not that D itself is a bad language, it is that the 
whole atmosphere surrounding it, how it is managed, is the 
problem. Some things are done well but others poorly, eventually 
those things that are neglected will catch up because the 
community seems to care not one bit about them. The cracks are 
getting bigger and bigger, I'm sorry you can't see them.

or

On one point I agree: It's time to get rid of all the wrong 
decisions done in the past, and simplify the language, founding 
it over the strong points learned from D2.
It's time for D3.

or

The attitude "We will not cater to the mass of moron programmers" 
has hurt D, possibly been the one thing that is killing it.

or ....
Apr 12 2019
prev sibling parent reply Suleyman <sahmi.soulaimane gmail.com> writes:
On Saturday, 13 April 2019 at 03:46:51 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:

 Something you can do to help is as I said - when you see other 
 languages mentioned, mention D. It helps a lot more than you 
 might think.


Yeah that would help but I don't see D as merely a project 
anymore I see D as an organization although a small one but a big 
community and from a business standpoint keeping your clients 
happy is more important than getting new clients even though a 
product maybe great but a company wouldn't survive on that alone.
Apr 12 2019
parent Suleyman <sahmi.soulaimane gmail.com> writes:
On Saturday, 13 April 2019 at 03:46:51 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:

 Something you can do to help is as I said - when you see other 
 languages mentioned, mention D. It helps a lot more than you 
 might think.


I think D for the size of it's organization already has a good 
number of users, contributors, and sponsors what's left is to 
make the contributors work for the users and the sponsors for the 
contributors and the users for the sponsors this how it keeps on 
rolling.
Apr 12 2019
prev sibling parent Nicholas Wilson <iamthewilsonator hotmail.com> writes:
On Saturday, 13 April 2019 at 00:25:06 UTC, Suleyman wrote:

 I think the problem with D is that it started getting a mass 
 adoption and this requires a bigger management, for example: 
 regular user polls, prioritization, concentration of efforts, 
 friendly contribution guides, time limits on issue resolutions, 
 regular health stats, coordination with sponsors, maybe even a 
 podcast especially for what would be a lightning for 
 introducing libraries and new features... etc. D is no longer a 
 niche language and this is a problem.


Great ideas!
Apr 13 2019
prev sibling parent reply Tofu Kaitlyn <katemmons0 gmail.com> writes:
On Friday, 12 April 2019 at 23:33:37 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:

 It's up to all of us whenver we see a thread like that, to 
 respond appropriately. Don't wait for someone else to.

 For example, whenever there's a post about D on reddit, someone 
 from Rust, usually Steve Blatnick, pops up and starts talking 
 about Rust.


I try to! I try to stick up for D every chance I get... but 
honestly at this point it is starting to get a little 
embarrassing to do so. I have been using D for 7 years and been 
trying to tell people how awesome it is... but after so long and 
still almost nobody is using it... it kinda makes you wonder 
what's the point, why do I keep trying? Im not really good enough 
to contribute to the compiler or make some fancy new library or 
something.. but I love D and want people to love it too, that's 
why I find it so sad D is in the place it is.

When I started using D I was in my freshman year at university, 
back then it looked like D had a real chance of becoming a 
replacement for C++... now I feel like D has almost no chance 
compared to back then...

It just feels sad
Apr 13 2019
next sibling parent reply silentwatcher <silentwatcher aol.com> writes:
On Saturday, 13 April 2019 at 08:28:37 UTC, Tofu Kaitlyn wrote:

 On Friday, 12 April 2019 at 23:33:37 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:

 It's up to all of us whenver we see a thread like that, to 
 respond appropriately. Don't wait for someone else to.

 For example, whenever there's a post about D on reddit, 
 someone from Rust, usually Steve Blatnick, pops up and starts 
 talking about Rust.


 I try to! I try to stick up for D every chance I get... but 
 honestly at this point it is starting to get a little 
 embarrassing to do so. I have been using D for 7 years and been 
 trying to tell people how awesome it is... but after so long 
 and still almost nobody is using it... it kinda makes you 
 wonder what's the point, why do I keep trying? Im not really 
 good enough to contribute to the compiler or make some fancy 
 new library or something.. but I love D and want people to love 
 it too, that's why I find it so sad D is in the place it is.

 When I started using D I was in my freshman year at university, 
 back then it looked like D had a real chance of becoming a 
 replacement for C++... now I feel like D has almost no chance 
 compared to back then...

 It just feels sad


you are wright, that happened to me too, only earlier.
and now that you read that thread, it becomes hurtingly apparent, 
that the management and the compiler guru have no idea, or just 
don't care, on how to respond to people with valid objections.

this is just sad!
i guess they do it just another time as usual - just wait a 
little bit and let the shit float by.
maybe some of the disciples will come to the rescue and tell a 
story on how great everything is in there niche or with there 
hobby.

i hope somebody takes D1, strips the gc, adds templates, cleans 
up this mess and forgets about the rest of the bloat.
Apr 13 2019
parent Julian <julian.fondren gmail.com> writes:
On Saturday, 13 April 2019 at 08:43:06 UTC, silentwatcher wrote:

 you are wright, that happened to me too, only earlier.
 and now that you read that thread, it becomes hurtingly
 apparent, that the management and the compiler guru have no
 idea, or just don't care, on how to respond to people with
 valid objections.


Faced with non-response, you've decided that you're actually
experiencing a very specific response, which is also emotionally
convenient for you. This should be a red flag.

You are not in the middle of a direct conversation with 
"management
and compiler guru", nor have you pulled them onto their front
doorstep to face you and the angry mob at your back. Rather, 
you're
in a situation more like a noisy cafeteria in which you are
spreading rumors or are disparaging someone just loudly enough 
that
he can hear you from his other table.

In this cafeteria-like situation, the stock dialogue that should
come to mind is, not "cat got your tongue? You were talking so
happily before, but now you have nothing to say, huh?!" but rather
"I don't need to dignify that with a response." or "You can tell
you're over the target when you start to get flak."

People just don't care that much about rumors that are so off-base
nobody would believe them anyway. If someone's loudly insinuating
that you'd once cheated your brother in a business deal, and you
have no brothers, you may as well take anyone's concerns about 
this
insinuation when they come to you personally about them. They'll
feel silly for having even paid attention to the loud guy.


 maybe some of the disciples will come to the rescue and tell a
 story on how great everything is in there niche or with there
 hobby.


Have you ever asked yourself, "hmm, I wonder if there's a huge
number of people around here that are vegans, or if that's pretty
niche." ? Maybe you could wonder it now, to follow along. This
question is trivially answered: just go out to get food.

If you're in India, half of the hotel menu will be vegan dishes.
Every single restaurant you go to will have a good variety of 
vegan
options. Not "you can blow the cheese off the salad if you want,
weirdo" kinda options, but five different mushroom burgers, etc.
Fancy stuff.

If you're in Texas, the norm is closer to "you can blow the cheese
off the salad if you want, weirdo."

So here you are, looking at a blatant scarcity of GUI builders or
mobile development options, and you're exclaiming: where are all
the vegan options?!  Isn't like 70% of the Texas vegans?! Do you
all stay home to eat??  What's *wrong* with these stupid
restaurants that are all ignoring what must be a *huge* vegan
demand!

An actually productive thing to do would be to add "desktop GUI
development" and "mobile development" to a long chart of tiny 
niches
that programming languages can be variously useful for, and you 
can
give D a 1..10 score, with justifications. A score 11 language
would have an AI chatbot that hooks your entire desktop GUI up to
your application for you based on conversations with the AI about
it. A score 10 language might just have an extremely good GUI
builder that doesn't limit you or add extra overhead to the
resulting GUI. A score 4 language might have Gtk and Qt bindings
that you can use if you have independently good knowledge of Gtk 
or
Qt, but you'll have to work a bit.

The score's just a hint. The negative and positive justifications
are the real value of a chart like this. Someone wanting to add a
GUI to their D application might look at the chart and say, eh, I
guess I'll serve a local webpage with vibe. Someone wanting to
round out D's usefulness as a language might look at the chart, 
see
that "server-side scripting" is a niche impaired by std.regex's
performance, and add a GSoC task about that. Someone want to argue
that D's stagnated and isn't getting more useful as a language can
refer to versions of this chart over time.
Apr 13 2019
prev sibling next sibling parent reply Mike Parker <aldacron gmail.com> writes:
On Saturday, 13 April 2019 at 08:28:37 UTC, Tofu Kaitlyn wrote:


 I try to! I try to stick up for D every chance I get... but 
 honestly at this point it is starting to get a little 
 embarrassing to do so. I have been using D for 7 years and been 
 trying to tell people how awesome it is... but after so long 
 and still almost nobody is using it... it kinda makes you 
 wonder what's the point, why do I keep trying? Im not really 
 good enough to contribute to the compiler or make some fancy 
 new library or something.. but I love D and want people to love 
 it too, that's why I find it so sad D is in the place it is.

 When I started using D I was in my freshman year at university, 
 back then it looked like D had a real chance of becoming a 
 replacement for C++... now I feel like D has almost no chance 
 compared to back then...

 It just feels sad



I don't know what your definition of "almost nobody" is, but the 
number one library on code.dlang.org right now is vibe.d, with 
the following stats:

488 downloads today

3402 downloads this week

12354 downloads this month

390085 downloads total

Look through the list. One of my packages, DerelictSDL2, has the 
following stats:

95 downloads today

521 downloads this week

2286 downloads this month

89247 downloads total

 From my perspective, that's plenty of people.

Also, any expectation that D will be "a replacement for C++" is 
just misguided. No language is going to replace C++. It's an 
*alternative* to C++. And a good one. It's that philosophy that 
drives the ABI compatibility with both C and C++. We don't need D 
implementations of libraries that have years of development, 
debugging, testing and maintenance behind them when we can just 
interop with the existing ones. The ability to implement a new 
component or tool in D and be able to link with an existing 
codebase and libraries that the team are already familiar with is 
a big deal.

D's doing just fine. It's been slowly and steadily growing. Not 
fast enough for some folks, and that's fine. We've recently 
started quarterly D Foundation meetings involving foundation 
members and representatives from D shops. At the first meeting, 
we had the companies everyone knows about--Dunhumby 
(Sociomantic), Funkwerk, WekaIO, and Symmetry. At the second 
meeting, we added representatives from three companies you 
probably haven't heard of. Our third meeting is happening at 
DConf. I'll be blogging about all of this very soon and will talk 
about what's coming out of these meetings.

My advice is to get a little perspective. You have your own 
bubble in your own slice of the internet and your own slice of 
the real world. That you don't see or hear much about D in your 
bubble is not evidence that no one else is seeing or hearing 
about it.

Every post I public-facing post I publish on the D blog gets 
shared on reddit. Some generate discussions, some do not. But 
there's been a big difference since I first started managing the 
blog. Initially, every post I shared attracted trolls eager to 
bash D on principle and most posts were lucky to get over a 60% 
upvote rate. Now, the trolls rarely appear, the upvote rate tends 
to hover between 70-90%, and the total number of upvotes often 
goes over 50 (I used to think 30 was a lucky day). The most 
recent, a highlight of DPP, got 75 total votes and a 86% upvote 
rate:

https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/bas2my/dpp_include_c_and_c_headers_directly_in_your_d/

That post has generated just over 1,000 views in the 5 days since 
it was published. The post on memoization in D that I published 
at the end of March only got 32 upvotes at reddit and a 76% 
upvote rate (and again, no trolls bashing it in the reddit 
thread), but it's had just shy of 15,000 page views:

https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/b7augl/memoization_in_the_d_programming_language/

My point is that, yes, people are hearing about D and, from my 
perspective in my bubble, the positive messages and curiosity are 
outweighing the negativity.

People don't have to like D. That's fine. I respect some folks 
are unhappy and now and again will vocally express their critical 
opinions. That's a fact of life. But there are plenty of people 
who are happy (or at least satisfied) and who are using it both 
commercially and personally. Our focus needs to be on retaining 
them. We will lose some along the way, because not everyone will 
agree with every priority or every decision, or with the 
management process, or whatever. But improvements are happening, 
will continue to happen, and the language will be better for it. 
It's already better today than it was 5 years ago, or even 5 
years before that. As it continues to improve, it will appeal to 
more people and some of them will become contributors to help 
make it even better.

And it may sound like a broken record, but we always need 
contributors. The bigger we get, the more we need. And there are 
never enough. We've got a new initative that has come out of the 
quarterly meetings that is one step to address that (I'm not 
ready to announce it just yet) and the ongoing fundraising 
campaigns are another (and note that donations to the Pull 
Request Manager campaign have slowed: 
https://www.flipcause.com/secure/cause_pdetails/NDUwNTY=).

D does not have the backing of a cash-laden organization, as 
someone pointed out earlier, so like it or not, it is a language 
where there's still a lot of DIY. Anyone expecting fully featured 
IDEs, native graphics libs, parity with languages like Rust, 

criticisms to be made about management, but that isn't one of 
them. Resources, resources, resources. One must either 
contribute, accept the status quo, or move on. Meanwhile, those 
who are contributing continue to do so, some for free some for 
compensation, but all because they accept that if they don't do 
it, it won't get done.

I've been following D since 2003 and using it since 2004. When I 
look back over the stretch of time, I can't help but see D as a 
success. I'm doing what I can to make it more so.
Apr 13 2019
next sibling parent silentwatcher <silentwatcher aol.com> writes:
On Saturday, 13 April 2019 at 09:16:09 UTC, Mike Parker wrote:

 On Saturday, 13 April 2019 at 08:28:37 UTC, Tofu Kaitlyn wrote:


yes you are living in your bubble and to this thread there is 
more than just discontent.
this is just sad!
it's the same as usual - just wait a little bit and let the shit 
float by.
then - learn/change nothing.
Apr 13 2019
prev sibling parent reply Andrei Alexandrescu <SeeWebsiteForEmail erdani.org> writes:
Thanks Mike for writing. I have one addendum to this:


 And it may sound like a broken record, but we always need
 contributors. The bigger we get, the more we need. And there are
 never enough.


Closely related to the dearth of great contributors is the implication 
that we're blocking access of others to high-impact and leadership 
roles. Let me state for the record that I am not holding onto any seat, 
that I had to carry some roles simply by default because nobody else 
would, and that there's many more than two seats to start with, most of 
which are empty because there's nobody able and willing to take them. 
The folks whom I invited privately declined, thankfully save for Mike.

Regarding some posters' discontent over poor performance of the 
leadership/management. Speaking only of myself, let me state for the 
record that I hold absolutely no illusion of my performance as a leader 
in this community. Without being dramatic I reckon I'm unfit for 
leadership. (Most certainly not for lack of trying, but that doesn't 
matter.) An A leader should get A+ people to follow. We don't have 
enough of those.
Apr 13 2019
next sibling parent reply Nierjerson <Nierjerson somewhere.com> writes:
On Saturday, 13 April 2019 at 11:20:07 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu 
wrote:

 Thanks Mike for writing. I have one addendum to this:


 And it may sound like a broken record, but we always need
 contributors. The bigger we get, the more we need. And there 
 are
 never enough.


 Closely related to the dearth of great contributors is the 
 implication that we're blocking access of others to high-impact 
 and leadership roles. Let me state for the record that I am not 
 holding onto any seat, that I had to carry some roles simply by 
 default because nobody else would, and that there's many more 
 than two seats to start with, most of which are empty because 
 there's nobody able and willing to take them. The folks whom I 
 invited privately declined, thankfully save for Mike.

 Regarding some posters' discontent over poor performance of the 
 leadership/management. Speaking only of myself, let me state 
 for the record that I hold absolutely no illusion of my 
 performance as a leader in this community. Without being 
 dramatic I reckon I'm unfit for leadership. (Most certainly not 
 for lack of trying, but that doesn't matter.) An A leader 
 should get A+ people to follow. We don't have enough of those.



I do not think think anyone is criticizing you or Walter 
personally or your capabilities in what you do. EXCEPT: You guys 
have to figure out how to take D to the next stage of growth. You 
guys are the leaders and so only you can do it. No one else can 
step in and say "This is how we are going to make it happen".

I believe you guys are talented in certain ways but those ways 
are not in ways that are large complex project management. You 
guys are too nice and laid back for that. There has to be someone 
willing to put their neck on the line and make good and hard 
decisions to fix the cracks in D rather than ignore them.

You guys are programmers first and foremost. Have you guys 
actually ever ran any large projects, say, of 10k people or more? 
What about 1k? I doubt this simply because you are programmers 
and such jobs would not involve programming. For example, the CEO 
of Nvidia doesn't sit around programming all day long as his job.

It's not that I don't think you guys are intelligent enough, I 
believe(I do not know if it is true) that you guys don't really 
have any any experience in running a very large successful 
project where if you fail the project fails and it's your ass. 
The kinda where it is all about dealing with 
people(unpredictable) as opposed to code(predictable).

So, in no way am I criticizing you as a person or trying to make 
you feel incapable, I'm simply trying to get you to recognize 
your limitations and for you to think about them enough as to 
maybe figure out how to overcome them. I don't know enough about 
how you guys function to even begin to dish out fault. My main 
point is to try to bring awareness. I think you are already 
somewhat aware, so what I have said so far might not be useful.

But there has to be a floor plan, laid out exactly and "everyone" 
has to agree that it is a good floor plan. Then that floor plan 
has to be stuck to. Imagine building a house where 1. The floor 
plan sucks. 2. It's always changing. It's a doomed project in 
almost all cases. The more complex the design the more failure 
points.

You guys really need to find someone that knows enough about D, 
knows enough about manging large projects(you could start smaller 
but the more experience the better), someone that has their neck 
on the line, someone that will do the required work(since a whole 
team will not exist to delegate it), and someone that can 
dedicate full time.

That is, you need someone who will essentially take the steering 
wheel and win the race. You could try it yourself, but that would 
require you to change your whole mentality and become a "business 
man". You'll have to start taking courses in leadership, project 
management, learn all kinds of stuff you never had a clue about 
and not accept failure as an option(which might require long 
days, very tough decisions, etc...). Basically you would have to 
change careers in some sense.


I really believe you guys just don't know what to do but you 
don't realize it. It's not because you are dumb but you simply do 
not have the kinda of experience that provides one with such 
knowledge. You have ideas and beliefs but that is not the same as 
real world experience of the day in and day out that builds up 
6th senses and intuitive knowledge, tricks, networking, habits, 
etc.

It's kinda hard to explain, it is just a feeling I had. It is 
similar to how I have done certain things in my life where I 
thought I was capable and was making progress then I'd see a YT 
video of some "3yo" doing what I do. Digging deeper I realize 
that my conceptions about how I thought things worked were 
wrong(or faulty/weak). I didn't realize that other people did it 
so differently and then I realized that is why they were 
better... not because they were necessarily more intelligent or 
had more money or whatever but because of their experiences that 
helped them progress and not hit every speed bump. But always 
what I realized is that it was more complex and more work than I 
initially thought.

You have went through these things too, but you don't pay 
attention to them much. How many years of your life have you 
spent in programming? That is why you are good at it! How many 
years have you spent managing companies or large groups of 
people? Changes are you manage people like you program. That is, 
you view the world in a particular way that may or may not be 
conducive to solving certain problems. It is not a fault of you, 
it is a fault of all humans(it's a fault due to how the universe 
works and it's probably no fault at all but just how it works).



My suggestions is this:

1. Spend 5+ hours seriously thinking about the long term goal of 
D. What you guys want it to become. Dream a little, raise your 
expectations, don't worry about the likelihood of achieving them 
too much. [It's always better to lose to a higher ranked player 
than win to a lower ranked player] Also one must be a little 
predictive/adaptive since the time the dream becomes realized 
things will change.

This though should involve some concrete and useful things like: 
(EX)

    a. D is the a major competitor
    b. D is an efficient programming language that satisfies many 
users requirements.
    c. D has a large user base
    d. D has a well thought out and consistent structure, easy to 
maintain.
    e. D is just pure fun to program in. There really are no 
downsides for most people.
    etc...

2. Then figure out for each of those a little more details and 
realities behind them.
    for a, it might involve figure out some approximate numbers 
and requirements that a major competitor has. E.g., how many 
users, type of users, feature set, etc...

3. Then decide if you are willing to do all the work to get this 
going. You guys have to lay down the first few layers of the 
pyramid(well, D already exists so you have some layers to use). 
If not then you have to figure out how to get others to help you 
in a constructive way. You might need to seek out people who have 
been successful in large projects and learn from them(not just 
people who carry the torch but the ones who built it).

4. A tentative floor plan then must be created. This is the 
general outline that gives structure to the dream. It is a huge 
graph/chart/map that shows one the forest.

5. Then project management comes in to play to find the "optimal" 
solution to minimize the time required to complete the project. 
To deal with revisoning, versioning, issues, work distribution, 
hiccups, road blocks, etc...

6. Then just run the program. Yes, it is a program. To accomplish 
anything is a program. But without the source to the program and 
the compiler one can't get anywhere. The source to the program 
here is the planning. The compiler is the management team. All 
the details are filled in at "runtime" such as who builds that 
part of the wall, who corrects that mistake, etc.

After all, even with large computer programmers, there is almost 
always some type of divide and conquer approach, it is no 
different, it's just the machine is different.

And I'm not good at project management so even what I have said 
probably wouldn't be effective. This is why you guys need an 
expert, and someone that will invest the work so these things can 
get off. You might pay them based on performance/progress but you 
will still have to participate and understand things enough to 
keep them legit and to drive them.

Without some type of conscious effort in this area, D will 
stagnate almost surely. There is really no way to get around 
that. These things are not impossible to do. The energy is 
there(there are billions of people on this planet who regularly 
give up their time for other peoples causes on a daily basis), it 
just has too be focused.

Imagine this, if all the time and energy that has been put in D 
from the get go by everyone who has ever done anything for D was 
focused 100% in contributing in the perfect way for D. D would be 
the top programming language. One can say this about most 
languages too. So much energy is wasted, like a typical light 
bulb, which actually uses more energy than most lasers.

D just needs focus. You and Walter may be comfortable with it 
being your golf game, but most people are not because they don't 
want to play golf. Their time is real and it is an investment for 
them, they want a return. This is why I have stopped using D for 
anything serious, because I have concluded that it is not a good 
investment for me. I'm not alone in this of course and it is not 
an indicator of your abilities(it might be entirely Walters ;) Or 
something else). I do like D enough though to continue messing 
around with it here and there, I guess it has become my golf game 
in some sense ;/
Apr 13 2019
parent reply Walter Bright <newshound2 digitalmars.com> writes:
On 4/13/2019 6:08 AM, Nierjerson wrote:

 I do not think think anyone is criticizing you or Walter personally or your 
 capabilities in what you do. EXCEPT: You guys have to figure out how to take D 
 to the next stage of growth. You guys are the leaders and so only you can do
it. 
 No one else can step in and say "This is how we are going to make it happen".


Actually, yes they can. There's a lot that goes on that I have no involvement 
in, people just stepped up and did it. For example,

gdc
ldc
bugzilla
autotester
dub
VisualD
Dfeed (the forum software)
the website server

What doesn't work is giving Andrei & I long lists of action items. I get them 
every day.

You want something to happen, step up and take a role and make it happen.
Apr 13 2019
parent reply Nierjerson <Nierjerson somewhere.com> writes:
On Saturday, 13 April 2019 at 20:38:04 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:

 On 4/13/2019 6:08 AM, Nierjerson wrote:

 I do not think think anyone is criticizing you or Walter 
 personally or your capabilities in what you do. EXCEPT: You 
 guys have to figure out how to take D to the next stage of 
 growth. You guys are the leaders and so only you can do it. No 
 one else can step in and say "This is how we are going to make 
 it happen".


 Actually, yes they can. There's a lot that goes on that I have 
 no involvement in, people just stepped up and did it. For 
 example,

 gdc
 ldc
 bugzilla
 autotester
 dub
 VisualD
 Dfeed (the forum software)
 the website server

 What doesn't work is giving Andrei & I long lists of action 
 items. I get them every day.



The problem is you don't understand and you think you do:

1. We are not talking about individuals doing things. We are 
talking about those things being done in a consistent and 
meaningful way rather than ad hock. What happens when Rainer 
Schultz gives up on D? You realize he took over Visual D himself 
from someone that gave up.

What happens when those people decide to move on, die, get 
preoccupied, have less time, etc?

You are always expecting people to do work yet and some do, but 
to pretend that it has any longevity is being naive. Visual D 
development has somewhat stalled. RS still works on it here and 
there but it is pretty much what it is. It has limitations and 
issues. It is not commercial and to pretend that it is the 
solution for the IDE platform on windows is nonsense. It is the 
only one that is usable to any useful degree. It works, 
surprisingly well, but not well enough for most businesses to 
invest in D.

I'm not saying to downplay these things, I'm simply saying 1. 
They are not enough. and 2. They are not coherent enough with D 
as a whole.

2. D needs structure in it's overall design. It's far more than 
just a compiler. A compiler by itself is about useless as a new 
born baby. The tools, libraries, the docs, the community, etc are 
all required for wide acceptance. But there has to be some 
underlying glue that binds it all together. Just having everyone 
create the these things on their own is not enough. It ends up 
with a rats nest of problems. Everyone does their things 
different ways, no one agree's, things don't easily connect up, 
etc.

It is quite amazing D has worked so well with this method, it is 
a testament to the people who contribute to D, not the process 
itself.

Imagine if all these people that have contributed to do did it in 
a structured in unified way. No redundancy, waste, abuse... what 
would D be like?

Your approach is too lackadaisical *if* your goal is wide 
acceptance[I realize that is a trigger word here because people 
think it means acceptance by the mass of moronic programmers]. It 
works well for some things but poorly for others.

All I am talking about is having a plan and project management.  
Something like: "We have these N things we want done 100%, we 
will sort and prioritize these M things and work on them this way 
until they are accomplish. We will do them to the best of our 
abilities." [More than this, but trying to express an idea]



 You want something to happen, step up and take a role and make 
 it happen.



Ok, I'm going to step up and take a role, right here right now:

1. You need to find someone who will create two things:

   a) a method for people to contribute in an easy way. A website 
would work, you have people who can create websites(they have 
done it) so task them with creating a new web sight, say 
dlang.org\ProjectManagement.

The site is designed to be coordinate two things:

       i. People who have a common desire for improvement on some 
part of D. It could be a library, a tool, a patch, etc.
       ii. The core D team's projects for D, such as rewriting 
phobos or D3 or an IDE, or whatever it is you guys decide is to 
be done. You state "We are doing this, here is how you can help".

The site is a meeting place, a way to formally work together. Not 
email, not forums. Sorta like bugzilla, github, forums, etc all 
combined. It doesn't have to be over the top but needs a unified 
and singular place to interact with in evolving D. What does this 
do? It provides a formality for people to take it serious, 
specially those on the outside. It says "We are serious bout 
getting things done around here so much that we take make it 
efficient to get things done". It is the difference from "work at 
home" and having an building where business is done. Just the 
environment itself makes people think differently.

You guys could talk about specifics. I'm just saying that some 
efficient, formal, and meaningful way to coordinate projects and 
people is necessary. Why? Because if it exists it will also 
increase the success rate of good projects. It might require you 
guys to spend a few weeks or months figure out the details. I 
think getting many peoples desires on such a site would be best.

No point in me giving too many of my thoughts because it is a 
task for you to do to get the ball rolling. What I am saying is 
that having a *place* to optimize work, scheduling, and tasking 
will turbo charge D, if it is done right.

I will say this: Suppose I want to contribute to a part of D that 
doesn't exist or up to my standards, say some library. By having 
a site where can go to, sorta like dub for libs, but search for 
the thing, say it is a graphics library, and I can see the 
projects, there should be just a few as these are projects 
sanctioned by D to eventually be official, then I can contribute 
to them.

You can say this is what dub and git hub provide... and in some 
way they do. But it's not the same. It's too fractured and too 
independent/individual. The site could link to github but it has 
to coordinate people(the energy/work) and harness it.

It also lets you guys organize it. If, say some group of guys 
want to write an audio library then you will have to take a look 
at it. This also requires a standardization of coding style which 
is done well. Ideally there would be the top programmers who 
monitor the code to make suggestions about issues such as 
longevity, style, generality, optimizations, etc.

You guys to to control the overall process while the worker bee's 
do the grunt work of writing code. With such a site you should be 
able to see an overall digraph of all the relationships and also 
dig in to the project management side, such as conflicts, time 
spent, who's doing what, etc.

One could could think of this as a sort of D forum on steroids(it 
could have a forum component that is integrated).

Wish such a site too, one could create fiat currency... you know 
how people love their fake gold coins. [I'm not suggesting that 
specifically but there could be a sort of reward system for 
contributing to projects or competitions, etc]


b) An overarching plan for D, say, for the next 10 years. This 
plan is then filled in with details. It should be rather 
exhaustive. It should cover ALL things anyone could want out of 
D. No expense should be spared, meaning there should be no 
worries about going overboard. All the fat can be trimmed. The 
idea here is to provide long term goals that definitely will make 
D better. It doesn't matter if you think it is worthless, it is 
just if magically it existed for D it would be better then it is 
added.

For example,

Let's imagine D should have it's own OS written in D. This is a 
feasible thing, it could potentially be better than any other OS 
out there. Of course, this is not something practical for D to 
focus on, but it is something that if one could magically have 
would be good for D. This is sort of brainstorming for things 
that will help D take over the world.

One then sorts, rehashes, prioritizes, and creates a smaller list 
of things. One builds a hierarchy. All things are relevant but it 
is narrowing down things to a manageable scheme. With the project 
management site, though, if some people want to build an OS for D 
then they could add it to the site, and move in that direction. 
They are busy building such a thing and so, eventually, in 
theory, it will get done. But it's officially part of D and that 
alone provides some cohesion.

Regardless of the specifics, these two options are meant to 
provide two things: An overall plan that people can understand 
and a place where the plan turns in to a reality.

2. You and your team need to sit down and rather than just gab 
about things seriously figure out what needs to be done, not for 
specific D things(e.g., some code, library, language feature, 
etc) but the management side. Each of you needs to have an honest 
conversation with yourself and each other to figure out where 
everyone stands, everyones desires, everyones intentions, and 
what each one is willing to do. If certain gaps in capabilities 
are missing then you need to seek out those people that will fill 
those gaps and fit all together correctly. There has to be 
balance to such a team. If everyone thinks the same then there is 
no dissenting views and this causes problems.

For example, if you have N people and they all think exactly the 
same way(identical copies) then there really is only 1 person. If 
that 1 person can't solve a problem then N of these people can't 
solve the problem no matter how large N is. And this is 
mathematical fact that proves similarity of thinking is not 
effective for difficult problems(it's great for problems that 
they all know how to solve).

Basically you guys need to find some people that fit your team 
but balance it out. Someone  you can trust and will listen to but 
doesn't think just like you do. You have to be able to argue 
about stuff and see who's right or to get a little frustrated. It 
makes everyone grow... but it doesn't have to be hateful. If 
everyone has the same desire then it will actually be effective 
and sort itself out.

3. The overall plan has to have a singular unified purpose. It is 
the focal point of what this is all about. It is something clear 
that everyone has in their mind. If you look at a great painting 
there is almost always a singular concept that presents to ones 
mind the moment one see's it. This concept says "This is what the 
painting is about"(it is true that people will interpret it 
different, but there is always a concept, it may be "ambiguous" 
in some sense but not in the persons mind). It's ultimately what 
ties everything together in a nice package and fills in the 
cracks when they form. Without it one is relying on luck and/or 
passion/determination. These work for small things but rarely for 
large projects involving many people(since most people won't have 
much luck or passion to make it happen and they will also destroy 
that of others).

---

So, you and your team need to sit down and hash these things out. 
You don't have to listen to what I said, maybe when you sit down 
and try to figure all this out you'll find a better solution.  It 
is not about programming, but about management. No real 
programming topics are involved. You might figure out a way to 
make it worth while, could take a vacation for it, or after it. 
Might setup something special to make it happen. I don't know the 
specifics. But what I do know is that if you guys continue your 
approach the same way it is, the same results will occur almost 
surely and it is easily predictable the long term outcome.

Also, keep in mind that it doesn't mean you have to do a lot of 
hard work. It means that you simply have to structure things to 
get other people to do the hard work for you. (this is what all 
business is and it is a form of slavery in that it leverages 
other people's ability to supply energy in to the system for the 
purpose of a cause they generally are not ultimately interested 
in. You are luck that there are so many people willing to 
contribute to D, you might as well maximize their efforts and 
leverage it as much as you can).

I do hope you can figure this out. I do like D and think you did 
a great job in many ways. The thing that is going to make D fail 
though is not the great things you did but the poor things you 
did(= the great things you didn't do).  D is like a candle flame 
in the world and many of us want to see it was a volcano. That 
may not be your desire though but remember, Even though D is your 
child, many others helped raise it.
Apr 13 2019
parent reply Walter Bright <newshound2 digitalmars.com> writes:
On 4/13/2019 3:12 PM, Nierjerson wrote:

 Ok, I'm going to step up and take a role, right here right now:

 1. You need to find someone who will create two things:



 No point in me giving too many of my thoughts because it is a task for you to
do



 2. You and your team need to



 Basically you guys need to



 So, you and your team need to



 It means that you simply have to structure things



 I do hope you can figure this out.


This is not stepping up, it's giving me a list of action items. I have an
action 
item for you:

* Find something great on your list of action items and do it!

---

Allow me to explain a couple things.

This is not a business. There's some paid work going on, but not a whole lot 
because there isn't a lot of funding. A good compiler engineer would get 
$500,000/yr. We just don't have a lot of money.

This means relying on volunteers. The fun thing about volunteers is you can't 
tell them what to do. A normal occurrence is people ask me what to work on. I 
present a list A, B, C, D, and the person then does H. Why? Because H interests 
them.

You might think, what a mess. In many ways that's true. On the other hand, 
working on D is a MARVELOUS opportunity for anyone who wants to jumpstart their 
career.

For example, take Iain Buclaw. He single-handedly, doggedly, and indefatigably 
improved GDC (which had been abandoned) to the point where it was accepted by 
and officially incorporated into the Gnu Compiler Collection. This is a 
monumental, career-making achievement. It's the only thing he ever needs to 
write on his resume. He's a made man.

Many D contributors have leveraged their work on D into high paying jobs that 
were otherwise closed to them.

I'm very proud of these fellows and their achievements. I'm honored that D was 
the route to their success. The opportunity is here with D for anyone else who 
wants to learn and show the world what they can do.
Apr 13 2019
parent Nierjerson <Nierjerson somewhere.com> writes:
On Sunday, 14 April 2019 at 00:00:46 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:

 On 4/13/2019 3:12 PM, Nierjerson wrote:

 Ok, I'm going to step up and take a role, right here right


 now:

 1. You need to find someone who will create two things:



 No point in me giving too many of my thoughts because it is a


 task for you to do


 2. You and your team need to



 Basically you guys need to



 So, you and your team need to



 It means that you simply have to structure things



 I do hope you can figure this out.


 This is not stepping up, it's giving me a list of action items. 
 I have an action item for you:

 * Find something great on your list of action items and do it!

 ---

 Allow me to explain a couple things.

 This is not a business. There's some paid work going on, but 
 not a whole lot because there isn't a lot of funding. A good 
 compiler engineer would get $500,000/yr. We just don't have a 
 lot of money.


I realize this, and this is why it is even more prudent to do 
things as best as possible. For example, if you have a yugo and 
you are racing F1's you better optimize all variables in all ways 
to stand a chance.

What you have stated is an excuse. Money helps but you don't have 
it, so do you just give up? Because that is what you are saying 
whether you realize it or not.

I'm not blaming you or D's management in any way. I know it is an 
uphill battle. What I'm trying to do here is make you realize 
that the way your climbing the mounting is a hard route. You need 
other people that you trust and will commit and bring in to your 
inner sanctum. Only you can make that decision.

I've noticed H. S. Teoh mention wanting to fork D. I believe he 
is quite an intelligent person and seems to have alternative 
views that could provide more of a balance for you guys. You NEED 
someone that thinks differently. You might need other people. But 
ultimately you have to realize it would be beneficial to broaden 
your group(is it just you and Andre?) and that you have to find 
the right people.

You have to also realize you have to make changes yourself. You 
must adapt with the times. If you still manage D with the same 
mindset you did 10 years ago then something is wrong. This is why 
you need other people to help you. It is IMPOSSIBLE for you to do 
what is needed by yourself or even you and Andre! If you think it 
is then you have already failed.

I'm not saying that progress won't be made, I'm saying that it 
won't be enough[I could be wrong, but I'm 99.99% likely too be 
right]. I don't want to see D go down the tubes and I don't want 
to see D stagnate. It is really the language I enjoy programming 
in the most, but it is also the language I get frustrated with 
the most. I like to work on weaknesses, not strength. Anyone can 
work on their strengths, that's the easy job, but we are held 
down by our weaknesses and weaknesses actually are most 
beneficial to build(because of diminishing returns and the way 
knowledge and experience work together(it's O(n!)).



 This means relying on volunteers. The fun thing about 
 volunteers is you can't tell them what to do. A normal 
 occurrence is people ask me what to work on. I present a list 
 A, B, C, D, and the person then does H. Why? Because H 
 interests them.


I know, but it is a double edge sword. There has to be a balance!

Remember, if a volunteer wants to do something on his own he can. 
You shouldn't stop that, it is tyrannical. But some people need 
and want structure. The best way is to provide both paths. If 
someone wants to climb the steep cliff they can, others who want 
the guided tour need that. If you limit any path then you are 
selecting only those people who will take it.

D suffers from a lack organized structure. If it had too much 
structure I would be saying the opposite of what I am saying. I'd 
be "You guys are too dictatorial, you guys need to chill and 
relax!".




 You might think, what a mess. In many ways that's true. On the 
 other hand, working on D is a MARVELOUS opportunity for anyone 
 who wants to jumpstart their career.


D works well in many ways, I'm not saying it is a total mess... 
not in the least. What I'm saying is simply this:

The D community almost only works on it's strengths... specific 
feature sets that the most dedicated want to work on and they 
neglect those things they are not interested in.

This is great for them because, guess what, they are happy. They 
say things like "Well, D works for me" or "These businesses use D 
quite successfully". I've used D successfully... if I only judge 
it on those things that it is successfully used at.

The problem with that is that the things D does poorly in are 
never developed to any high level and so it never attracts other 
people who need those things.

You have to realize because of the way D has been run in the past 
has setup what it is today. Basically it is self-motivated people 
who are willing to work on their own for their own cause. This 
has build up a hodge podge of disorganized libraries, all kinds 
of problems... Over time it gets worse and requires more effort 
to maintain. For example, if D depreciates certain features then 
those libraries general bit rot and all that effort is ultimately 
wasted. Of course, the strengths of D are not so much effected.




 For example, take Iain Buclaw. He single-handedly, doggedly, 
 and indefatigably improved GDC (which had been abandoned) to 
 the point where it was accepted by and officially incorporated 
 into the Gnu Compiler Collection. This is a monumental, 
 career-making achievement. It's the only thing he ever needs to 
 write on his resume. He's a made man.


Yes, and it is quite amazing that people dedicate their precious 
time... but it is still not the way to go. You are relying on 
people to build D for you... what happens when they stop? Even if 
they trickle in over time you have a certain rate of progression 
of growth that you think will continue building D:

In your mind you see D's growth as

D(t) = m*t

where m is the rate of growth which depends on volunteers 
contributing to D(which may change over time but we will use 
averages).

But you fail to take in to account other variables:

D(t) = m*t - d*t - e*t

d is decay rate. It is a measure of bit rot that occurs that 
hurts D. e is an environmental cost. Such as other compilers that 
compete with d(such as taking volunteers).

In fact the equation is far more complicated but you are only 
looking at the positive side(the things that D was well and keeps 
it going).

Eventually the costs will outweigh the benefits and D will then 
end bit rotting itself(it will just end up another compiler in 
the compiler grave yard, where eventually all compilers end up, 
even C++ will be there one day, but who wants to die young?).



 Many D contributors have leveraged their work on D into high 
 paying jobs that were otherwise closed to them.


I'm not disputing anything like this. But you are only looking at 
the positives. Your view is warped. You MUST look at the 
negatives, no matter how painful it is. Without looking at the 
negatives they will eventually overtake the positives and then 
you will be forced to look at them(well, you might die before 
they come in too play but they will occur none the less).


 I'm very proud of these fellows and their achievements. I'm 
 honored that D was the route to their success. The opportunity 
 is here with D for anyone else who wants to learn and show the 
 world what they can do.


No one is trying to knock anything bad about D, what you have 
done, your intelligence, anyone else's intelligence, anyones 
contributions, all the hard work, all the dedication, or anything 
else that has made D what it is.

This discussion ultimately has nothing to do with D's 
achievements. They HAVE to be ignored, at least on some level, so 
one can see the negatives. And without seeing the negatives there 
is no balanced view and D will eventually reach it's limits.

You have to realize that what is being said is not a specific 
statement about D, it is a general statement about all 
things(e.g., you are thinking in terms of functions and I'm 
thinking in terms of templates, so to speak, meaning my 
statements are more applicable to a wider class of things). I can 
say what I have said about C++ too, or anything else. You might 
say then what is the point? The point is that the better one 
understands these things the better one can control the various 
factors for specific outcomes.

1.  You agree that all things reach diminishing returns? 
Eventually whatever grows as has a growth curve and it must(in 
practical sense, or maybe just average) end up diminishing? Why? 
Because growth requires resources and all resources are 
limited(even if astronomical, they are still limited = finite).

2. All things have other factors that control their growth, so 
many that they are effectively uncountable.

D's progress, like all things, is some N dimensional function 
that depends on t and many other things. [meaning that if we know 
all the data we could model it using an N dimensional function 
rather precisely]

Such functions have orders of growth and decay. Big O notation 
takes such things in to account. You know sorting routines have 
such measures of growth. But you realize that D is just some big 
sort routine that is very complicated? It takes bits and sorts 
them in to a new array giving some complex function(the grammar, 
the machine language specification, etc). It's so complex that 
you have probably even never tried to simplify it in such a 
way... but make no mistake, it is still just an abstract machine 
that has the same types of mathematical abstractions in it.

The point is then that there are negative components and if you 
ignore them then they will catch up and then take over. You are 
ignoring most of those components. You should try to find the 
largest ones and reduce their effect.

See, if we were talking about an optimization problem, say a cpu 
task scheduler, you would have no problem understanding what I'm 
talking about. You'd say agree and say "Yes, if we want to 
maximize throughput we need to minimize task switching(it is 
costly) so we should run the most important tasks first... but we 
can't starve the smaller tasks completely." and we would come up 
with some code that would try to optimize the scheduling of the 
tasks[which is project management too].

You know all about that kinda stuff but you fail to realize it 
also exists(in a disguised form) in D's own management, which 
again, is just a program(all things in life are programs... it's 
no coincidence that transistors and neurons both are switches or 
that people use the same term for many disparate things. It's 
because there is a much deeper connection between all things).

Since you, I believe, do understand Big O/Little O notation and 
theory, I'll simplify the whole discussion to this:

D = o(t) - O(t)

o(t) is the lower bound of D's growth, it can't do any worse than 
this.

O(t) is the upper bound on D's decay, it can't do any better than 
this.

You are only looking at o(t), I'm trying to get you to look at 
O(t) because you are effectively ignoring it(seems to be what 
most humans do). You are looking at the positive side(o(t)) and 
ignoring the negative side(O(t)).


But since O(t) is not 0, there is the risk that D's growth will 
end up "negative" dead. (The universe seems too dictate that O(t) 
always overtakes o(t) due to finite resources/diminishing 
returns/bit rot/etc).

Now, if we want to maximize D's growth, we can't just look at 
o(t), we must also try to deal with O(t).

You have focused so much on o(t) and ignored almost all O(t) that 
O(t) is the "low hanging fruit". It's got so many terms in it 
that are large and can be rather easily dealt with(diminishing 
returns haven't kicked in) that if you realized this and decided 
to deal with them(as unpleasant as they seem) that you could give 
a huge boost to the overall growth of D.

But you keep focusing on o(t).

If this was an algorithm, which it is ultimately, your algorithm 
will be doomed in the long run. Not because of what you have done 
with o(t) but because of what you haven't done with O(t).

I'm in no way criticizing you for you and others accomplishments 
on o(t) but I am criticizing you on your neglect of O(t). My 
statements are purely based in logic, mathematics and reality. 
Meaning they are mathematical models(simplifications of reality) 
that are applicable to all things that can be modeled 
mathematically(which seems to be almost everything in the 
universe). It's just like how much things can be represented by a 
differential equation, or how most things can use computers to 
solve their problems(which is why compilers are so important 
since they let us more effectively write programs that solve 
problems).

The balance is to look at both o(t) and O(t). Most people look at 
only one and ignore the other as if it didn't exist[It might be a 
left/right brain thing].


If you spent the next month or two just hard core analyzing O(t) 
you'd probably do more for D than in the last 5 years. You'll see 
things you never thought existed(because they didn't in your mind 
since you never saw them). You just have to drop you preconceived 
notions and biases that have formed. You have conditioned 
yourself to look at o(t).

You are, in fact, the best person to do this because you know far 
more about D overall and generally there is actually some type of 
interdependence between o and O. Of course, having others to help 
you break out of the mental box you exist in will speed up the 
process(it's not an attack, we all exist in our own mental boxes, 
but expanding our boxes almost always is a good thing).


I'll give you a quick example that may or may not mean anything 
too you. I've always been right handed and have heavily used it 
for all things so much so that certain things that require the 
left hand usually slow me down considerably. Such as typing. I am 
very fast with my right hand, and my left faster than most 
peoples right hand... but my left hand is not at all at the same 
level as my right. I decided to try to balance this by forcing 
myself to use my left hand for things. I now can use it for many 
different things such as for a mouse and various 
tooling(soldering iron, etc) and it feels comfortable(not quite 
at the same level as the right but it's no longer a determent and 
if I ever lost my right hand it would be quite easy for me to 
adapt). This thing though is much deeper because our brains are 
wired in specific ways to our body. By forcing myself to use my 
left hand I have actually rewired my brain to some degree in a 
positive way(more balanced).

I even use two mice because sometimes it's much quicker to grab 
one with the left hand(which I think is because computer input is 
rather poorly understood. Imagine having a brain harness where 
you just think of what you want and it happens... keyboards and 
mice are just middle men that slow this process down).

Now, 5 years ago I would have never thought about such things 
because I was rather myopic. Thinking that how I thought about 
things was the way they existed. I have learned through that, 
that my thinking is limited by me and has little congruence with 
the real world. The left hand/right hand is just an example. One 
must always try too find the other side to things, it actually 
benefits everything. It's hard to understand this until you have 
done it enough to see how it works(like all things it is 
experiential). But it is very powerful. I'm trying to get you to 
at least take a leap of faith here you should do the same type of 
thing with D[ultimately in everything you do]. At worst you would 
have wasted some of your time, at best you might completely 
change your existence or D's progression. I can't tell you 
specifics in much of a meaningful way since, if you remember, I'm 
talking more in general terms. You have to fill in those specific 
details and then analyze the patterns objectively(taking in to 
account both sides).
Apr 14 2019
prev sibling next sibling parent Chris <wendlec tcd.ie> writes:
On Saturday, 13 April 2019 at 11:20:07 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu 
wrote:

 Closely related to the dearth of great contributors is the 
 implication that we're blocking access of others to high-impact 
 and leadership roles. Let me state for the record that I am not 
 holding onto any seat, that I had to carry some roles simply by 
 default because nobody else would, and that there's many more 
 than two seats to start with, most of which are empty because 
 there's nobody able and willing to take them. The folks whom I 
 invited privately declined, thankfully save for Mike.

 Regarding some posters' discontent over poor performance of the 
 leadership/management. Speaking only of myself, let me state 
 for the record that I hold absolutely no illusion of my 
 performance as a leader in this community. Without being 
 dramatic I reckon I'm unfit for leadership. (Most certainly not 
 for lack of trying, but that doesn't matter.) An A leader 
 should get A+ people to follow. We don't have enough of those.


I said a few months ago that one cannot be leader and developer 
at the same time, because one will inevitably under-perform in 
one of the two departments, or in both. And unless you are 
supernaturally disciplined your personal preferences will creep 
in. The impression I have is that you and Walter are interested 
in one particular aspect that may be interesting and rewarding to 
work on and this aspect becomes top priority - just because you 
*can*. You are the leaders after all, nobody can tell you what to 
do. And the aspect you're interested in may change according to 
the latest discussions in CS, if Go or Rust has it, D needs it 
immediately. How often have I heard sentences like "This is the 
future of programming! This is the way to go!"? But this approach 
has created a solid mess. Half baked features. You use the actual 
D release as a playground instead of having a D Lab or D 
Experimental implementation. With something like that a lot of 
pitfalls could have been avoided and users wouldn't feel like 
guinea pigs.

Often less attractive features are not only neglected but 
regarded as beneath D as they belong to the realms of "mediocre 
coders who use Java, cough cough". But in the real world 
programmers need to get things done and competitors don't sleep. 
If a customer wants an app you cannot tell him / her that the 
language you're using is "too good" for that.

When I look at new languages, what are the features I look for? C 
interop, cross platform and *ease of use*. Many new languages are 
designed with all-round usefulness in mind and the devs try to 
make it as easy as possible for users. This is very important as 
it boosts productivity. Also, programmers just don't want to go 
through all the hassle of million compiler flags, complicated set 
ups etc. Not because they're stupid, but because it's the year 
2019 and what matters is the code and the product. Why would I 
use two stones to light a fire when I can just use a lighter?

One thing regarding the number of downloads. That doesn't tell 
you much. First, I often download languages out of curiosity, but 
do I use them? No. Second, I've often downloaded libs etc. in D 
but once they break, I have to stop using them. I have a 
graveyard on my machine. So the number of downloads does not 
necessarily tell you whether the language / library is actually 
being used.

It's too high a risk to use D in the real world. Imagine how a 
user feels when s/he reads on the forum that there will be yet 
another change that might break old code or that D / Phobos will 
now be rewritten. It's just mad.
Apr 13 2019
prev sibling parent matheus <m g.com> writes:
On Saturday, 13 April 2019 at 11:20:07 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu 
wrote:

 ...Speaking only of myself, let me state for the record that I 
 hold absolutely no illusion of my performance as a leader in 
 this community. Without being dramatic I reckon I'm unfit for 
 leadership. (Most certainly not for lack of trying, but that 
 doesn't matter.) An A leader should get A+ people to follow. We 
 don't have enough of those.


I hope you don't mind saying this here, but one thing I saw for 
awhile was lack of your presence here (Forums), which on the 
other hand I think it changed (for good) over the past month.

To be honest for some time I wondered if you were still related 
to D.

Maybe around this time you were doing great things behind the 
scenes, but I think the top (Walter and You) should be engaged 
with community more and more to show everyone that you're really 
serious.

Like for example Linus Torvalds, even when he was bashing some 
people on LKML he was there for good or bad.

Besides that a few days ago I created a topic thanking this 
community for their work in this language.

Matheus.
Apr 13 2019
prev sibling parent "Nick Sabalausky (Abscissa)" <SeeWebsiteToContactMe semitwist.com> writes:
On 4/13/19 4:28 AM, Tofu Kaitlyn wrote:

 
 I try to! I try to stick up for D every chance I get... but honestly at 
 this point it is starting to get a little embarrassing to do so. I have 
 been using D for 7 years and been trying to tell people how awesome it 
 is... but after so long and still almost nobody is using it... it kinda 
 makes you wonder what's the point, why do I keep trying? Im not really 
 good enough to contribute to the compiler or make some fancy new library 
 or something.. but I love D and want people to love it too, that's why I 
 find it so sad D is in the place it is.
 
 When I started using D I was in my freshman year at university, back 
 then it looked like D had a real chance of becoming a replacement for 
 C++... now I feel like D has almost no chance compared to back then...
 
 It just feels sad


Welcome to the club/support group! You can grab your orientation booklet 
"So you've found yourself loving a fringe language, you're not alone!" 
on the table over there, refreshments are to your right, grab a chair, 
the speaker will start momentarily, afterwords there will be more meet & 
greet so just relax and mingle, yea. Nice ta meetcha!
Apr 18 2019
prev sibling next sibling parent Laeeth Isharc <laeeth kaleidic.io> writes:
On Friday, 12 April 2019 at 07:35:05 UTC, Tofu Kaitlyn wrote:

 
 I put on my resume that I like D and every interview I get 
 asked about it, having to explain what D even is because they 
 have never heard of it. I have never seen a job posting listing 
 D.


We are still hiring programmers - including to write D - in 
London and HK (could do Singapore also).  We pay well and we have 
interesting people. I have said I will pause after ten more 
people, but it's likely to be more than that in the longer run.   
Drop me a line if you like -  laeeth at kaleidic.io

The people that talk about what they are doing in public - it's a 
particular subset and that leads to a distorted perspective 
sometimes.

Have you noticed also that the largest commercial users of D 
don't spend much time in the forums?  My guess is it's not 
because they don't want to, but just because they don't have time.
Apr 14 2019
prev sibling next sibling parent reply Guillaume Lathoud <gsub glat.info> writes:
On Friday, 12 April 2019 at 07:35:05 UTC, Tofu Kaitlyn wrote:

 Sorry for that title, but this is something I have been 
 thinking about for a while...

 I honestly feel like D is a failure. I kinda just wanted to 
 vent about it and see what other people think.

 I have been using D since around 2012 or 2013, instantly fell 
 in love, use to post on the forms a lot under the name Tofu 
 Ninja. I was convinced D was the future but since then I have 
 become disheartened. The biggest thing that makes me feel like 
 this is that in the 7 years I have been using D I literally 
 have never met another programmer IRL who has even heard of it. 
 I put on my resume that I like D and every interview I get 
 asked about it, having to explain what D even is because they 
 have never heard of it. I have never seen a job posting listing 
 D. Never see any projects pop up on /r/programming using D. It 
 feels like to the rest of the programming universe, D doesn't 
 even exist. Sometimes I see threads on reddit like "what's your 
 favorite programming language" and I always look for D but 
 never find it.

 And honestly I don't think that is going to change. I feel like 
 D has failed.

 I duno... what do yall think? Is D going to somehow explode in 
 popularity in 5-10 years? Am I missing some part of the 
 picture? Or am I right and if so what can be done about it?


That lack of popularity, combined with the lack of corporate 
backing, may precisely be what allowed D to exist at all, as it 
is. I personally enjoy D both for paid work and for private 
projects.

Maybe there is a psychological explanation for the debate here - 
please bear with me - just speculating:

  * once the D beginner passed a few obstacles (how do I get a 
decent stack trace?)...

  * ...and enjoyed the full power of D's core features for a few 
years (runtime performance and stability, combined with high 
expressiveness, especially sprinkled with a limited amount of 
CTFE code, here and there)... pure bliss, probably where I am 
at...

  * ...things are going so smooth that tolerance to frustration 
steadily lowers, without one noticing it...

  * ...then the D user hits the "things-that-break-all-the-time", 
mostly more advanced features, and suffers, especially because of 
the blissful experience enjoyed so far, so that he takes the time 
and energy to complain here - actually a positive sign - instead 
of silently leaving the D community.

On the other side, Walter & Andrei point the lack of manpower, 
one cannot just complain and expect something to change. But 
since this type of debate pops up every now and then on the 
forum, there may well be some part of truth in it.

I warn against forking D - the already limited manpower would 
fragment, and most likely the result would be something like the 
LISP family of language, great fundamental expressive power, but 
many groups of people reimplementing everything from scratch, 
each group using its own variant.

My two cents of what could be possible on the short term, with 
limited amount of work:

(1)

Keep complaining! I mean it. But then please take the time to 
split into precise complaints, e.g. for each precise topic, write 
a text precisely describing the complaint on GitHub or similar, 
at best with a few suggestions for remedies, then point at it 
here, and see how many stars it gets.

This requires zero work from D's main contributors, only from the 
complainers, and does not clutter D's issue tracker, and could 
help to see how popular each specific complaint is.

(2)

On the other side it could be worth considering marking 
*language* features as experimental - or if it is already done, 
making it more obvious. When I look in Google for "dlang 
experimental features", I get mostly library stuff, not language 
features:
https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=dlang%20experimental%20features

This would help a lot in the context of long-term paid work, to 
decide whether to use a particular language feature of D, or not.


On the longer term, I see two things that would really help:

  * compilation that takes more advantage of having multiple cores,

  * more recurring sponsoring for the D fondation, without strings 
attached.

I hope this helps,
Guillaume
Apr 14 2019
parent reply Guillaume Piolat <first.last gmail.com> writes:
On Sunday, 14 April 2019 at 10:25:03 UTC, Guillaume Lathoud wrote:

 Maybe there is a psychological explanation for the debate here 
 - please bear with me - just speculating:


It's a lot less complicated than it sounds.

Some average joes (you know who they are) with zero skin in the 
game are given the chance to talk to incredible programmers and 
have them answer in a sort of ego-tripping trance.

But the only way to have them answer is to troll more or less 
subtly, and this behaviour has been going on for years.

The lesson should only be that the leadership **should not have 
to listen to this whole load of non-sense** from anonymous 
low-achievers that blame their tools. And they want things that 
works well to fail with them.

Do you imagine half the users of python-dev publicly berating 
Guido, every day for anything he would says? No, because that 
would be incredibly ridiculous.

Hence why we have so many "helpful", anonymous poster who come 
with bullet lists of things to do, every day. This must stop 
because it is neither helpful nor with good intentions.
Apr 14 2019
next sibling parent reply Chris <wendlec tcd.ie> writes:
On Sunday, 14 April 2019 at 14:41:50 UTC, Guillaume Piolat wrote:

 On Sunday, 14 April 2019 at 10:25:03 UTC, Guillaume Lathoud 
 wrote:

 Maybe there is a psychological explanation for the debate here 
 - please bear with me - just speculating:


 It's a lot less complicated than it sounds.

 Some average joes (you know who they are) with zero skin in the 
 game are given the chance to talk to incredible programmers and 
 have them answer in a sort of ego-tripping trance.

 But the only way to have them answer is to troll more or less 
 subtly, and this behaviour has been going on for years.

 The lesson should only be that the leadership **should not have 
 to listen to this whole load of non-sense** from anonymous 
 low-achievers that blame their tools. And they want things that 
 works well to fail with them.


Ha ha ha! Nicely put. People complain about aloofness and 
arrogance and are called underachievers the leaders shouldn't 
listen to. A beauty! A recipe that has worked well throughout 
history.

Also, these "skin in the game" comments, I used to have a skin, a 
reasonably big one, in the game, but I found out that that's what 
it is for you guys, a game. A game of features, a game of having 
one up on other posters, a game of shifting the blame. All I know 
is that much younger languages already get the basics right or 
try hard to get them right, craft and test features carefully, no 
cowboy work.
Apr 14 2019
parent reply Guillaume Piolat <first.last gmail.com> writes:
On Sunday, 14 April 2019 at 14:59:30 UTC, Chris wrote:

 Ha ha ha! Nicely put. People complain about aloofness and 
 arrogance and are called underachievers the leaders shouldn't 
 listen to. A beauty! A recipe that has worked well throughout 
 history.


Spending dozens of hours spreading negativity on online forums 
(of languages you don't like!) is the definition of lost time.
Apr 14 2019
parent reply Chris <wendlec tcd.ie> writes:
On Sunday, 14 April 2019 at 15:04:39 UTC, Guillaume Piolat wrote:

 On Sunday, 14 April 2019 at 14:59:30 UTC, Chris wrote:


 Spending dozens of hours spreading negativity on online forums 
 (of languages you don't like!) is the definition of lost time.


Don't like? I used to like D very much and still do, it's not 
that I hate it all of a sudden. It's just that I can no longer 
use it due to various restrictions / issues that are down to bad 
management, nothing else. One has to be practical sometimes. If 
anything I'm sad.



 Apr 14 2019



  parent reply Guillaume Piolat <first.last gmail.com>  writes:


On Sunday, 14 April 2019 at 15:12:33 UTC, Chris wrote:

 On Sunday, 14 April 2019 at 15:04:39 UTC, Guillaume Piolat 
 wrote:

 On Sunday, 14 April 2019 at 14:59:30 UTC, Chris wrote:


 Spending dozens of hours spreading negativity on online forums 
 (of languages you don't like!) is the definition of lost time.


 Don't like? I used to like D very much and still do, it's not 
 that I hate it all of a sudden. It's just that I can no longer 
 use it due to various restrictions / issues that are down to 
 bad management, nothing else. One has to be practical 
 sometimes. If anything I'm sad.


Yes, I suspect people here honestly like D, and want it to be 
more perfect, but it has to be reminded time and time again that 
noone knows exactly what should be done - it's a bit like 
predicting the future -, even if we did know, it's volunteer work 
out of love so we cannot have that much direction (much less 
impulsed from the outside).

Of course the community can have blind spots but I don't think 
people would agree what those blind spots are.

"D is failing" has the attribute of a meme, if the number of 
users are great, funding solify, more compilers and platform 
support exist than ever before (without any seasonal hype) then 
there is no real reason to worry about the competition.

Really I've heard it for 14 years, "listen to me because D is 
failing".

OTOH An important metrics of an open-source project is 
_well-being of contributors_, and their numbers, and that is the 
prime attribute to cater for.

Hence why I think we get too much of a good thing (complaint 
directly aimed at important contributors) that worsen the 
situation it is supposed to improve.



 Apr 14 2019



  parent reply IGotD- <nise nise.com>  writes:


On Sunday, 14 April 2019 at 15:24:32 UTC, Guillaume Piolat wrote:


 "D is failing" has the attribute of a meme, if the number of 
 users are great, funding solify, more compilers and platform 
 support exist than ever before (without any seasonal hype) then 
 there is no real reason to worry about the competition.


This thread is kind of a self fulfilling prophecy. For those who 
think D has failed, I suggest you just sit and wait until it 
fails.

Just for comparison, a compiler that has failed (not the 
language) is OpenWatcom. Last update was in 2010. It is dead 
simply because there aren't any contributors and the reason is 
that GCC and Clang is doing a better job. Watcom was a good 
compiler back in its days though.

This is a list of "system programming languages" from Wikipedia.

ESPOL
PL/I
PL360
C
PL/S
BLISS
PL/8
PL-6
SYMPL
C++
Ada
D
Nim
Go
Rust
Swift

Apart from C/C++, which "system programming languages" has 
succeeded here?
ESPOL, PL/I, PL360, PL/S, BLISS, PL/8, PL-6, SYMPL are old and 
was more used when computers smelled brunt.
Ada is kind of successful but used more in military, avionics and 
other critical SW. Very little used outside this domain though, 
which is strange as it is supposed to be a safe language which is 
seems to be the fad of today.
Nim, following is even smaller than D. Good language but rough 
around the edges and not as consistent as it should be.
Rust, is that "modern" runner up and heavily promoted, the 
language that is safe and is going to solve everything. I 
disagree, I think it will not pick up because as soon you try to 
do something more outside the box you will hit a brick wall.
Swift and Go, in my opinion don't belong here as my 
interpretation of a "system programming language" is that it 
shouldn't be dependent on a runtime. D is kind of in this 
category as well but recent betterC development moved it into the 
system programming language category.
There are probably more but these are little used that we don't 
need to mention them here.

When it comes to other programming languages used for 
applications then competitions really stiffens up. In this league 
we have Python which is undoubtedly the current king among other 

really because it is so simple, intuitive, easy to find 
information, massive library support, the complete opposite of 
Rust why I think it is a dead end.

It is clear that C/C++ has a massive code base and users, that's 
why these languages are on top and no other language seem to even 
approach their usage. Many companies are hugely invested in C/C++ 
and that's why they must continue. That in mind it is absolute 
killer feature of D to have a C/C++ FFI that many other languages 
don't have. Nim, has some of this. Rust goes nuts if you talk to 
any other language. How many know that you can mix D with C++?

If you look at the other languages (except C/C++) do you still 
think D has failed? I certainly don't think so, it is right there 
among the competitors.

Some talk about the failure of the management of D, that might be 
so however I don't think it is too late to improve this.



 Apr 14 2019



 next sibling parent reply Ola Fosheim =?UTF-8?B?R3LDuHN0YWQ=?= <ola.fosheim.grostad gmail.com>  writes:


On Sunday, 14 April 2019 at 18:09:16 UTC, IGotD- wrote:

 Rust, is that "modern" runner up and heavily promoted, the 
 language that is safe and is going to solve everything. I 
 disagree, I think it will not pick up because as soon you try 
 to do something more outside the box you will hit a brick wall.


Probably true. Too high level without providing high level 
convenience.



 the success is really because it is so simple, intuitive, easy 
 to find information, massive library support, the complete 
 opposite of Rust why I think it is a dead end.


Python has also improved with (optional) static typing 
capabilities.  I am sure many people run Python on embedded 
devices without telling anyone...


 It is clear that C/C++ has a massive code base and users, 
 that's why these languages are on top and no other language 
 seem to even approach their usage. Many companies are hugely 
 invested in C/C++ and that's why they must continue.


Not only that, but hardware manufacturers provide support for 
them...


 Nim, has some of this.


Compiling to C is a good option, but Walter has always been very 
much against it.


 Rust goes nuts if you talk to any other language.


Really? It interfaces with C doesn't it?


 If you look at the other languages (except C/C++) do you still 
 think D has failed? I certainly don't think so, it is right 
 there among the competitors.


A system level programming language is not a success until at 
least one notable manufacturerer or consulting company supports 
it in some way. IMHO.



 Apr 14 2019



  parent  IGotD- <nise nise.com>  writes:


On Sunday, 14 April 2019 at 19:28:54 UTC, Ola Fosheim Grøstad 
wrote:

 Compiling to C is a good option, but Walter has always been 
 very much against it.


LLVM support is more important I think, which D already has which 
is great. The question is if the project is going to spend 
resources on maintaining the code generator in DMD. My opinion is 
that we could stop maintaining it and go full LLVM.


 Rust goes nuts if you talk to any other language.


 Really? It interfaces with C doesn't it?


Rust supports C interoperability, not C++. There are some third 
party libraries for COM support. As soon you cast to a pointer 
which you often do when calling C interfaces, Rust looses track 
of the memory and you need to manage it yourself. What you can is 
to transmute back again after the call. Strange design decision 
as most are of const void* type or similar doing nothing to the 
memory.



 Apr 14 2019



prev sibling  parent reply Andrei Alexandrescu <SeeWebsiteForEmail erdani.org>  writes:


On 4/14/19 2:09 PM, IGotD- wrote:

 That in mind it is absolute killer feature of D to have a C/C++ FFI that 
 many other languages don't have.


I agree, and sadly it's not a popular enough opinion. A couple of years 
ago I called on the phone two of our most promising contributors who 
asked what they should help with, and pitched the core.stdcpp project. 
They both declined it. No hard feelings - we're grateful enough they 
chose to do other things within the D milieu -, but it goes to show 
that planning and "finding a guy" and telling people what to work on is 
easier said than done, at least for me. I'm glad Manu has taken point on 
that, wished he got wider help.



 Apr 14 2019



 next sibling parent  Suleyman <sahmi.soulaimane gmail.com>  writes:


On Sunday, 14 April 2019 at 20:48:44 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu 
wrote:

 but it goes to show that planning and "finding a guy" and 
 telling people what to work on is easier said than done, at 
 least for me.


People have to move on this is life but projects should persist. 
How about making a list of projects on github with milestones and 
task lists and dedicate a forum section or a pinned thread to 
contributors where you regularly update which projects are 
progressing and where you need extra workers or funding also you 
could prioritize projects using polls from the community you can 
also make a buglist project and prioritize the most wanted bugs. 
I myself am a programmer I'm not experienced in management but it 
would make the job of a passing by contributor much easier if 
things are working in harmony and it would also make the users 
happy if they see the projects they voted for are in progress.



 Apr 14 2019



prev sibling  parent reply Dibyendu Majumdar <d.majumdar gmail.com>  writes:


On Sunday, 14 April 2019 at 20:48:44 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu 
wrote:

 On 4/14/19 2:09 PM, IGotD- wrote:

 That in mind it is absolute killer feature of D to have a 
 C/C++ FFI that many other languages don't have.


 I agree, and sadly it's not a popular enough opinion. A couple 
 of years ago I called on the phone two of our most promising 
 contributors who asked what they should help with, and pitched 
 the core.stdcpp project. They both declined it. No hard 
 feelings - we're grateful enough they chose to do other things 
 within the D milieu -, but it goes to show that planning and 
 "finding a guy" and telling people what to work on is easier 
 said than done, at least for me. I'm glad Manu has taken point 
 on that, wished he got wider help.


I have considered using D for a long time, and yet haven't. The 
reasons are maybe applicable to many. Ultimately it boils down to 
what you need to do to make a living. If you had tons of spare 
money you can probably afford to work on something you like or 
think is good; but if you need to earn then you have to go where 
the demand is.

The tooling (editor and debugger) is important too for anyone 
that wants to get the job done or suggest D to an organisation. 
Here is a proposal:

Freeze D development for 2 years and redirect all energy to 
tooling.



 Apr 15 2019



 next sibling parent reply Walter Bright <newshound2 digitalmars.com>  writes:


On 4/15/2019 3:09 AM, Dibyendu Majumdar wrote:

 Ultimately it boils down to what you need to do to 
 make a living. If you had tons of spare money you can probably afford to work
on 
 something you like or think is good; but if you need to earn then you have to
go 
 where the demand is.


Laeeth Isharc just posted another list of job openings for D programmers at his 
company:

https://digitalmars.com/d/archives/digitalmars/D/Has_D_failed_unpopular_opinion_but_I_think_yes_325826.html#N325995



 Apr 15 2019



  parent reply Dibyendu Majumdar <d.majumdar gmail.com>  writes:


On Monday, 15 April 2019 at 10:43:12 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:

 On 4/15/2019 3:09 AM, Dibyendu Majumdar wrote:

 Ultimately it boils down to what you need to do to make a 
 living. If you had tons of spare money you can probably afford 
 to work on something you like or think is good; but if you 
 need to earn then you have to go where the demand is.


 Laeeth Isharc just posted another list of job openings for D 
 programmers at his company:

 https://digitalmars.com/d/archives/digitalmars/D/Has_D_failed_unpopular_opinion_but_I_think_yes_325826.html#N325995


Sure but consider this:

Firstly a handful of jobs posted by one company isn't going to 
sway developers.

Secondly it takes time and effort to master a language such as D. 

to let them learn D on the job, how are you going to sway 
programmers to invest the time in D when they could be improving 
their skills in other languages that have much more demand?



 Apr 15 2019



 next sibling parent reply Walter Bright <newshound2 digitalmars.com>  writes:


On 4/15/2019 6:41 AM, Dibyendu Majumdar wrote:

 Firstly a handful of jobs posted by one company isn't going to sway developers.


It sounded like you personally were looking for a D job. Besides, since there 
are outstanding D job openings, arguing one can't get a job with D doesn't
work. 
Companies are posting here *looking* for D programmers.

Quite a lot of D programmers have been able to get D jobs. Attending DConf is a 
great way to network with companies looking to hire (as is typical with focused 
tech conferences).



 Apr 15 2019



 next sibling parent  watcher <watcher aol.com>  writes:


On Monday, 15 April 2019 at 20:07:52 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:

 On 4/15/2019 6:41 AM, Dibyendu Majumdar wrote:

 Firstly a handful of jobs posted by one company isn't going to 
 sway developers.


 It sounded like you personally were looking for a D job. 
 Besides, since there are outstanding D job openings, arguing 
 one can't get a job with D doesn't work. Companies are posting 
 here *looking* for D programmers.

 Quite a lot of D programmers have been able to get D jobs. 
 Attending DConf is a great way to network with companies 
 looking to hire (as is typical with focused tech conferences).


i am glad that you get away with a little bit of IntelliJ and 
some sort of pseudo job applications.

Please think about all the problems brought forth and tooling.



 Apr 15 2019



prev sibling  parent  Dibyendu Majumdar <d.majumdar gmail.com>  writes:


On Monday, 15 April 2019 at 20:07:52 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:

 On 4/15/2019 6:41 AM, Dibyendu Majumdar wrote:

 Firstly a handful of jobs posted by one company isn't going to 
 sway developers.


 It sounded like you personally were looking for a D job.


No, sorry for giving the wrong impression.


 Besides, since there are outstanding D job openings, arguing 
 one can't get a job with D doesn't work. Companies are posting 
 here *looking* for D programmers.


I am not sure I was arguing anything.


 Quite a lot of D programmers have been able to get D jobs. 
 Attending DConf is a great way to network with companies 
 looking to hire (as is typical with focused tech conferences).


Looks like thing are very bright for D then!



 Apr 15 2019



prev sibling next sibling parent  Joseph Rushton Wakeling <joseph.wakeling webdrake.net>  writes:


On Monday, 15 April 2019 at 13:41:46 UTC, Dibyendu Majumdar wrote:

 Secondly it takes time and effort to master a language such as 

 willing to let them learn D on the job


This is exactly what Sociomantic did.  Time to learn and be 
productive in the language was never really an issue for anyone 
-- in the end we came to the conclusion that looking for domain 
expertise (e.g. network programming, machine learning, etc. etc.) 
was much more important than specific language backgrounds.

Sure, it can take time to master the finer nuances or more niche 
language features, but D is super easy to adapt to in my 
experience.

If anything, the harder adaptation was for those of us who _did_ 
arrive with a D background, coming in all guns blazing wanting to 
write really cool sophisticated D code and having to learn that, 
where really robust production code is concerned, sometimes a 
less sophisticated approach is better ... ;-)



 Apr 20 2019



prev sibling  parent reply Laeeth Isharc <laeeth kaleidic.io>  writes:


On Monday, 15 April 2019 at 13:41:46 UTC, Dibyendu Majumdar wrote:

 On Monday, 15 April 2019 at 10:43:12 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:

 On 4/15/2019 3:09 AM, Dibyendu Majumdar wrote:

 Ultimately it boils down to what you need to do to make a 
 living. If you had tons of spare money you can probably 
 afford to work on something you like or think is good; but if 
 you need to earn then you have to go where the demand is.


 Laeeth Isharc just posted another list of job openings for D 
 programmers at his company:

 https://digitalmars.com/d/archives/digitalmars/D/Has_D_failed_unpopular_opinion_but_I_think_yes_325826.html#N325995


 Sure but consider this:

 Firstly a handful of jobs posted by one company isn't going to 
 sway developers.

 Secondly it takes time and effort to master a language such as 

 willing to let them learn D on the job, how are you going to 
 sway programmers to invest the time in D when they could be 
 improving their skills in other languages that have much more 
 demand?


Experienced C++ programmers don't seem to be deterred by the
prospect of having to learn D.  In fact they seem to see it as
a hard-to-manufacture positive signal about the culture.

I received an email from one person peripherally involved in the
community.  I asked his compensation expectations and he said X,
but I can negotiate if you're really using D.  He didn't even want
to write D at work mostly but he saw it as a positive signal.

I think the cost of learning D is small in relation to the cost of
having to learn the context and codebase, certainly for a younger
company.  For a large firm where everything is in place and it's
mostly maintenance possibly it would be different.

There aren't so many firms I am aware of with a similar approach
in finance; being open to unconventional approaches like using an
emerging language is a reflection of that, but really whether
someone is a good fit in other respects but just is put off by
some technical choices - I have not encountered that so far and
find it quite difficult to imagine.



 Apr 20 2019



  parent reply Dibyendu Majumdar <d.majumdar gmail.com>  writes:


On Saturday, 20 April 2019 at 14:36:36 UTC, Laeeth Isharc wrote:

 Experienced C++ programmers don't seem to be deterred by the
 prospect of having to learn D.  In fact they seem to see it as
 a hard-to-manufacture positive signal about the culture.

 I received an email from one person peripherally involved in the
 community.  I asked his compensation expectations and he said X,
 but I can negotiate if you're really using D.  He didn't even 
 want
 to write D at work mostly but he saw it as a positive signal.

 I think the cost of learning D is small in relation to the cost 
 of
 having to learn the context and codebase, certainly for a 
 younger
 company.  For a large firm where everything is in place and it's
 mostly maintenance possibly it would be different.

 There aren't so many firms I am aware of with a similar approach
 in finance; being open to unconventional approaches like using 
 an
 emerging language is a reflection of that, but really whether
 someone is a good fit in other respects but just is put off by
 some technical choices - I have not encountered that so far and
 find it quite difficult to imagine.


Hi, I was referring to the fact that there is very little / no 
demand for D programmers generally so it doesn't help attract 
programmers who might be better off learning Go, Rust, Swift, 
Kotlin etc.

My own experience was that I chose C++ over D three years ago in 
a project where D would have been nice to use, and I have already 
stated the reasons in a previous post 
[https://forum.dlang.org/post/crwhrrbdpaydnqfmdzfp forum.dlang.org].



 Apr 21 2019



  parent  Andre Pany <andre s-e-a-p.de>  writes:


On Sunday, 21 April 2019 at 16:44:03 UTC, Dibyendu Majumdar wrote:

 On Saturday, 20 April 2019 at 14:36:36 UTC, Laeeth Isharc wrote:

 Experienced C++ programmers don't seem to be deterred by the
 prospect of having to learn D.  In fact they seem to see it as
 a hard-to-manufacture positive signal about the culture.

 I received an email from one person peripherally involved in 
 the
 community.  I asked his compensation expectations and he said 
 X,
 but I can negotiate if you're really using D.  He didn't even 
 want
 to write D at work mostly but he saw it as a positive signal.

 I think the cost of learning D is small in relation to the 
 cost of
 having to learn the context and codebase, certainly for a 
 younger
 company.  For a large firm where everything is in place and 
 it's
 mostly maintenance possibly it would be different.

 There aren't so many firms I am aware of with a similar 
 approach
 in finance; being open to unconventional approaches like using 
 an
 emerging language is a reflection of that, but really whether
 someone is a good fit in other respects but just is put off by
 some technical choices - I have not encountered that so far and
 find it quite difficult to imagine.


 Hi, I was referring to the fact that there is very little / no 
 demand for D programmers generally so it doesn't help attract 
 programmers who might be better off learning Go, Rust, Swift, 
 Kotlin etc.

 My own experience was that I chose C++ over D three years ago 
 in a project where D would have been nice to use, and I have 
 already stated the reasons in a previous post 
 [https://forum.dlang.org/post/crwhrrbdpaydnqfmdzfp forum.dlang.org].


You are right, the demand for D developers is low but almost all 
companies demand high quality, maintainable software, written in 
a reasonable time.

D allows me to write exactly these kind of software in the first 
iteration. It is incredibly how fast I can create sophisticated 
software in D comparing to the well known popular languages.

Using these other languages it really feels like working against 
the language, while D supports me to express exactly the ideas in 
my mind.

Yes, there is definitely some starting investment, I know it. But 
that is nothing in comparison to using every day a language which 
slows you down.

I use Intellij with the D plugin. Code completion is done by DLS. 
Works great.

Kind regards
Andre



 Apr 21 2019



prev sibling  parent reply Andre Pany <andre s-e-a-p.de>  writes:


On Monday, 15 April 2019 at 10:09:40 UTC, Dibyendu Majumdar wrote:

 On Sunday, 14 April 2019 at 20:48:44 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu 
 wrote:

 On 4/14/19 2:09 PM, IGotD- wrote:

 That in mind it is absolute killer feature of D to have a 
 C/C++ FFI that many other languages don't have.


 I agree, and sadly it's not a popular enough opinion. A couple 
 of years ago I called on the phone two of our most promising 
 contributors who asked what they should help with, and pitched 
 the core.stdcpp project. They both declined it. No hard 
 feelings - we're grateful enough they chose to do other things 
 within the D milieu -, but it goes to show that planning and 
 "finding a guy" and telling people what to work on is easier 
 said than done, at least for me. I'm glad Manu has taken point 
 on that, wished he got wider help.


 I have considered using D for a long time, and yet haven't. The 
 reasons are maybe applicable to many. Ultimately it boils down 
 to what you need to do to make a living. If you had tons of 
 spare money you can probably afford to work on something you 
 like or think is good; but if you need to earn then you have to 
 go where the demand is.

 The tooling (editor and debugger) is important too for anyone 
 that wants to get the job done or suggest D to an organisation. 
 Here is a proposal:

 Freeze D development for 2 years and redirect all energy to 
 tooling.


Could you please tell what do you miss from the tooling? For me 
Intellij D plugin combined with language server works like a 
charme. Code completion, linter, formatting, everything works 
fine  Dub is working perfectly for all my use cases. I was never 
in need to really start the debugger but debugging is working to 
some extend in windows and is working fine on linux. I am even 
able to develop applications in windows and using WSL directly 
compile and debug them on linux.

Kind regards
Andre



 Apr 15 2019



 next sibling parent reply JN <666total wp.pl>  writes:


On Monday, 15 April 2019 at 10:47:39 UTC, Andre Pany wrote:

 Could you please tell what do you miss from the tooling? For me 
 Intellij D plugin combined with language server works like a 
 charme. Code completion, linter, formatting, everything works 
 fine  Dub is working perfectly for all my use cases. I was 
 never in need to really start the debugger but debugging is 
 working to some extend in windows and is working fine on linux. 
 I am even able to develop applications in windows and using WSL 
 directly compile and debug them on linux.

 Kind regards
 Andre


Last time I tried IntelliJ D plugin, I liked the way it looks and 
works, but there was some glitch that caused the IDE to freeze 
for 5-6 seconds every time I typed something :(



 Apr 15 2019



  parent  Andre Pany <andre s-e-a-p.de>  writes:


On Monday, 15 April 2019 at 11:34:34 UTC, JN wrote:

 On Monday, 15 April 2019 at 10:47:39 UTC, Andre Pany wrote:

 Could you please tell what do you miss from the tooling? For 
 me Intellij D plugin combined with language server works like 
 a charme. Code completion, linter, formatting, everything 
 works fine  Dub is working perfectly for all my use cases. I 
 was never in need to really start the debugger but debugging 
 is working to some extend in windows and is working fine on 
 linux. I am even able to develop applications in windows and 
 using WSL directly compile and debug them on linux.

 Kind regards
 Andre


 Last time I tried IntelliJ D plugin, I liked the way it looks 
 and works, but there was some glitch that caused the IDE to 
 freeze for 5-6 seconds every time I typed something :(


This issue is avoided by using language server DLS for code 
completion.

See end of this site intellij-dlanguage.github.io

Kind regards
Andre



 Apr 15 2019



prev sibling  parent reply Dibyendu Majumdar <d.majumdar gmail.com>  writes:


On Monday, 15 April 2019 at 10:47:39 UTC, Andre Pany wrote:

 On Monday, 15 April 2019 at 10:09:40 UTC, Dibyendu Majumdar 
 wrote:

 On Sunday, 14 April 2019 at 20:48:44 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu 
 wrote:

 On 4/14/19 2:09 PM, IGotD- wrote:

 That in mind it is absolute killer feature of D to have a 
 C/C++ FFI that many other languages don't have.


 I agree, and sadly it's not a popular enough opinion. A 
 couple of years ago I called on the phone two of our most 
 promising contributors who asked what they should help with, 
 and pitched the core.stdcpp project. They both declined it. 
 No hard feelings - we're grateful enough they chose to do 
 other things within the D milieu -, but it goes to show that 
 planning and "finding a guy" and telling people what to work 
 on is easier said than done, at least for me. I'm glad Manu 
 has taken point on that, wished he got wider help.


 I have considered using D for a long time, and yet haven't. 
 The reasons are maybe applicable to many. Ultimately it boils 
 down to what you need to do to make a living. If you had tons 
 of spare money you can probably afford to work on something 
 you like or think is good; but if you need to earn then you 
 have to go where the demand is.

 The tooling (editor and debugger) is important too for anyone 
 that wants to get the job done or suggest D to an 
 organisation. Here is a proposal:

 Freeze D development for 2 years and redirect all energy to 
 tooling.


 Could you please tell what do you miss from the tooling? For me 
 Intellij D plugin combined with language server works like a 
 charme. Code completion, linter, formatting, everything works 
 fine  Dub is working perfectly for all my use cases. I was 
 never in need to really start the debugger but debugging is 
 working to some extend in windows and is working fine on linux. 
 I am even able to develop applications in windows and using WSL 
 directly compile and debug them on linux.


I haven't tried recently but every time I tried in the past there 
were issues... developers / companies expect tooling to 'just 
work' so that they can get the job done.

I do think tinkering endlessly with D / and its libraries is the 
wrong focus. Instead core developers should select one set of 
tooling and work on making them usable; D is already good enough.

It is no good saying to programmers that okay step up and fix the 
tooling yourself. No one (unless they have spare cash to burn) 
can afford to fix the tooling and then also do their jobs. That's 
the reality whether anyone likes it or not.



 Apr 15 2019



  parent  Andre Pany <andre s-e-a-p.de>  writes:


On Monday, 15 April 2019 at 13:52:53 UTC, Dibyendu Majumdar wrote:

 On Monday, 15 April 2019 at 10:47:39 UTC, Andre Pany wrote:

 On Monday, 15 April 2019 at 10:09:40 UTC, Dibyendu Majumdar 
 wrote:

 On Sunday, 14 April 2019 at 20:48:44 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu 
 wrote:

 [...]


 I have considered using D for a long time, and yet haven't. 
 The reasons are maybe applicable to many. Ultimately it boils 
 down to what you need to do to make a living. If you had tons 
 of spare money you can probably afford to work on something 
 you like or think is good; but if you need to earn then you 
 have to go where the demand is.

 The tooling (editor and debugger) is important too for anyone 
 that wants to get the job done or suggest D to an 
 organisation. Here is a proposal:

 Freeze D development for 2 years and redirect all energy to 
 tooling.


 Could you please tell what do you miss from the tooling? For 
 me Intellij D plugin combined with language server works like 
 a charme. Code completion, linter, formatting, everything 
 works fine  Dub is working perfectly for all my use cases. I 
 was never in need to really start the debugger but debugging 
 is working to some extend in windows and is working fine on 
 linux. I am even able to develop applications in windows and 
 using WSL directly compile and debug them on linux.


 I haven't tried recently but every time I tried in the past 
 there were issues... developers / companies expect tooling to 
 'just work' so that they can get the job done.

 I do think tinkering endlessly with D / and its libraries is 
 the wrong focus. Instead core developers should select one set 
 of tooling and work on making them usable; D is already good 
 enough.

 It is no good saying to programmers that okay step up and fix 
 the tooling yourself. No one (unless they have spare cash to 
 burn) can afford to fix the tooling and then also do their 
 jobs. That's the reality whether anyone likes it or not.


One set of tooling will not work. I highly valuate that Rainer is 
working on Visual Studio plugin and Webfreak as far as I know is 
working on Visual Studio Code. But both tools I can't use because 
I dislike how MS designed the development workflow.  Each 
developer has his/her preference.

I used my spare time to improve the tools I use at work (dub, 
IntelliJ D plugin). It worths the effort, it makes you happy and 
the community.

Kind regards
Andre



 Apr 15 2019



prev sibling next sibling parent reply Tourist <gravatar gravatar.com>  writes:


On Sunday, 14 April 2019 at 14:41:50 UTC, Guillaume Piolat wrote:

 On Sunday, 14 April 2019 at 10:25:03 UTC, Guillaume Lathoud 
 wrote:

 Maybe there is a psychological explanation for the debate here 
 - please bear with me - just speculating:


 It's a lot less complicated than it sounds.

 Some average joes (you know who they are) with zero skin in the 
 game are given the chance to talk to incredible programmers and 
 have them answer in a sort of ego-tripping trance.

 But the only way to have them answer is to troll more or less 
 subtly, and this behaviour has been going on for years.

 The lesson should only be that the leadership **should not have 
 to listen to this whole load of non-sense** from anonymous 
 low-achievers that blame their tools. And they want things that 
 works well to fail with them.

 Do you imagine half the users of python-dev publicly berating 
 Guido, every day for anything he would says? No, because that 
 would be incredibly ridiculous.

 Hence why we have so many "helpful", anonymous poster who come 
 with bullet lists of things to do, every day. This must stop 
 because it is neither helpful nor with good intentions.


As an occasional visitor here I tend to agree. The last batch of 
leadership tips comes from an outsider who preaches things done 
for years. He gives pages of advice on management but admits he 
is "not good at project management". It's just a "feeling" he 
has. He will contribute nothing and will be gone after having his 
ego-trip orgasm.

Look for good people and make a plan, what a new idea. They've 
been looking for people, recall Andrei's lieutenants and czars 
that never showed up. They've made plans, visions are since 2015:
https://wiki.dlang.org/Vision/2015H1
Looking at all docs it seems nobody worked on what's there and 
I'm not surprised they stopped putting them out.



 Apr 14 2019



  parent  Guillaume Piolat <first.last gmail.com>  writes:


On Sunday, 14 April 2019 at 15:54:58 UTC, Tourist wrote:

 As an occasional visitor here I tend to agree.


I've described people like you exactly:
- trying to make things fail
- anonymous
- no skin in the game
- calling people names 
https://forum.dlang.org/post/wdywyksoobcbqdbbnbht forum.dlang.org
   
https://forum.dlang.org/post/okyuviojboxywxqmsvfy forum.dlang.org

Why are you doing this?



 Apr 14 2019



prev sibling next sibling parent  Guillaume Piolat <first.last gmail.com>  writes:


On Sunday, 14 April 2019 at 14:41:50 UTC, Guillaume Piolat wrote:

 Do you imagine half the users of python-dev publicly berating 
 Guido, every day for anything he would says? No, because that 
 would be incredibly ridiculous.



Actually it did happen, and was called out immediately:
https://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2003-February/033056.html



 Apr 14 2019



prev sibling  parent  Laeeth Isharc <laeeth kaleidic.io>  writes:


On Sunday, 14 April 2019 at 14:41:50 UTC, Guillaume Piolat wrote:

 On Sunday, 14 April 2019 at 10:25:03 UTC, Guillaume Lathoud 
 wrote:

 Maybe there is a psychological explanation for the debate here 
 - please bear with me - just speculating:


 It's a lot less complicated than it sounds.

 Some average joes (you know who they are) with zero skin in the 
 game are given the chance to talk to incredible programmers and 
 have them answer in a sort of ego-tripping trance.

 But the only way to have them answer is to troll more or less 
 subtly, and this behaviour has been going on for years.

 The lesson should only be that the leadership **should not have 
 to listen to this whole load of non-sense** from anonymous 
 low-achievers that blame their tools. And they want things that 
 works well to fail with them.

 Do you imagine half the users of python-dev publicly berating 
 Guido, every day for anything he would says? No, because that 
 would be incredibly ridiculous.

 Hence why we have so many "helpful", anonymous poster who come 
 with bullet lists of things to do, every day. This must stop 
 because it is neither helpful nor with good intentions.


This rings true to me, although I would have put it more gently.

The better you do, the harder it is to get good feedback.  However
part of the reason for that is that there is a lot of 'free 
advice'
from people who don't live or die by the consequences of taking 
such
advice.

One way to tell the difference is to ask if the giver of advice 
acts
like someone who sincerely wants to achieve the same things you 
do and
has capabilities that lead them to having insight and has taken 
the
trouble to inform themselves about the situation.  Another 
important
question is do they at least in some way that's reasonable in 
relation
to the constraints of their situation do a bit towards furthering 
the
prospects of D.

It's a big big world and it's not going to work if one tries to 
make
everyone happy.  The beauty of voluntary co-operation is you 
don't need
to do that - just having a high appeal to a small proportion of 
the
population is enough.  Peter Thiel talks about this in Zero To 
One -
it's much better to have a monopoly, even if in relation to a 
small
market, that's one you earn and continue to earn every day than 
trying
to have a small share of an enormous market.  If that's the 
implicit
approach being followed then reducing your appeal to your core 
market
by trying to increase your appeal to everyone else may not be as
sensible as it might initially seem - at least one needs to think 
it
through a bit.

If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.

In an open-source community, it's not possible to order people to 
work
on things they don't want to.  It's not necessarily even true of 
an
enterprise that you can order independent-minded people to work on
what doesn't appeal to them.

It's best to recognise reality if one wishes to be effective.  
That
doesn't mean that it won't be possible to accomplish things that 
don't
initially appeal to people for intrinsic reasons - just that you 
might
have to approach things in a different way.

The need for programming is - perhaps sadly - increasing in the 
world. I
say sadly because I'd be quite happy if I could just focus on 
things that
I myself find intrinsically interesting, and yet because software 
is
indeed eating the world, one doesn't in some situations have a 
choice.
Furthermore the need for performant code that permits control 
over memory
layout and yet still allows one to be reasonably productive and 
to morph
the code from a prototype to production code - the mysterious 
quality of
plasticity - that need is not diminishing.

Languages are not in a zero-sum fight to the death, not at all.  
There's
plenty of room for D to continue to succeed.  It's nice to know 
what people
think should be changed to improve things.  Perhaps Facebook are 
right that
working code (or whatever the relevant work product might be) 
wins arguments
much more effectively than words.  I wonder if channeling some of 
this
dissatisfaction in generative and creative directions wouldn't be 
better for
everyone.



 Apr 20 2019



prev sibling next sibling parent reply Aldo <aldocd4 outlook.com>  writes:


On Friday, 12 April 2019 at 07:35:05 UTC, Tofu Kaitlyn wrote:

 [...]

 I duno... what do yall think? Is D going to somehow explode in 
 popularity in 5-10 years? Am I missing some part of the 
 picture? Or am I right and if so what can be done about it?


Hello,

I'm using D since 2015. I will try to share my view of it as a 
simple "back-end web dev". For me, D has not failed at all. It 
improved a lot since my first hello world, but it still need a 
lot of work.

I remember using it before 2015, it was just a total mess. Today 
i'm happy to use it everyday at home and I try to push it at work 
(but it's not easy when everybody think Go or Rust are the best 
incoming programming languages...).

What I like about D:

- Easy and fast installation
- Fast compilation
- Beautiful syntax
- Base performance is great (dmd with gc) when you don't work on 
AAA games
- DUB works nicely for me

What I dont like about D:

[Esthetical part]
- Keyword naming. We really need to do something about small 
things like that. I don't like the fact that we have a " " before 
a keyword and sometimes not.

- File naming. Why are we using filenameslikethat.d ? It's just 
ugly. Just go with something as simple as file_name.d. Again I 
understand that for you it's not a real problem and it's not top 
priority(and you are right), but trust me it just seems ugly when 
you come from another language.

[Others]
- Every time I try to read the source code of the std on github, 
I close the browser tab after 5 seconds. I'm trying to find the 
body of a simple function, and I need to find it and try to 
understand how it works in a +10000 lines source file.

I think the best improvement would be to separate tests and the 
real code. Sometimes I check the source code of the Go std, and 
honestly it's just 200x cleaner. It's so easy to read even for 
users like me. In D we have 50 lines of doc, 10 lines of code, 50 
lines of tests. It's too much and people are doing the same 
mistake in their projects.

- Static lib. Always a linker error with coff/omf (I don't even 
know what it means) and a conversion is needed. I always give up 
and go with derelict.

- When I try to build a simple hello world with vibe, I have this 
fuc**** linker error that pop out on windows. This one is really 
unacceptable, I don't know how to fix this myself guys, but i'm 
sure one of you can. Just do it please. How are we supposed to 
spread Dlang when new users have to deal with things like that 
for a simple hello world ?



I still believe in this language and will continue to use it. But 
we really need to keep improving it (and I will try to help as 
well even if I don't have the required skills). My goal is to 
release a game with it on steam platform, and I think it's 
totally doable today.

Thanks for all the efforts you put in the language.



 Apr 15 2019



  parent  Timon Gehr <timon.gehr gmx.ch>  writes:


On 15.04.19 11:49, Aldo wrote:

 
 [Others]
 - Every time I try to read the source code of the std on github, I close 
 the browser tab after 5 seconds. I'm trying to find the body of a simple 
 function, and I need to find it and try to understand how it works in a 
 +10000 lines source file.


Maybe modules should be smaller, but manually finding symbols really is 
not why. Text search works fine. In fact, some modules have been split 
now and it has actually slightly increased the inconvenience of manually 
locating a symbol, because unless you know what went where, you need to 
grep in multiple files instead of just opening one of the files and 
doing a search there.



 Apr 15 2019



prev sibling next sibling parent  "Nick Sabalausky (Abscissa)" <SeeWebsiteToContactMe semitwist.com>  writes:


On 4/12/19 3:35 AM, Tofu Kaitlyn wrote:

 
 I put on my resume that I like D and every 
 interview I get asked about it, having to explain what D even is because 
 they have never heard of it. I have never seen a job posting listing D. 


FWIW, compared to programmers, software managers and *especially* HR 
folk tend to be behind the curve on knowing what's out there, and the 
general state of things.

I'm definitely with you on the frustration, but here's a couple 
perspectives that I try to remind myself which might help (maybe they'll 
help you more than they help me! ;) ):

1. *Every* programmer knows one or a few of the "popular" languages: 

languages have limitations D lacks. Knowing and liking D gives you a 
secret ace up your sleeve, an advantage over others, anytime the brass 
needs something done and doesn't care how. Ok, so, what, every hiring 
manager asks you about it? That's a *GOOD* potential for you - it means 
you have the potential to offer them something that clearly nobody else 
has ever offered them, and they haven't even dreampt of finding.

2. If you can convince them that you *do* know the main 
common-denominator garbage language(s) they use and you're happy with it 
and  genuinely willing to use it (that sort of "putting up with crap" is 
what separates bringing in $$$ from doing volunteer OSS work), then 
you're almost there...At that point, all you have to do is keep in mind: 
Your passion and knowledge and (this is key here) **ability to 
evangelize and clearly articulate** the details/differences/benefits of 
an ADDITIONAL language that **even their** pointy-haired brains have 
never even heard of(!!), yet could potentially benefit them (or better 
yet, give them a hidden advantage...mua ha ha ha ha)...Well, at that 
point, if you've sold it right and they're not too terribly dense (which 
would be a bad sign for your future happiness there anyway), then 
congratulations, you've just helped sell yourself to them and 
distinguished yourself from the unwashed masses.

Granted, this is all just theory, I can't guarantee success from it, 
and...frankly I've never personally tried. Personally, the route I took 
instead was to just supplement my freelance income by picking up a part 
time job doing shelving at the local public library. They absolutely 
*love* that I can alphabetize and do basic sorting without fucking it 
all up (I don't think they know it, but my experience with algorithms 
and optimization helps me here - and I was shit at alphabetical order 
until I started working there, had to constantly go though the alphabet 
song in my head for the first year or two). But then *I* love that I get 
something actually reliable (however small it may be) as an income while 
getting out of the house/cubicle/office, around people occasionally 
practicing basic human interaction, and still being useful while getting 
to shut most of my brain off. So to each their own, hope you find your 
niche! And this support group will continue to meet every Thursday 
evening, bring a friend, refreshments will be served. ;)



 Apr 18 2019



prev sibling next sibling parent reply burjui <bytefu gmail.com>  writes:


The general feeling I get about D management is that it has 
brains, but lacks balls and focus. The typical response to that 
is: "Yeah, well, we are a community-driven project, we cannot 
order anyone. We are not obliged to do anything particular, so we 
do what we feel like doing. So if you want something particular 
to be done, go and do it yourself."

Surely, what you, the "community", mean is "actions speak louder 
than words". What you forget is that it also applies to you. Your 
actions are all over the place. I am especially disappointed with 
Walter. He might not like that, but as the creator of D and, 
admittedly, the biggest compiler expert here, is considered the 
king of D, with ultimate authority, power and knowledge. 
Ultimately, D is his child, and he bears responsibility for its 
future. But he wants to abstract himself from that and be seen as 
just a part of the community, not as a figure of authority. At 
the same time, he has strong opinions on certain topics (bugzilla 
issue 2043 comes to mind) and it does not seem that it would be 
productive to even create PRs for those, as they are not likely 
to be accepted. That is very convenient: "I don't want to be in 
charge and do what is needed rather than what I like 
(refactoring, C++ interop, custom codegen that nobody really 
needs because LLVM and whatnot), but I also know better what 
should and what should not be done with the language". It is too 
late, though, many people have invested too much in D.

The overall impression I get from D community efforts can be 
visualised as patchwork: you can patch as many holes as you want, 
but it does not change the fact that the fabric itself is weak. 
There should not be 3 different compilers, all managed by 
different parts of the community. Soundness bugs should be fixed 
first and foremost. There should be clear idea out there of what 
D should be: not a bunch of cool half-baked features merged into 
a language, but a solid language with concrete goals.

People here do not like to hear about Rust and often throw cheap 
jabs at it (like, ooh, ugly syntax and lifetimes), but it's a 
perfect example of what a language should be: a solid foundation, 
not a mine field with candy trees. Yeah, it has corporation 
support, but it's not the key to its success. The key is 
principles and determination. These guys are focused, concerned 
about language soundness and are willing to do research and hard 
work to ensure, that the sole Rust compiler is as good, as it can 
be practically. The only times rustc crashed or produced bad code 
were when I was using nightly. And it still happened less 
frequently than with stable DMD. Obviously, Rust's support for 
CTFE is still limited and const generics are not there yet, but I 
can live without them for now, because the lion's share of code 
does not benefit from them. What matters is what they have works 
great. Oh, and it also works on Cortex-M3 like a charm, I wish I 
could say that about D.

I have been a D fan for more than 10 years, but I had to stop 
using it. And if it sounds like I am talking about drugs, it 
should be. Now, looking back, I cannot justify all the time and 
effort I spent on it.



 Apr 19 2019



 next sibling parent  IGotD- <nise nise.com>  writes:


On Friday, 19 April 2019 at 14:28:26 UTC, burjui wrote:


 People here do not like to hear about Rust and often throw 
 cheap jabs at it (like, ooh, ugly syntax and lifetimes), but 
 it's a perfect example of what a language should be: a solid 
 foundation, not a mine field with candy trees. Yeah, it has 
 corporation support, but it's not the key to its success. The 
 key is principles and determination. These guys are focused, 
 concerned about language soundness and are willing to do 
 research and hard work to ensure, that the sole Rust compiler 
 is as good, as it can be practically.


I think the reason for the success of Rust if you want to call it 
that, is that it was made for something. Rust was made for a 
large project in order to reduce memory management problems and 
problems when sharing data between threads. The language had a 
purpose from the beginning. This "focus" in the Rust project is 
because there were clear goals.

I trend is clear, when you create something for a purpose you 
also get clear goals.
Rust is one example.
Git is another example, DVCS for a large kernel project.
Libre Office, create a free clone of MS office.
Ada, a safe language for mission critical applications.

Many of these are reused in other projects and domains because 
they have proven themselves to be up for the task in the project 
they were created for.

D was not created to solve something in a project (what I know 
about) but was created to give a better compiled language than 
C++. Obviously C++ wasn't bad enough. This leads to that there is 
no clear direction of D because it has no problems or questions 
to solve. This is also clear from the discussions here that there 
is no clear understanding what D is supposed to be. The 
discussion should more be "what problems should D solve", then 
you get the goals.



 Apr 19 2019



prev sibling next sibling parent reply bachmeier <no spam.net>  writes:


On Friday, 19 April 2019 at 14:28:26 UTC, burjui wrote:

 The general feeling I get about D management is that it has 
 brains, but lacks balls and focus. The typical response to that 
 is: "Yeah, well, we are a community-driven project, we cannot 
 order anyone. We are not obliged to do anything particular, so 
 we do what we feel like doing. So if you want something 
 particular to be done, go and do it yourself."


I'm guilty of saying that. Not because I take joy in it, but 
because that is reality. Perhaps that can be blamed on 
management, but only to the extent that they haven't been able to 
secure funding to hire developers.


 But he wants to abstract himself from that and be seen as just 
 a part of the community, not as a figure of authority. At the 
 same time, he has strong opinions on certain topics (bugzilla 
 issue 2043 comes to mind) and it does not seem that it would be 
 productive to even create PRs for those, as they are not likely 
 to be accepted. That is very convenient: "I don't want to be in 
 charge and do what is needed rather than what I like 
 (refactoring, C++ interop, custom codegen that nobody really 
 needs because LLVM and whatnot), but I also know better what 
 should and what should not be done with the language". It is 
 too late, though, many people have invested too much in D.


A good example of this, as I mentioned there is the latest thread 
on fixing Dub's problems. There are two people who want to have 
the final say on everything, but they are completely silent about 
a critical piece of official infrastructure because it's not 
interesting to them. There is plenty of manpower willing to do 
the work, but at this point there are useless conversations on 
the mailing list because nobody has authority to make decisions, 
so nothing will come of those conversations.


 it's a perfect example of what a language should be: a solid 
 foundation, not a mine field with candy trees. Yeah, it has 
 corporation support, but it's not the key to its success. The 
 key is principles and determination. These guys are focused, 
 concerned about language soundness and are willing to do 
 research and hard work to ensure, that the sole Rust compiler 
 is as good, as it can be practically.


I would definitely not consider it "what a language should be" 
but it is a well run project. It's not just the core group 
working on the compiler though. It's also the much larger 
community of developers building third party libraries and 
practical projects and blogging about the language and spamming 
HN and discussions of other languages to generate interest. I 
blame the larger community for the lack of interest in D much 
more than Walter or Andrei. Rust attracted a more productive 
community than D.


 I have been a D fan for more than 10 years, but I had to stop 
 using it. And if it sounds like I am talking about drugs, it 
 should be. Now, looking back, I cannot justify all the time and 
 effort I spent on it.


I'm lucky that for my use (as an improved C to interoperate with 
other languages) D works very well. I'm beginning to think my 
example is rare.



 Apr 19 2019



  parent reply Andrei Alexandrescu <SeeWebsiteForEmail erdani.org>  writes:


On 4/19/19 1:39 PM, bachmeier wrote:

 A good example of this, as I mentioned there is the latest thread on 
 fixing Dub's problems. There are two people who want to have the final 
 say on everything, but they are completely silent about a critical piece 
 of official infrastructure because it's not interesting to them. There 
 is plenty of manpower willing to do the work, but at this point there 
 are useless conversations on the mailing list because nobody has 
 authority to make decisions, so nothing will come of those conversations.


I've had a number of answers to your framing lack of work on dub as a 
leadership problem. Deleted them all after chatting with a friend for a 
couple of hours. Let me just point it that at a certain level you are 
definitely right - that dub has problem _is_ a leadership problem. The 
trick is figuring out what the level is.

Sönke Ludwig is the point of contact for Dub according to 
https://wiki.dlang.org/People. He, Martin, and Seb have had as much 
decision power as they wanted to with that project. Walter and I have 
accepted to integrate dub with the distribution after much insistence 
under an implied social contract that has since decayed.

This seems like a very important project to you, so I would be glad to 
grant you, bachmeier, full decision power with dub and update the points 
of contact appropriately. This is not cheeky - I am serious. Please advise.



 Apr 19 2019



 next sibling parent  Rose <rose sarajevo.com>  writes:


On Friday, 19 April 2019 at 17:58:24 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu 
wrote:

 On 4/19/19 1:39 PM, bachmeier wrote:

 A good example of this, as I mentioned there is the latest 
 thread on fixing Dub's problems. There are two people who want 
 to have the final say on everything, but they are completely 
 silent about a critical piece of official infrastructure 
 because it's not interesting to them. There is plenty of 
 manpower willing to do the work, but at this point there are 
 useless conversations on the mailing list because nobody has 
 authority to make decisions, so nothing will come of those 
 conversations.


 I've had a number of answers to your framing lack of work on 
 dub as a leadership problem. Deleted them all after chatting 
 with a friend for a couple of hours. Let me just point it that 
 at a certain level you are definitely right - that dub has 
 problem _is_ a leadership problem. The trick is figuring out 
 what the level is.

 Sönke Ludwig is the point of contact for Dub according to 
 https://wiki.dlang.org/People. He, Martin, and Seb have had as 
 much decision power as they wanted to with that project. Walter 
 and I have accepted to integrate dub with the distribution 
 after much insistence under an implied social contract that has 
 since decayed.

 This seems like a very important project to you, so I would be 
 glad to grant you, bachmeier, full decision power with dub and 
 update the points of contact appropriately. This is not cheeky 
 - I am serious. Please advise.


Dissapearing act... better than Houdini.



 Apr 20 2019



prev sibling  parent reply bachmeier <no spam.net>  writes:


On Friday, 19 April 2019 at 17:58:24 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu 
wrote:

 On 4/19/19 1:39 PM, bachmeier wrote:

 A good example of this, as I mentioned there is the latest 
 thread on fixing Dub's problems. There are two people who want 
 to have the final say on everything, but they are completely 
 silent about a critical piece of official infrastructure 
 because it's not interesting to them. There is plenty of 
 manpower willing to do the work, but at this point there are 
 useless conversations on the mailing list because nobody has 
 authority to make decisions, so nothing will come of those 
 conversations.


 I've had a number of answers to your framing lack of work on 
 dub as a leadership problem. Deleted them all after chatting 
 with a friend for a couple of hours. Let me just point it that 
 at a certain level you are definitely right - that dub has 
 problem _is_ a leadership problem. The trick is figuring out 
 what the level is.

 Sönke Ludwig is the point of contact for Dub according to 
 https://wiki.dlang.org/People. He, Martin, and Seb have had as 
 much decision power as they wanted to with that project. Walter 
 and I have accepted to integrate dub with the distribution 
 after much insistence under an implied social contract that has 
 since decayed.

 This seems like a very important project to you, so I would be 
 glad to grant you, bachmeier, full decision power with dub and 
 update the points of contact appropriately. This is not cheeky 
 - I am serious. Please advise.


If you'd like, I will be happy to help out by summarizing Dub 
complaints that have been posted on the mailing list and 
collecting additional complaints and proposed solutions. I can 
follow the DIP model we have in place. Once things are organized 
(as opposed to random comments by random people on the mailing 
list) those who are able and willing to do the work can make the 
decisions. I have no formal CS background and no commercial 
development experience, and haven't used Dub much after giving up 
in frustration, so I would not be the right person to make these 
decisions.



 Apr 22 2019



 next sibling parent  tester <tester aol.com>  writes:


On Monday, 22 April 2019 at 13:11:44 UTC, bachmeier wrote:

 If you'd like, I will be happy to help out by summarizing Dub 
 complaints that have been posted on the mailing list and 
 collecting additional complaints and proposed solutions. I can 
 follow the DIP model we have in place. Once things are 
 organized (as opposed to random comments by random people on 
 the mailing list) those who are able and willing to do the work 
 can make the decisions. I have no formal CS background and no 
 commercial development experience, and haven't used Dub much 
 after giving up in frustration, so I would not be the right 
 person to make these decisions.


don't forget all the things about D.



 Apr 22 2019



prev sibling  parent reply Seb <seb wilzba.ch>  writes:


On Monday, 22 April 2019 at 13:11:44 UTC, bachmeier wrote:

 On Friday, 19 April 2019 at 17:58:24 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu 
 wrote:

 [...]


 If you'd like, I will be happy to help out by summarizing Dub 
 complaints that have been posted on the mailing list and 
 collecting additional complaints and proposed solutions. I can 
 follow the DIP model we have in place. Once things are 
 organized (as opposed to random comments by random people on 
 the mailing list) those who are able and willing to do the work 
 can make the decisions. I have no formal CS background and no 
 commercial development experience, and haven't used Dub much 
 after giving up in frustration, so I would not be the right 
 person to make these decisions.


Submitting a DIP with the proposed changes would be very 
welcomed. I'm happy to assist you with it. Just ping me on the 
DIP PR.



 Apr 22 2019



  parent reply bachmeier <no spam.net>  writes:


On Monday, 22 April 2019 at 16:43:56 UTC, Seb wrote:


 Submitting a DIP with the proposed changes would be very 
 welcomed. I'm happy to assist you with it. Just ping me on the 
 DIP PR.


I have created a Github repo and added you as a collaborator. I 
will work on this as I have time.



 Apr 22 2019



  parent  Andrei Alexandrescu <SeeWebsiteForEmail erdani.org>  writes:


On 4/22/19 1:34 PM, bachmeier wrote:

 On Monday, 22 April 2019 at 16:43:56 UTC, Seb wrote:
 

 Submitting a DIP with the proposed changes would be very welcomed. I'm 
 happy to assist you with it. Just ping me on the DIP PR.


 
 I have created a Github repo and added you as a collaborator. I will 
 work on this as I have time.


Awesome you guys. Thank you!



 Apr 22 2019



prev sibling  parent reply "H. S. Teoh" <hsteoh quickfur.ath.cx>  writes:


On Fri, Apr 19, 2019 at 02:28:26PM +0000, burjui via Digitalmars-d wrote:
[...]

 There should not be 3 different compilers, all managed by different
 parts of the community.


[...]

Sorry, I find this statement outright ridiculous.  In the past, we had
only 1 compiler, and the doomsayers complained that D only has 1
compiler, seeing it as proof that D is niche and not worthy of attention
-- because otherwise compiler writers would be falling over themselves
to write implementations of the language and producing multiple
compilers for it.  Now that we have 3 compilers, the doomsayers complain
that we should only have 1 compiler, and see having 3 compilers as proof
that something is wrong.

So who are we supposed to listen to?!  If we go back to having only 1
compiler now, I'll bet the next naysayer would drop by and say that
having only 1 compiler is proof that D is dead.

Ridiculous, I say.  Utterly ridiculous.  D does have its problems, I'm
not gonna whitewash that.  But this 1 compiler vs. many compilers thing
has *nothing* to do with it, and is completely ridiculous, even
illogical.


T

-- 
Never wrestle a pig. You both get covered in mud, and the pig likes it.



 Apr 19 2019



  parent reply JN <666total wp.pl>  writes:


On Friday, 19 April 2019 at 21:37:14 UTC, H. S. Teoh wrote:

 Sorry, I find this statement outright ridiculous.  In the past, 
 we had only 1 compiler, and the doomsayers complained that D 
 only has 1 compiler, seeing it as proof that D is niche and not 
 worthy of attention -- because otherwise compiler writers would 
 be falling over themselves to write implementations of the 
 language and producing multiple compilers for it.  Now that we 
 have 3 compilers, the doomsayers complain that we should only 
 have 1 compiler, and see having 3 compilers as proof that 
 something is wrong.


Well, depends on which compiler is the only one. In the past it 
was DMD, and well, DMD has it's benefits, but it's codegen is not 
the greatest and it was attached to OPTLINK for way too long, 
causing a lot of headaches. It's easy to see why would people 
criticize it. If the LDC was the only compiler, I don't think 
people would complain as much (based on popular 'compiler 
framework', crossplatform, great codegen).



 Apr 19 2019



 next sibling parent reply "H. S. Teoh" <hsteoh quickfur.ath.cx>  writes:


On Sat, Apr 20, 2019 at 06:34:17AM +0000, JN via Digitalmars-d wrote:

 On Friday, 19 April 2019 at 21:37:14 UTC, H. S. Teoh wrote:

 Sorry, I find this statement outright ridiculous.  In the past, we
 had only 1 compiler, and the doomsayers complained that D only has 1
 compiler, seeing it as proof that D is niche and not worthy of
 attention -- because otherwise compiler writers would be falling
 over themselves to write implementations of the language and
 producing multiple compilers for it.  Now that we have 3 compilers,
 the doomsayers complain that we should only have 1 compiler, and see
 having 3 compilers as proof that something is wrong.


 
 Well, depends on which compiler is the only one. In the past it was
 DMD, and well, DMD has it's benefits, but it's codegen is not the
 greatest and it was attached to OPTLINK for way too long, causing a
 lot of headaches. It's easy to see why would people criticize it. If
 the LDC was the only compiler, I don't think people would complain as
 much (based on popular 'compiler framework', crossplatform, great
 codegen).


I understand that -- I myself am none too pleased with dmd's codegen
quality, and regularly advise people to use LDC or GDC if they're
worried about performance.

But what I don't understand is how having multiple compilers for a
language is construed to be a bad thing.  Back in the day, it was
considered a sign of language maturity that multiple compiler
implementers would even want to bother to produce their own compilers
for your language.  It was when nobody else cared enough to write their
own compilers for your language, that was a sign that you've failed to
become relevant.  To see the opposite being argued just boggles my mind.


T

-- 
I think Debian's doing something wrong, `apt-get install pesticide', doesn't
seem to remove the bugs on my system! -- Mike Dresser



 Apr 19 2019



 next sibling parent  Arjan <arjan ask.me.to>  writes:


On Saturday, 20 April 2019 at 06:48:31 UTC, H. S. Teoh wrote:

 On Sat, Apr 20, 2019 at 06:34:17AM +0000, JN via Digitalmars-d 
 wrote:

 On Friday, 19 April 2019 at 21:37:14 UTC, H. S. Teoh wrote:

 Sorry, I find this statement outright ridiculous.  In the






Me too.

Looking back +20 years, the heydays of OO and C/C++ there were a 
multitude of compilers available:
- Microsoft
- Borland
- Zortech/Symantec
- Watcom
- CodeWarrior
- IBM VisualAge
- Kuck & Associates, Inc
- Comeau
- HP aC++
- GCC
- etc etc etc

The source-code was absolutely not portable between them! Why 
not? STL was one big havoc creating issue. There were many 
differentiating implementations, so much there was even a 
commercial software suite to test them for conformance!

These must have really killed the C++ language right? NO:

C++ is kicking pythons but in popularity rise last year:
https://www.techrepublic.com/article/most-popular-programming-languages-c-knocks-python-out-of-top-three/


 But what I don't understand is how having multiple compilers 
 for a language is construed to be a bad thing.  Back in the 
 day, it was considered a sign of language maturity that 
 multiple compiler implementers would even want to bother to 
 produce their own compilers for your language.  It was when 
 nobody else cared enough to write their own compilers for your 
 language, that was a sign that you've failed to become 
 relevant.  To see the opposite being argued just boggles my 
 mind.


Mine too.



 Apr 20 2019



prev sibling  parent reply Joseph Rushton Wakeling <joseph.wakeling webdrake.net>  writes:


On Saturday, 20 April 2019 at 06:48:31 UTC, H. S. Teoh wrote:

 But what I don't understand is how having multiple compilers 
 for a language is construed to be a bad thing.


Agreed.  If anything it seems more of a problem that, while we 
have multiple compilers, they're all based on the same frontend 
and library implementations.  Having a true 3rd-party 
implementation would be a real test of the maturity of the 
language and its spec.

Which reminds me, I really ought to re-inform myself of the state 
of SDC ...



 Apr 20 2019



  parent  Walter Bright <newshound2 digitalmars.com>  writes:


On 4/20/2019 2:55 AM, Joseph Rushton Wakeling wrote:

 Agreed.  If anything it seems more of a problem that, while we have multiple 
 compilers, they're all based on the same frontend and library implementations.
 
 Having a true 3rd-party implementation would be a real test of the maturity of 
 the language and its spec.


Many of the different C++ compilers were based on the same front end, usually 
Edison Design Group's.



 Apr 20 2019



prev sibling  parent reply Nicholas Wilson <iamthewilsonator hotmail.com>  writes:


On Saturday, 20 April 2019 at 06:34:17 UTC, JN wrote:

 If the LDC was the only compiler, I don't think people would 
 complain as much (based on popular 'compiler framework', 
 crossplatform, great codegen).


I'm pretty sure Iain would =P

But seriously though, in light of the recent MLIR keynote at 
EuroLLVM (really worth a watch if you're into compilers) I'm 
beginning to see the addition of more layers of IR as a tradeoff 
between time spent compiling and and runtime performance and so I 
see DMD as a useful -O0 ("No" IR) and then LDC as a useful 
-O{1,2,3} with LLVM IR, and hopefully in the future LDC + a D 
MLIR dialect ( / the various LinAlg ones) for -O3+ where every 
drop of perf matters.

I'll definitely be looking into doing some MLIR suff at some 
point, its a pity that GSOC is so close, I would have loved to 
put forward a project outline on it. Oh well maybe next year.



 Apr 20 2019



  parent reply Iain Buclaw <ibuclaw gdcproject.org>  writes:


On Sat, 20 Apr 2019 at 23:05, Nicholas Wilson via Digitalmars-d
<digitalmars-d puremagic.com> wrote:

 On Saturday, 20 April 2019 at 06:34:17 UTC, JN wrote:

 If the LDC was the only compiler, I don't think people would
 complain as much (based on popular 'compiler framework',
 crossplatform, great codegen).


 I'm pretty sure Iain would =P


If only because I've never gotten LDC to work. :-P

(Nor do I have reason to believe it's been given much testing beyond
x86/64, despite a good breadth of OS support).

-- 
Iain



 Apr 21 2019



  parent reply Nicholas Wilson <iamthewilsonator hotmail.com>  writes:


On Sunday, 21 April 2019 at 07:10:38 UTC, Iain Buclaw wrote:

 On Sat, 20 Apr 2019 at 23:05, Nicholas Wilson via Digitalmars-d 
 <digitalmars-d puremagic.com> wrote:

 On Saturday, 20 April 2019 at 06:34:17 UTC, JN wrote:

 If the LDC was the only compiler, I don't think people would 
 complain as much (based on popular 'compiler framework', 
 crossplatform, great codegen).


 I'm pretty sure Iain would =P


 If only because I've never gotten LDC to work. :-P


It should work out of the box, if it doesn't please file a bug 
report.


 (Nor do I have reason to believe it's been given much testing 
 beyond x86/64, despite a good breadth of OS support).


I used it for my honours thesis on RasPi3b+ with Raspian so it 
definitely works on ARM. OpenCL and CUDA also work. Never tried 
on MIPS, PPC or AArch64.



 Apr 21 2019



 next sibling parent reply Iain Buclaw <ibuclaw gdcproject.org>  writes:


On Sun, 21 Apr 2019 at 09:40, Nicholas Wilson via Digitalmars-d
<digitalmars-d puremagic.com> wrote:

 On Sunday, 21 April 2019 at 07:10:38 UTC, Iain Buclaw wrote:

 On Sat, 20 Apr 2019 at 23:05, Nicholas Wilson via Digitalmars-d
 <digitalmars-d puremagic.com> wrote:

 On Saturday, 20 April 2019 at 06:34:17 UTC, JN wrote:

 If the LDC was the only compiler, I don't think people would
 complain as much (based on popular 'compiler framework',
 crossplatform, great codegen).


 I'm pretty sure Iain would =P


 If only because I've never gotten LDC to work. :-P


 It should work out of the box, if it doesn't please file a bug
 report.


 (Nor do I have reason to believe it's been given much testing
 beyond x86/64, despite a good breadth of OS support).


 I used it for my honours thesis on RasPi3b+ with Raspian so it
 definitely works on ARM. OpenCL and CUDA also work. Never tried
 on MIPS, PPC or AArch64.


Right, by the way it's currently the opposite for GDC.  There's around
26 or more different CPU architectures tested, but only all on Linux.

As no one else will, I'm in the middle of building on FreeBSD, NetBSD,
OpenBSD, Solaris, and DragonflyBSD in parallel and will enable phobos
support for those targets shortly.

Darwin, Cygwin and MinGW will likely only be partial in gdc-9, unless
there's a solution for GC scanning of emulated TLS data found in time.
:-)

In that list, FreeBSD, NetBSD, and OpenBSD will need some serious work
in D runtime, for the same reasons as what we discovered on
Solaris/SPARC.  There's lots of i.e: `version (FreeBSD)` in the
extern(C) bindings, but what is really meant is `version (FreeBSD) {
version (X86) ... }`.

However if core.stdc and core.sys were generated from system headers,
then there would be no problems whatsoever.

-- 
Iain



 Apr 21 2019



  parent  Walter Bright <newshound2 digitalmars.com>  writes:


On 4/21/2019 1:47 AM, Iain Buclaw wrote:

 As no one else will, I'm in the middle of building on FreeBSD, NetBSD,
 OpenBSD, Solaris, and DragonflyBSD in parallel and will enable phobos
 support for those targets shortly.


This is great news, thank you!



 Apr 21 2019



prev sibling  parent  Patrick Schluter <Patrick.Schluter bbox.fr>  writes:


On Sunday, 21 April 2019 at 07:35:34 UTC, Nicholas Wilson wrote:

 On Sunday, 21 April 2019 at 07:10:38 UTC, Iain Buclaw wrote:

 On Sat, 20 Apr 2019 at 23:05, Nicholas Wilson via 
 Digitalmars-d <digitalmars-d puremagic.com> wrote:

 On Saturday, 20 April 2019 at 06:34:17 UTC, JN wrote:

 If the LDC was the only compiler, I don't think people 
 would complain as much (based on popular 'compiler 
 framework', crossplatform, great codegen).


 I'm pretty sure Iain would =P


 If only because I've never gotten LDC to work. :-P


 It should work out of the box, if it doesn't please file a bug 
 report.


 (Nor do I have reason to believe it's been given much testing 
 beyond x86/64, despite a good breadth of OS support).


 I used it for my honours thesis on RasPi3b+ with Raspian so it 
 definitely works on ARM. OpenCL and CUDA also work. Never tried 
 on MIPS, PPC or AArch64.


I also have it running on my Helios4 NAS, which is Armbian on an 
Marvell ARMADA® 388 ARM CPU. I built the compiler from scratch to 
test bootstrapping.
Worked without problems. I still didn't manage to get DWT to work 
but that is more a problem of the Helios4 that does not have a 
graphical user interface by default, which is logical as the unit 
does not have a graphical output.



 Apr 21 2019



prev sibling next sibling parent  bioinfornatics <bioinfornatics fedoraproject.org>  writes:


On Friday, 12 April 2019 at 07:35:05 UTC, Tofu Kaitlyn wrote:

 Sorry for that title, but this is something I have been 
 thinking about for a while...

 I honestly feel like D is a failure. I kinda just wanted to 
 vent about it and see what other people think.

 I have been using D since around 2012 or 2013, instantly fell 
 in love, use to post on the forms a lot under the name Tofu 
 Ninja. I was convinced D was the future but since then I have 
 become disheartened. The biggest thing that makes me feel like 
 this is that in the 7 years I have been using D I literally 
 have never met another programmer IRL who has even heard of it. 
 I put on my resume that I like D and every interview I get 
 asked about it, having to explain what D even is because they 
 have never heard of it. I have never seen a job posting listing 
 D. Never see any projects pop up on /r/programming using D. It 
 feels like to the rest of the programming universe, D doesn't 
 even exist. Sometimes I see threads on reddit like "what's your 
 favorite programming language" and I always look for D but 
 never find it.

 And honestly I don't think that is going to change. I feel like 
 D has failed.

 I duno... what do yall think? Is D going to somehow explode in 
 popularity in 5-10 years? Am I missing some part of the 
 picture? Or am I right and if so what can be done about it?


D is great language it now not a young old.

We know all what D are missing to be great, globally we see the 
trend of the industry which is focus on feature from libraries 
and framework:
- to be secure
- to generate easily a web app with micro-architecture (see 
jhipster)
- create easily a web app (see the success of ruby they are some 
years ago and now python through Django, Flask …)
- to be efficient and middle/high level (see Spark, and for 
statistician/datalake user tools like zeppelin which make 
beautiful graphic form a datalake)
- to be able to use a powerful deeplearning library even if you 
are low in programming skills (see tensorflow, keras and other)
- to be shareable easily (what about to have a builder able to 
generate a container automatically , that save user time so they 
like it)

I agree now that D have failed on many way:
- Dmd hast started with something like than some pieces of code 
was not totally free
-> imply bad buzz and increased the sense of rejection from c++ 
community
- D1 to D2 was again a disaster
-> implying again a bad buzz and increased the sense of rejection 
from c++ community
-> Dub could be good but I do not like it as a fedorapackager and 
has a packager for a HPC center.
Dub do not support staged build which is a standard and it is 
hard to work with it in a offline environment
-> D intellisense is not easy to enable from IDE as we have to 
build several tools to get it
-> multiple compiler dmd, ldc is now seen as a waste of time from 
a non-D community



 Apr 20 2019



prev sibling  parent reply Greatsam4sure <greatsam4sure gmail.com>  writes:


On Friday, 12 April 2019 at 07:35:05 UTC, Tofu Kaitlyn wrote:

 Sorry for that title, but this is something I have been 
 thinking about for a while...

 [...]


On Friday, 12 April 2019 at 07:35:05 UTC, Tofu K
This is a user testimony of D


https://medium.com/tripaneer-techblog/why-we-chose-the-d-language-and-vibe-d-3684131a71cd



 Apr 24 2019



  parent reply Chris <wendlec tcd.ie>  writes:


On Thursday, 25 April 2019 at 00:28:41 UTC, Greatsam4sure wrote:

 On Friday, 12 April 2019 at 07:35:05 UTC, Tofu K
 This is a user testimony of D


 https://medium.com/tripaneer-techblog/why-we-chose-the-d-language-and-vibe-d-3684131a71cd


Sorry, but same could be said about other languages that have 
better tooling and community support. With the important 
difference that those other languages will not blow up in your 
face due to the maintainers fiddling around with new features. As 
regards maintenance, with D I used to lose a lot of time fixing 
my code from one compiler version to the next (what a waste of 
time) or trying to figure out what would be the best way to work 
around D's messy string handling and how it would affect both the 
performance and the flow / logic of the program. Again, Tripaneer 
seems to use D only for one specific purpose, so it's a niche 
application that says nothing about D's _general_ usefulness. You 
can write a great program for one particular purpose in Lisp too 
and go on about how great it is. That says nothing about how you 
will fare once you leave your bubble.

I started to use D for a very specific purpose, because back in 
the day D was the only language that offered what I needed (e.g. 
seamless C interop + DLL support, reasonably fast native code). 
We were a bit pressed for time, so D was the best option. 
However, once the whole thing grew bigger and we had to leave the 
bubble to cater for mobile for example, things no longer looked 
so bright, and DIY is not an option for everyone (due to lack of 
time / resources / expertise). It's as if D sold you a 
multi-purpose toolkit that only works at room temperature.

And of course, there's the paradox that the better you get at D, 
the more you know about programming, the more you know about 
programming, the more you notice that D is poorly implemented.

BTW: Maybe change the copyright notice to 2019. Now it says: 
"Copyright © 1999-2018 by the D Language Foundation" ;)



 Apr 25 2019



 next sibling parent reply Andre Pany <andre s-e-a-p.de>  writes:


On Thursday, 25 April 2019 at 11:27:53 UTC, Chris wrote:

 On Thursday, 25 April 2019 at 00:28:41 UTC, Greatsam4sure wrote:

 [...]


 Sorry, but same could be said about other languages that have 
 better tooling and community support. With the important 
 difference that those other languages will not blow up in your 
 face due to the maintainers fiddling around with new features. 
 As regards maintenance, with D I used to lose a lot of time 
 fixing my code from one compiler version to the next (what a 
 waste of time) or trying to figure out what would be the best 
 way to work around D's messy string handling and how it would 
 affect both the performance and the flow / logic of the 
 program. Again, Tripaneer seems to use D only for one specific 
 purpose, so it's a niche application that says nothing about 
 D's _general_ usefulness. You can write a great program for one 
 particular purpose in Lisp too and go on about how great it is. 
 That says nothing about how you will fare once you leave your 
 bubble.

 [...]


It would be great if you can provide constructive feedback with 
detailed points we can work on.
What issues do you have while updating dmd version? What is 
poorly implemented in your opinion?

If you help us, we can help you.

Kind regards
Andre



 Apr 25 2019



  parent reply Chris <wendlec tcd.ie>  writes:


On Thursday, 25 April 2019 at 17:12:55 UTC, Andre Pany wrote:

 It would be great if you can provide constructive feedback with 
 detailed points we can work on.
 What issues do you have while updating dmd version? What is 
 poorly implemented in your opinion?

 If you help us, we can help you.

 Kind regards
 Andre


See, this is a common pattern here too. There are so many things 
wrong with D that one does not know where to start, but when you 
criticize the language or rather its management, you are asked 
(under the guise of "constructive criticism") to provide a 
detailed list of things to be fixed. This ain't but a smoke 
screen, nobody can do that. Its only purpose is to make the 
poster look bad and incompetent. Indeed, there are some poor 
souls who actually take the bait and make PRs or compile a list 
of bugs / errors etc....and then nothing happens.

I really don't remember all the errors and warnings I got with 
dmd updates over the years (including third party libraries). 
However, I have raised points about string handling and 
autodecode here several times, but to no avail (go and search for 
it), I ain't gonna repeat that. Just one thing: for several dmd 
versions I had to use "-allinst", else my code wouldn't compile. 
Then all of a sudden, my code wouldn't compile with "-allinst" 
and it was only on a hunch that I removed the flag from dub.json. 
WTF? What's the story with those weird semi-constructors without 
semi-destructors? Don't tell me that nobody could foresee that 
(hello: constructor/deconstructor). What about autodecode? The 
thing is that D doesn't even get the basics right. It has to be 
rewritten from scratch, same as a script you hacked together and 
that turned into something bigger. Take the good bits, but 
rewrite it in a clean way.



 Apr 26 2019



  parent  Bastiaan Veelo <Bastiaan Veelo.net>  writes:


On Friday, 26 April 2019 at 09:58:00 UTC, Chris wrote:

 Take the good bits, but rewrite it in a clean way.


The sentiment towards that is growing.

Bastiaan.



 Apr 26 2019



prev sibling next sibling parent  Jack Applegame <japplegame gmail.com>  writes:


On Thursday, 25 April 2019 at 11:27:53 UTC, Chris wrote:

 And of course, there's the paradox that the better you get at 
 D, the more you know about programming, the more you know about 
 programming, the more you notice that D is poorly implemented.


It's not a paradox, it's an axiom. I can say exactly the same 
about C++, Ruby, PHP and JavaScript.



 Apr 25 2019



prev sibling  parent reply Bastiaan Veelo <Bastiaan Veelo.net>  writes:


On Thursday, 25 April 2019 at 11:27:53 UTC, Chris wrote:

 As regards maintenance, with D I used to lose a lot of time 
 fixing my code from one compiler version to the next (what a 
 waste of time)


If you think it was a waste of time, you could just have 
continued without updating. All releases are still there. 
http://downloads.dlang.org/releases/

Bastiaan.



 Apr 25 2019



 next sibling parent reply Walter Bright <newshound2 digitalmars.com>  writes:


On 4/25/2019 1:01 PM, Bastiaan Veelo wrote:

 If you think it was a waste of time, you could just have continued without 
 updating. All releases are still there. http://downloads.dlang.org/releases/


True enough. With other products, I don't upgrade them until there's a good 
reason to. Saves a lot of effort.



 Apr 25 2019



 next sibling parent  "H. S. Teoh" <hsteoh quickfur.ath.cx>  writes:


On Thu, Apr 25, 2019 at 10:01:20PM -0700, Walter Bright via Digitalmars-d wrote:

 On 4/25/2019 1:01 PM, Bastiaan Veelo wrote:

 If you think it was a waste of time, you could just have continued
 without updating. All releases are still there.
 http://downloads.dlang.org/releases/


 
 True enough. With other products, I don't upgrade them until there's a
 good reason to. Saves a lot of effort.


More than once I've been bitten by software upgrades that either
outright stop compiling or working with existing code, or break existing
code in subtle but unacceptable ways that are unfixable because they are
caused by fundamental changes that upstream will unlikely ever want to
revert.

These days, I've come to prefer just embedding the exact version of the
source code I depend on in my workspace, either checked in as part of
the source tree or as a git submodule (that ensures exactly the correct
version), and building everything manually.  That, or write my own code
and rid myself of too many external dependencies that are likely to go
sour without any warning when upstream decides to be "helpful" and break
something that used to work fine.

Of course, that's speaking from the receiving end of things.  From an
upstream standpoint, sometimes breaking changes are good, and necessary.
IMNSHO D should not be so paranoid as to avoid changes at all.  A
language that stops improving is a dead one.  As Andrei recently said,
the trick is addition rather than replacement.  Keep the old backward
compatible stuff around, possibly undocumented, or moved to some
archival repo like UndeaD, but still there to keep existing code happy,
and add new stuff like std.v2 to keep the good things flowing into the
language.  As long as it's *possible* to replicate the older behaviour
somehow without onerous effort, I think it's fair game.

And of course, when all else fails, older versions of dmd are still
available on the download page.


T

-- 
Elegant or ugly code as well as fine or rude sentences have something in
common: they don't depend on the language. -- Luca De Vitis



 Apr 25 2019



prev sibling  parent  Arun Chandrasekaran <aruncxy gmail.com>  writes:


On Thu, Apr 25, 2019 at 10:05 PM Walter Bright via Digitalmars-d
<digitalmars-d puremagic.com> wrote:

 On 4/25/2019 1:01 PM, Bastiaan Veelo wrote:

 If you think it was a waste of time, you could just have continued without
 updating. All releases are still there. http://downloads.dlang.org/releases/


 True enough. With other products, I don't upgrade them until there's a good
 reason to. Saves a lot of effort.


May be people upgrade as a way to fix the regression bugs and end up
getting new features that introduces new regressions/bugs? There are
no releases that target _bug fixes only_.

That brings up another point about LTS, development branch and stable branch.

Bug fixes shall only be done on the stable branch and the new features
on the development branch. Stable branch can be merged periodically
with development branch and not the other way.



 Apr 25 2019



prev sibling  parent reply Chris <wendlec tcd.ie>  writes:


On Thursday, 25 April 2019 at 20:01:29 UTC, Bastiaan Veelo wrote:

 On Thursday, 25 April 2019 at 11:27:53 UTC, Chris wrote:

 As regards maintenance, with D I used to lose a lot of time 
 fixing my code from one compiler version to the next (what a 
 waste of time)


 If you think it was a waste of time, you could just have 
 continued without updating. All releases are still there. 
 http://downloads.dlang.org/releases/

 Bastiaan.


Now tell me, how am I to profit from bug fixes and other 
improvements? Well, sure, we could all stick to D1 but what's the 
point then? The answer is _always_ the same here, "If you want 
stability stick to an outdated version of dmd", but "if you want 
feature X fixed, use the latest version of dmd, it's much more 
stable now!". C'mon, give me a break. Other technologies have 
caught up with D in many respects and there's no reason to keep 
on putting up with D's chaos. All you guys will have left to say 
is "But D had it first" - so what?



 Apr 26 2019



  parent reply Bastiaan Veelo <Bastiaan Veelo.net>  writes:


On Friday, 26 April 2019 at 09:42:59 UTC, Chris wrote:

 On Thursday, 25 April 2019 at 20:01:29 UTC, Bastiaan Veelo 
 wrote:

 On Thursday, 25 April 2019 at 11:27:53 UTC, Chris wrote:

 As regards maintenance, with D I used to lose a lot of time 
 fixing my code from one compiler version to the next (what a 
 waste of time)


 If you think it was a waste of time, you could just have 
 continued without updating. All releases are still there. 
 http://downloads.dlang.org/releases/

 Bastiaan.


 Now tell me, how am I to profit from bug fixes and other 
 improvements?


If there is profit, it isn't a complete waste. My point is: the 
decision whether the cost of adapting to deprecations is worth 
the benefit of upgrading is yours. If you think it was a net 
waste, you made the wrong decision.

We are porting half a million lines of code from a language that 
we are abandoning. Was it a waste to use that language? Not at 
all, we made quite a profit. Are we expecting the port to be 
profitable? Of course we do. Will we be welcoming future 
deprecations? Yes, because the long term benefits outweigh the 
short term annoyances. We want to port to a living language, and 
deprecations are part of life!

Bastiaan.



 Apr 26 2019



  parent reply Chris <wendlec tcd.ie>  writes:


On Friday, 26 April 2019 at 11:48:20 UTC, Bastiaan Veelo wrote:

 If there is profit, it isn't a complete waste. My point is: the 
 decision whether the cost of adapting to deprecations is worth 
 the benefit of upgrading is yours. If you think it was a net 
 waste, you made the wrong decision.


Sooner or later you have to upgrade, the longer you wait the more 
painful it becomes, I've been there. It's no longer as bad as it 
used to be, though. My point was: to fight with deprecations, 
warnings and errors is not something you should have to "invest" 
in with every new version of dmd.


 We are porting half a million lines of code from a language 
 that we are abandoning. Was it a waste to use that language? 
 Not at all, we made quite a profit. Are we expecting the port 
 to be profitable? Of course we do. Will we be welcoming future 
 deprecations? Yes, because the long term benefits outweigh the 
 short term annoyances. We want to port to a living language, 
 and deprecations are part of life!

 Bastiaan.


Same here as I'm porting my D code to a different language...



 Apr 26 2019



  parent reply Seb <seb wilzba.ch>  writes:


On Friday, 26 April 2019 at 15:05:48 UTC, Chris wrote:

 On Friday, 26 April 2019 at 11:48:20 UTC, Bastiaan Veelo wrote:

 [...]


 Sooner or later you have to upgrade, the longer you wait the 
 more painful it becomes, I've been there. It's no longer as bad 
 as it used to be, though. My point was: to fight with 
 deprecations, warnings and errors is not something you should 
 have to "invest" in with every new version of dmd.


 [...]


 Same here as I'm porting my D code to a different language...


Except that Bastiaan's company is porting their codebase to D 
IIRC.



 Apr 26 2019



  parent reply Bastiaan Veelo <Bastiaan Veelo.net>  writes:


On Friday, 26 April 2019 at 15:26:23 UTC, Seb wrote:

 Except that Bastiaan's company is porting their codebase to D 
 IIRC.


Indeed. There’ll be more about that at DConf: 
http://dconf.org/2019/talks/veelo.html

Bastiaan.



 Apr 26 2019



  parent reply Walter Bright <newshound2 digitalmars.com>  writes:


On 4/26/2019 12:06 PM, Bastiaan Veelo wrote:

 On Friday, 26 April 2019 at 15:26:23 UTC, Seb wrote:

 Except that Bastiaan's company is porting their codebase to D IIRC.


 
 Indeed. There’ll be more about that at DConf: 
 http://dconf.org/2019/talks/veelo.html


Looking forward to it!

BTW, the dmd source code was ported from C++ to D, and a sweet improvement it 
was, too.



 Apr 26 2019



  parent  Chris <wendlec tcd.ie>  writes:


On Friday, 26 April 2019 at 22:31:40 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:

 On 4/26/2019 12:06 PM, Bastiaan Veelo wrote:

 On Friday, 26 April 2019 at 15:26:23 UTC, Seb wrote:

 Except that Bastiaan's company is porting their codebase to D 
 IIRC.


 
 Indeed. There’ll be more about that at DConf: 
 http://dconf.org/2019/talks/veelo.html


 Looking forward to it!

 BTW, the dmd source code was ported from C++ to D, and a sweet 
 improvement it was, too.


Porting code is often beneficial because a. languages / 
technologies improve and b. you get a chance to do things better.



 Apr 27 2019