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digitalmars.D - Indicators and =?UTF-8?Q?traction=E2=80=A6?=

reply Russel Winder via Digitalmars-d <digitalmars-d puremagic.com> writes:
Having just done a session at PyConUK 2015 aimed at weaning people of
pure Python and into polyglot =E2=80=93 Python with (C++|D|Chapel) (there
should have been a Rust bit but=E2=80=A6) =E2=80=93 and as people probably =
heard the D
bit was a bit embarrassing for me, I got some interesting comments
during the rest of the conference.

The most important can be paraphrased as "I had heard of D but as it
was getting no traction, I never looked at it again."

This would seem to indicate that D really does need to have a marketing
campaign to show it does have traction and isn't just a little ghetto
as so many languages end up in. D's forays into AAA games, finance,
etc. all need to get permanent presence. In this respect, Reddit is
(almost) an irrelevance: bulk perception is unaffected by Reddit, most
programmers do not even look at it, let alone follow it. It would be
nice if Tiobe and the like were an irrelevance, but that is less so.

Having active regional groups is a first important factor, and that is
happening, though perhaps less than would be good. Having lots of
projects on GitHub (and BitBucket) that get noticed. Clearly everyone
is fighting JavaScript, but that is not an issue for D per se. Go,
Rust, C++, C are the "enemy".

Maybe discuss this a bit at the coming London D Meeting =E2=80=93 which sad=
ly
clashes with the London Go Meeting=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=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   voip: sip:russel.winder ekiga.n=
et
41 Buckmaster Road    m: +44 7770 465 077   xmpp: russel winder.org.uk
London SW11 1EN, UK   w: www.russel.org.uk  skype: russel_winder
Sep 23 2015
next sibling parent Andrea Fontana <nospam example.com> writes:
On Wednesday, 23 September 2015 at 12:19:48 UTC, Russel Winder 
wrote:

 Having just done a session at PyConUK 2015 aimed at weaning 
 people of
 pure Python and into polyglot – Python with (C++|D|Chapel) 
 (there
 should have been a Rust bit but…) – and as people probably 
 heard the D
 bit was a bit embarrassing for me, I got some interesting 
 comments
 during the rest of the conference.

 The most important can be paraphrased as "I had heard of D but 
 as it was getting no traction, I never looked at it again."

 This would seem to indicate that D really does need to have a 
 marketing campaign to show it does have traction and isn't just 
 a little ghetto as so many languages end up in. D's forays into 
 AAA games, finance, etc. all need to get permanent presence. In 
 this respect, Reddit is (almost) an irrelevance: bulk 
 perception is unaffected by Reddit, most programmers do not 
 even look at it, let alone follow it. It would be nice if Tiobe 
 and the like were an irrelevance, but that is less so.

 Having active regional groups is a first important factor, and 
 that is happening, though perhaps less than would be good. 
 Having lots of projects on GitHub (and BitBucket) that get 
 noticed. Clearly everyone is fighting JavaScript, but that is 
 not an issue for D per se. Go, Rust, C++, C are the "enemy".

 Maybe discuss this a bit at the coming London D Meeting – which 
 sadly clashes with the London Go Meeting…


I think a good project where D/Phobos would work great is a 3d 
printer fw.
All 3d printer firmwares are written in c/c++.

3d printers' firmwares deal with a lot of algorithms / printer 
architectures / components / multithreading where D + Phobos 
would simplify the development. If you have ever checked 3d 
printer firmware you know what I'm speaking of
Sep 23 2015
prev sibling next sibling parent reply Adam D. Ruppe <destructionator gmail.com> writes:
We should get TV commercials.

I'm not even really kidding, when I see something advertised on 
television, it plants a seed in my brain that this brand is 
serious and mainstream. After all, they were able to secure a 
spot on my local channel!

We're talking about perception here and there may not be a 
technical solution to that. It is a marketing problem and what do 
professional marketers do to make an impression of their product?


It'd probably cost like a million dollars to sponsor Jeopardy! or 
something though.
Sep 23 2015
parent Wyatt <wyatt.epp gmail.com> writes:
On Wednesday, 23 September 2015 at 13:58:09 UTC, Adam D. Ruppe 
wrote:

 We should get TV commercials.

 I'm not even really kidding, when I see something advertised on 
 television, it plants a seed in my brain that this brand is 
 serious and mainstream. After all, they were able to secure a 
 spot on my local channel!

 We're talking about perception here and there may not be a 
 technical solution to that. It is a marketing problem and what 
 do professional marketers do to make an impression of their 
 product?


 It'd probably cost like a million dollars to sponsor Jeopardy! 
 or something though.


Television is a bit pie-in-the-sky, but I think you may be on the 
right track.  For example, I know I've seen 
conferences/conventions that have some advertisement in their 
program books.  Sure, it won't have the shotgun reach of the 
telly, but...well, I don't know about you all, but I don't even 
own a TV.

Though targeted ads on Youtube might work?  Adwords?  Other 
advertising networks?

-Wyatt
Sep 23 2015
prev sibling next sibling parent reply Nick Sabalausky <SeeWebsiteToContactMe semitwist.com> writes:
On 09/23/2015 08:19 AM, Russel Winder via Digitalmars-d wrote:

 The most important can be paraphrased as "I had heard of D but as it
 was getting no traction, I never looked at it again."


While I agree this is something we need to address, I gotta say: I 
*strongly* consider that attitude to be highly indicative of a 
mediocre-at-best developer.

This is engineering, not fucking fashion. Popularity has no place in 
decision making here. From everything I've seen, 90% of the problems 
that exist in computing technology today can be traced back directly to 
some jackass(es) weighing popularity higher than actual technical merit.
Sep 23 2015
next sibling parent reply Jonathan M Davis <jmdavisProg gmx.com> writes:
On Wednesday, 23 September 2015 at 15:09:53 UTC, Nick Sabalausky 
wrote:

 On 09/23/2015 08:19 AM, Russel Winder via Digitalmars-d wrote:

 The most important can be paraphrased as "I had heard of D but 
 as it
 was getting no traction, I never looked at it again."


 While I agree this is something we need to address, I gotta 
 say: I *strongly* consider that attitude to be highly 
 indicative of a mediocre-at-best developer.

 This is engineering, not fucking fashion. Popularity has no 
 place in decision making here. From everything I've seen, 90% 
 of the problems that exist in computing technology today can be 
 traced back directly to some jackass(es) weighing popularity 
 higher than actual technical merit.


While there is truth to this, it's also true that people's time 
is valuable, and many programmers are not going to want to spend 
time learning a language that they're not going to be able to use 
in the long run. And even if it can be used in the long run, if 
they're not going to be able to use it in a job, then maybe their 
time is better spent learning a language which they _will_ be 
able to use in their job - or even help them get a job if they 
know it. That doesn't necessarily mean that such folks are 
mediocre programmers. They simply have priorities and learning a 
better language for the fun of it or simply for pet projects 
doesn't necessarily fit with those priorities. The more that D 
fits in with those priorities (e.g. the more jobs there are where 
D actually gets used), the more that many programmers will be 
interested in D.

Obviously, there's more to learning a programming language than 
learning a tool that you're going to be using at work, or most of 
us wouldn't be here, but not everyone is able to spend enough 
free time on programming to learn new languages for the fun of 
it, and many of those that could would rather spend their time 
actually programming something than learning a new tool.

I completely agree that programmers should learn multiple 
languages, and I would very much like to see technical merit win 
over simple popularity, but popularity does have a significant 
effect on which languages people use and which survive, and 
there's a definite argument to be made that there's less value in 
learning a language which isn't likely to be used much outside of 
pet projects. The simple fact that language X has more traction 
than language Y will generally help language X gain further 
traction regardless of which is technically better. We certainly 
hope though that the technical advantages of D will help it gain 
further traction so that we don't have quite so much of a chicken 
and egg problem there.

- Jonathan M Davis
Sep 23 2015
parent Nick Sabalausky <SeeWebsiteToContactMe semitwist.com> writes:
On 09/23/2015 11:29 AM, Jonathan M Davis wrote:

 While there is truth to this, it's also true that people's time is
 valuable, and many programmers are not going to want to spend time
 learning a language that they're not going to be able to use in the long
 run. And even if it can be used in the long run, if they're not going to
 be able to use it in a job, then maybe their time is better spent
 learning a language which they _will_ be able to use in their job - or
 even help them get a job if they know it.


Well, even then, there's still *somebody* making decisions with 
popularity over merit, even when (or *especially* when) it's a manager 
instead of a developer.

And I am speaking about the general decision making process here, not 
just specifically about the choice to "use/learn D" or "not use/learn D".
Sep 23 2015
prev sibling next sibling parent reply John Colvin <john.loughran.colvin gmail.com> writes:
On Wednesday, 23 September 2015 at 15:09:53 UTC, Nick Sabalausky 
wrote:

 On 09/23/2015 08:19 AM, Russel Winder via Digitalmars-d wrote:

 The most important can be paraphrased as "I had heard of D but 
 as it
 was getting no traction, I never looked at it again."


 While I agree this is something we need to address, I gotta 
 say: I *strongly* consider that attitude to be highly 
 indicative of a mediocre-at-best developer.

 This is engineering, not fucking fashion. Popularity has no 
 place in decision making here. From everything I've seen, 90% 
 of the problems that exist in computing technology today can be 
 traced back directly to some jackass(es) weighing popularity 
 higher than actual technical merit.


I think you're misinterpreting some of these people. Some will be 
following fashions, but many will be simply not wanting to put 
time and effort in to something that they're not convinced is 
going to work out in the long run.
Sep 23 2015
parent reply Nick Sabalausky <SeeWebsiteToContactMe semitwist.com> writes:
On 09/23/2015 11:45 AM, John Colvin wrote:

 I think you're misinterpreting some of these people. Some will be
 following fashions, but many will be simply not wanting to put time and
 effort in to something that they're not convinced is going to work out
 in the long run.


That amounts to the same thing, just indirectly: It's a myopic approach 
that involves a failure to understand the basic dynamics of plain old 
self-fulfilling prophecies:

"Things succeed/fail BECAUSE people LIKE ME use it or pass on it. 
Therefore, we should make that choice based on whether it's WORTHY. 
Because if instead, we base it on whether we think OTHER people 
will/won't use it (ESPECIALLY if THOSE people are ALSO going to be 
choosing based on the same 'what is everyone else going to pick?' 
crystal ball), then we're all chasing each other's tails and the result 
boils down to randomness (at best) or more likely, becomes predominantly 
influenced by superficial factors and biased parties."

It's a very, very basic line of logic, especially for people in a 
profession that's so fundamentally rooted in exactly such logical reasoning.
Sep 23 2015
parent Laeeth Isharc <spamnolaeeth nospamlaeeth.com> writes:
On Wednesday, 23 September 2015 at 16:13:37 UTC, Nick Sabalausky 
wrote:

 On 09/23/2015 11:45 AM, John Colvin wrote:

 I think you're misinterpreting some of these people. Some will 
 be
 following fashions, but many will be simply not wanting to put 
 time and
 effort in to something that they're not convinced is going to 
 work out
 in the long run.


 That amounts to the same thing, just indirectly: It's a myopic 
 approach that involves a failure to understand the basic 
 dynamics of plain old self-fulfilling prophecies:

 "Things succeed/fail BECAUSE people LIKE ME use it or pass on 
 it. Therefore, we should make that choice based on whether it's 
 WORTHY. Because if instead, we base it on whether we think 
 OTHER people will/won't use it (ESPECIALLY if THOSE people are 
 ALSO going to be choosing based on the same 'what is everyone 
 else going to pick?' crystal ball), then we're all chasing each 
 other's tails and the result boils down to randomness (at best) 
 or more likely, becomes predominantly influenced by superficial 
 factors and biased parties."

 It's a very, very basic line of logic, especially for people in 
 a profession that's so fundamentally rooted in exactly such 
 logical reasoning.



Not everyone has your abilities, Nick.  You probably 
underestimate what it's like not to have them.  (Knowing about 
Dunning Kruger doesn't make it go away).  Many people oughtn't to 
try and pick the best framework because they don't have the 
discernment to do so.  And for others they simply don't have the 
time given the situation they're in.  Making decisions based on 
social factors isn't my cup of tea, but you can't really blame 
people for it.  Life is from an ideal in many ways.

But not everyone is like that or has such constraints, and it is 
those that one must appeal to.
Sep 23 2015
prev sibling next sibling parent reply Manu via Digitalmars-d <digitalmars-d puremagic.com> writes:
On 24 September 2015 at 01:09, Nick Sabalausky via Digitalmars-d
<digitalmars-d puremagic.com> wrote:

 On 09/23/2015 08:19 AM, Russel Winder via Digitalmars-d wrote:

 The most important can be paraphrased as "I had heard of D but as it
 was getting no traction, I never looked at it again."


 While I agree this is something we need to address, I gotta say: I
 *strongly* consider that attitude to be highly indicative of a
 mediocre-at-best developer.


'Most' developers are mediocre-at-best. They are the developers we
need to attract. They are the critical mass, and they represent
momentum.
The enthusiasts are already here.


 This is engineering, not fucking fashion.


You're familiar with JS, MongoDB, Ruby on rails, etc, etc? Software
engineers are firmly engaged in fashion.


 Popularity has no place in decision making here.


Sadly, false.


 From everything I've seen, 90% of the problems that
 exist in computing technology today can be traced back directly to some
 jackass(es) weighing popularity higher than actual technical merit.


So, you agree and recognise the truth.
We need to appeal in terms of a popularity contest. That's the way forward ;)
Sep 26 2015
next sibling parent reply Jonathan M Davis <jmdavisProg gmx.com> writes:
On Sunday, 27 September 2015 at 03:34:31 UTC, Manu wrote:

 On 24 September 2015 at 01:09, Nick Sabalausky via

 Popularity has no place in decision making here.


 Sadly, false.


As much as it would be nice to not have decisions based on 
popularity, we _do_ want D to be popular regardless, and while we 
want to be technically superior, we don't actually need to 
convince people on those grounds. We just need to convince them. 
If that means convincing many of the better programmers via 
technical merit and many of the rest via pure popularity, then so 
be it. There's no reason why we can't succeed on both fronts, 
though it's arguably easier to make headway based on technical 
merit, since that's easier to control and doesn't require 
becoming popular first.

- Jonathan M Davis
Sep 26 2015
parent Manu via Digitalmars-d <digitalmars-d puremagic.com> writes:
On 27 September 2015 at 16:45, Jonathan M Davis via Digitalmars-d
<digitalmars-d puremagic.com> wrote:

 On Sunday, 27 September 2015 at 03:34:31 UTC, Manu wrote:

 On 24 September 2015 at 01:09, Nick Sabalausky via

 Popularity has no place in decision making here.



 Sadly, false.



 As much as it would be nice to not have decisions based on popularity, we
 _do_ want D to be popular regardless, and while we want to be technically
 superior, we don't actually need to convince people on those grounds. We
 just need to convince them. If that means convincing many of the better
 programmers via technical merit and many of the rest via pure popularity,
 then so be it. There's no reason why we can't succeed on both fronts, though
 it's arguably easier to make headway based on technical merit, since that's
 easier to control and doesn't require becoming popular first.


This :)
Sep 26 2015
prev sibling parent Nick Sabalausky <SeeWebsiteToContactMe semitwist.com> writes:
On 09/26/2015 11:34 PM, Manu via Digitalmars-d wrote:

 On 24 September 2015 at 01:09, Nick Sabalausky via Digitalmars-d

 This is engineering, not fucking fashion.


 You're familiar with JS, MongoDB, Ruby on rails, etc, etc? Software
 engineers are firmly engaged in fashion.


Oh, I definitely know. And it irritates me to no end :/


 We need to appeal in terms of a popularity contest. That's the way forward ;)


Yea, I do agree, just find it really annoying ;)
Sep 29 2015
prev sibling parent reply ponce <contact gam3sfrommars.fr> writes:
On Wednesday, 23 September 2015 at 15:09:53 UTC, Nick Sabalausky 
wrote:

 This is engineering, not fucking fashion. Popularity has no 
 place in decision making here. From everything I've seen, 90% 
 of the problems that exist in computing technology today can be 
 traced back directly to some jackass(es) weighing popularity 
 higher than actual technical merit.


Companies use whatever the money-making competition use, and 
often bias their evaluations to favor doing things in the same 
way.

Look at all these stories about Twitter/Facebook/WebStartup 
technology stack. They wouldn't be anything interesting if they 
weren't famous.

But they are visible and make money, so what they use must be the 
right thing.
Sep 29 2015
parent Nick Sabalausky <SeeWebsiteToContactMe semitwist.com> writes:
On 09/29/2015 10:51 AM, ponce wrote:

 On Wednesday, 23 September 2015 at 15:09:53 UTC, Nick Sabalausky wrote:

 This is engineering, not fucking fashion. Popularity has no place in
 decision making here. From everything I've seen, 90% of the problems
 that exist in computing technology today can be traced back directly
 to some jackass(es) weighing popularity higher than actual technical
 merit.


 Companies use whatever the money-making competition use, and often bias
 their evaluations to favor doing things in the same way.

 Look at all these stories about Twitter/Facebook/WebStartup technology
 stack. They wouldn't be anything interesting if they weren't famous.

 But they are visible and make money, so what they use must be the right
 thing.


Yea. I just wish more people understood the fallacy of that (and all the 
other basic, basic fallacies out there). :(

This one is basically what I've seen described as the "Birdmen fallacy":
https://seanmalstrom.wordpress.com/2009/12/01/the-birdmen-dont-fly/

See birds fly. Blindly imitate the feathers, not the physics. Fail. 
Blame anything but the "imitate feathers" approach. Repeat.
Sep 29 2015
prev sibling next sibling parent reply bachmeier <no spam.com> writes:
On Wednesday, 23 September 2015 at 12:19:48 UTC, Russel Winder 
wrote:


 Having active regional groups is a first important factor, and 
 that is happening, though perhaps less than would be good. 
 Having lots of projects on GitHub (and BitBucket) that get 
 noticed. Clearly everyone is fighting JavaScript, but that is 
 not an issue for D per se. Go, Rust, C++, C are the "enemy".

 Maybe discuss this a bit at the coming London D Meeting – which 
 sadly clashes with the London Go Meeting…


Nobody uses a language because the language is good, they use it 
for what they can get done with it.

If someone wants to write a web app, they can look at vibe.d, but 
they will find documentation written for experts. I was 
thoroughly confused when I tried to read it (probably because 
I've only done a limited amount of web programming) but I wrote a 
minimal, working PHP app in 30 minutes.

If someone wants to write a GUI app, they can look at gtkd, but 
I'm not sure how many will stick around when they click on the 
documentation link and encounter this: 
http://api.gtkd.org/src/gtk/AboutDialog.html

Someone wanting to do scientific programming is going to have to 
reinvent the wheel. Hopefully that will change, but it's the 
current state of affairs. I can even point to my own project to 
embed D in R, a project that works but that I wouldn't recommend, 
because it's neither properly documented or finished.

I'm sure others could add to the list. Once these things are 
under control, we can worry about marketing.
Sep 23 2015
parent Ola Fosheim =?UTF-8?B?R3LDuHN0YWQ=?= writes:
On Wednesday, 23 September 2015 at 15:12:13 UTC, bachmeier wrote:

 I'm sure others could add to the list. Once these things are 
 under control, we can worry about marketing.


Hopefully when DMD is refactored and documented it will provide 
an avenue for marketing DMD as a nice codebase for people who 
want to experiment with compiler programming.

I'd like to see cross compilation to other languages: asm.js, 
javascript, Go...

I think there's potential there: strengthen D compile time 
features and use D as a meta programming language that can emit 
source code libraries for other languages that lacks meta 
programming.
Sep 23 2015
prev sibling next sibling parent reply Chris <wendlec tcd.ie> writes:
On Wednesday, 23 September 2015 at 12:19:48 UTC, Russel Winder 
wrote:


 The most important can be paraphrased as "I had heard of D but 
 as it was getting no traction, I never looked at it again."


Sad but true. Developers want better tools, but don't even look 
at them, unless you hype them. No wonder mediocre but well-hyped 
languages could be so successful. The sad thing is that one would 
have thought that developers are a bit wiser than the average 
consumer when it comes to choosing their tools.


 Having active regional groups is a first important factor, and 
 that is happening, though perhaps less than would be good. 
 Having lots of projects on GitHub (and BitBucket) that get 
 noticed. Clearly everyone is fighting JavaScript, but that is 
 not an issue for D per se. Go, Rust, C++, C are the "enemy".


I wouldn't call them D's "enemies". The difference is that 
languages like Go are designed to get as many users on board as 
possible in order to lock them in and create dependencies (like 
proprietary operating systems, OS X or MS Windows). D's 
philosophy is different, it genuinely wants to offer a good tool 
that everyone can use without trying to lock anyone in. I'm no 
longer sure, if marketing would make a big difference. We're up 
against

a) billions of dollars:

makes millions selling training courses and books etc.
b) the general inertia and herd behavior of people, and to make 
the herd move you need a)
Sep 23 2015
next sibling parent Chris <wendlec tcd.ie> writes:
On Wednesday, 23 September 2015 at 15:47:06 UTC, Chris wrote:

 We're up against

 a) billions of dollars:

 makes millions selling training courses and books etc.
 b) the general inertia and herd behavior of people, and to make 
 the herd move you need a)


This said, there's also

c) the D community, which is sometimes its own worst enemy
Sep 23 2015
prev sibling next sibling parent reply Nick Sabalausky <SeeWebsiteToContactMe semitwist.com> writes:
On 09/23/2015 11:47 AM, Chris wrote:

 a) billions of dollars:

 millions selling training courses and books etc.
 b) the general inertia and herd behavior of people, and to make the herd
 move you need a)


FWIW, Python hit pretty big success with a different approach: Appeal to 
people's innate desire for instant gratification. By the time they 
discover the downsides, they're already knee-deep. (Obviously I'm not 
suggesting this was intentional, just seems to be the way it played out.)

I'm not making any suggestions or drawing conclusions from that, I just 
think it's relevant and worth being aware of.
Sep 23 2015
next sibling parent reply Ola Fosheim =?UTF-8?B?R3LDuHN0YWQ=?= writes:
On Wednesday, 23 September 2015 at 16:22:02 UTC, Nick Sabalausky 
wrote:

 FWIW, Python hit pretty big success with a different approach: 
 Appeal to people's innate desire for instant gratification.


Perl and Python gained traction because they replaced multiple 
other scripting tools by a single one. What is D replacing?

Adoption of Python2 has taken a long time, it is _very_ stable, 
cross platform and has 60000 libraries... Python3, C11 and Perl6 
might end up never being widely adopted, and instead be 
superseded by a completely different language.

(You can compare Python2/C99 with D1 and Python3/C11 with D2.)
Sep 23 2015
parent reply Nick Sabalausky <SeeWebsiteToContactMe semitwist.com> writes:
On 09/23/2015 01:16 PM, Ola Fosheim Grøstad wrote:

 On Wednesday, 23 September 2015 at 16:22:02 UTC, Nick Sabalausky wrote:

 FWIW, Python hit pretty big success with a different approach: Appeal
 to people's innate desire for instant gratification.


 Perl and Python gained traction because they replaced multiple other
 scripting tools by a single one. What is D replacing?


C/C++ (and Python) as far as I'm concerned. Unfortunately, marketing it 
that way isn't so PC anymore ;)  But hell, that's what drew me.


 (You can compare Python2/C99 with D1 and Python3/C11 with D2.)


Except D2's already surpassed D1 :)
Sep 23 2015
parent reply Ola Fosheim Grostad <ola.fosheim.grostad+dlang gmail.com> writes:
On Wednesday, 23 September 2015 at 18:33:06 UTC, Nick Sabalausky 
wrote:

 C/C++ (and Python) as far as I'm concerned. Unfortunately, 
 marketing it that way isn't so PC anymore ;)  But hell, that's 
 what drew me.


C/C++ for me too, but that was to a large extent due to D1's 
simplicity (easy to learn, readable source code compared to 
C/C++).


 Except D2's already surpassed D1 :)


That's true, although D1 had a more active library producing 
community?
Sep 23 2015
next sibling parent reply Nick Sabalausky <SeeWebsiteToContactMe semitwist.com> writes:
On 09/23/2015 02:57 PM, Ola Fosheim Grostad wrote:

 On Wednesday, 23 September 2015 at 18:33:06 UTC, Nick Sabalausky wrote:

 Except D2's already surpassed D1 :)


 That's true, although D1 had a more active library producing community?


Hmm, that's not the impression I get (aside from Tango which was a 
pretty large effort).

D1 had a lot of little libs that briefly blipped and got abandoned. D2 
has code.dlang.org and github, and maybe(?) a few fewer libs overall, 
but what libs it does have tend to be more stable/mature. Almost like D2 
was kind of a shake-out, filtering out less serious/mature projects and 
giving the others a better foundation to grow on.

Of course, the rapid pace of language development around the D1 days 
made it harder for libs to be well-maintained anyway, compared to now.
Sep 23 2015
parent Adam D. Ruppe <destructionator gmail.com> writes:
On Wednesday, 23 September 2015 at 19:40:33 UTC, Nick Sabalausky 
wrote:

 That's true, although D1 had a more active library producing 
 community?


 Hmm, that's not the impression I get (aside from Tango which 
 was a pretty large effort).


Yeah, I don't remember that large of a community back in those 
days either. Maybe it was more centralized but I never got the 
impression that it was bigger. And there was the whole phobos vs 
tango thing too.
Sep 23 2015
prev sibling parent ponce <contact gam3sfrommars.fr> writes:
On Wednesday, 23 September 2015 at 18:57:21 UTC, Ola Fosheim 
Grostad wrote:

 Except D2's already surpassed D1 :)


 That's true, although D1 had a more active library producing 
 community?


I think it was way worse than today, because of the Tango/Phobos 
split, few people using DSSS, or "bud", or other build tools.
Sep 23 2015
prev sibling next sibling parent lobo <swamplobo gmail.com> writes:
On Wednesday, 23 September 2015 at 16:22:02 UTC, Nick Sabalausky 
wrote:
[snip[

 FWIW, Python hit pretty big success with a different approach: 
 Appeal to people's innate desire for instant gratification. By 
 the time they discover the downsides, they're already 
 knee-deep. (Obviously I'm not suggesting this was intentional, 
 just seems to be the way it played out.)


Instant gratification in Python == 10x more productive in Python. 
This is why Python succeeds.

D can compete in this market using dub and rdmd. D can also 

falls short.

bye,
lobo
Sep 23 2015
prev sibling parent Dmitry Olshansky <dmitry.olsh gmail.com> writes:
On 23-Sep-2015 19:22, Nick Sabalausky wrote:

 On 09/23/2015 11:47 AM, Chris wrote:

 a) billions of dollars:

 millions selling training courses and books etc.
 b) the general inertia and herd behavior of people, and to make the herd
 move you need a)


 FWIW, Python hit pretty big success with a different approach: Appeal to
 people's innate desire for instant gratification. By the time they
 discover the downsides, they're already knee-deep. (Obviously I'm not
 suggesting this was intentional, just seems to be the way it played out.)


Working with Python codebase ATM I can't agree more :)
Of course, that is just my biased opinion.


 I'm not making any suggestions or drawing conclusions from that, I just
 think it's relevant and worth being aware of.



-- 
Dmitry Olshansky
Sep 24 2015
prev sibling parent reply Joakim <dlang joakim.fea.st> writes:
On Wednesday, 23 September 2015 at 15:47:06 UTC, Chris wrote:

 On Wednesday, 23 September 2015 at 12:19:48 UTC, Russel Winder 
 wrote:


 The most important can be paraphrased as "I had heard of D but 
 as it was getting no traction, I never looked at it again."


 Sad but true. Developers want better tools, but don't even look 
 at them, unless you hype them. No wonder mediocre but 
 well-hyped languages could be so successful. The sad thing is 
 that one would have thought that developers are a bit wiser 
 than the average consumer when it comes to choosing their tools.


Most developers are either not interested in choosing their own 
tools, or know they're not smart enough to do so.  Instead, they 
rely on the same mechanism as most consumers, social proof, ie do 
what everybody else in your field is doing:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_proof

D is still in the innovators and early adopters stage of the tech 
adoption lifecycle:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technology_adoption_lifecycle

To break out to an early majority, D will have to prove itself, 
ie the innovators and early adopters have to show empirically 
that it is working better for them and allowing them to do more.  
Sociomantic would be a good success story to point at, though the 
fact they're still on D1 hurts that story.

This is why I keep saying D needs a killer app to break out and 
garner attention so it spreads wider.  An example would be how 
the success of Whatsapp brought more attention to Erlang.  
Barring that, a bunch of nice libraries on dub that get attention 
might work too.  One is a home run, the other is a bunch of 
singles, to use a baseball analogy.

I'm hoping that once D is on mobile, it will prove fertile 
terrain and flourish there.  I think more could be done to 
publicize it as a good language on the server, that scales well 
and is much easier to develop with.

There will need to be a paid toolchain at some point, to spur 
more development and more manpower on sanding down the rough 
edges of the tools.  That's a chicken-and-egg situation right 
now, as there might not be enough devs and businesses making 
money off D to pay for such tools yet.
Sep 23 2015
next sibling parent Nick Sabalausky <SeeWebsiteToContactMe semitwist.com> writes:
On 09/23/2015 12:22 PM, Joakim wrote:

 Most developers are either not interested in choosing their own tools,
 or know they're not smart enough to do so.


Perhaps so. Although if they're in either of those boats, then IMO 
they're unqualified to be doing it professionally, at least beyond 
intern-level anyway.


 Instead, they rely on the
 same mechanism as most consumers, social proof, ie do what everybody
 else in your field is doing:

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_proof

 D is still in the innovators and early adopters stage of the tech
 adoption lifecycle:

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technology_adoption_lifecycle

 To break out to an early majority, D will have to prove itself, ie the
 innovators and early adopters have to show empirically that it is
 working better for them and allowing them to do more. Sociomantic would
 be a good success story to point at, though the fact they're still on D1
 hurts that story.

 This is why I keep saying D needs a killer app to break out and garner
 attention so it spreads wider.  An example would be how the success of
 Whatsapp brought more attention to Erlang. Barring that, a bunch of nice
 libraries on dub that get attention might work too.  One is a home run,
 the other is a bunch of singles, to use a baseball analogy.


Yea, I do agree. Although, I think we already have that with vibe.d, but 
that still doesn't stop the excuses-mill. :/


 I'm hoping that once D is on mobile, it will prove fertile terrain and
 flourish there.  I think more could be done to publicize it as a good
 language on the server, that scales well and is much easier to develop
 with.


That'd be nice.


 There will need to be a paid toolchain at some point, to spur more
 development and more manpower on sanding down the rough edges of the
 tools.  That's a chicken-and-egg situation right now, as there might not
 be enough devs and businesses making money off D to pay for such tools yet.


Yea.
Sep 23 2015
prev sibling parent reply Laeeth Isharc <spamnolaeeth nospamlaeeth.com> writes:
On Wednesday, 23 September 2015 at 16:22:35 UTC, Joakim wrote:

 Most developers are either not interested in choosing their own 
 tools, or know they're not smart enough to do so.  Instead, 
 they rely on the same mechanism as most consumers, social 
 proof, ie do what everybody else in your field is doing:

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_proof

 D is still in the innovators and early adopters stage of the 
 tech adoption lifecycle:

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technology_adoption_lifecycle

 To break out to an early majority, D will have to prove itself, 
 ie the innovators and early adopters have to show empirically 
 that it is working better for them and allowing them to do more.


I think you are spot on.

I have noticed that people (not just in technology) often have a 
heuristic about how ideas spread that isn't consistent with how 
this actually tends to work in human society.  Not so surprising, 
because for most people there is no consequence to having a 
mistaken view.

Ideas don't spread in a democratic fashion.  The drivers of their 
diffusion seem to be profoundly inegalitarian, as that highly 
talented but utterly 'incorrect' (politically) thinker Vilfredo 
Pareto observed.

Modern research finds the same thing:
http://phys.org/news/2011-07-minority-scientists-ideas.html

And of course the Geoffrey Moore stuff you allude to and I have 
mentioned here before.  Christensen's Innovator's Dilemma is 
extremely important here.  (Sociomantic guy - I think Don - 
posted here a while back to agree with me, fwiw).  If you're a 
disruptive technology you don't win by taking on the dominant 
force head on - that's a silly fight to pick, and you won't win.  
You win it by having a high appeal to a small group of people, 
and then you use the energy from that to break into adjacent 
niches.  That's how the Japanese car markers (originally 
motorbikes/mopeds) went from making cheap, embarrassing cars to 
posing an existential threat to the American auto industry (for 
some years).

D isn't cheap or embarrassing, but polish (particularly 
superficial polish) isn't today its strongest point.  (It's a 
much higher quality product than it appears).  That will need to 
be improved in time, but it doesn't need to be perfect today for 
it to keep growing.  It would be better to focus on developing 
its appeal to people who already use it but want to use it more, 
and people who are on the brink but held back by little things.  
Please your best customers or those that like you already, or 
those that are desperate to like you because you can be a 
solution to their pain.

The naysayers are irrelevant, because you will always have people 
that will tell you you are going to fail, and most likely doing 
what they say you should do won't actually change their minds.  I 
can understand how tiring it is to deal with error messages (I 
was talking about this to someone the other day), but mostly it's 
easier with time, and someone that doesn't persist very long 
unlikely would be a core customer at this particular stage of 
development.  One's priorities can't be set by who complains 
loudest.

One way to do this would be to talk to those that use D and see 
what the obstacles are to wider use for them.  (The forum is a 
tiny proportion of the user base and isn't representative).  No 
doubt that's already on Andrei's agenda.  Probably one won't be 
surprised, but one might be.  Also collecting and polishing a set 
of user stories, so the benefit can be made more compelling to 
others currently on the fence about adopting.


 This is why I keep saying D needs a killer app to break out and 
 garner attention so it spreads wider.  An example would be how 
 the success of Whatsapp brought more attention to Erlang.  
 Barring that, a bunch of nice libraries on dub that get 
 attention might work too.  One is a home run, the other is a 
 bunch of singles, to use a baseball analogy.


Andrei is right though.  Success/responsibility is thrust on 
those who have earned it, whether they like it or not - D will 
succeed in a broader domain when it is ready for it, whenever 
that may be.  I don't know if focusing on trying to produce a 
killer app (not that I suggest you suggest that) will produce the 
desired result, since it's trying to short-cut a process that is 
essentially organic.  Too large an influx of new arrivals before 
you are ready for them (docs, libraries, etc) isn't necessarily 
only positive.  If you are going to host the Olympics, it's a 
good idea to make sure the street signs are up first.

Of course often much better to visit a place before a massive 
influx of tourists or permanent overseas residents.

I plan to be using some of the work I have built in D over the 
past while in production soon enough.  Who knows what that might 
lead to down the line?  Perhaps my perception of what D can offer 
me is something idiosyncratic, but often enough I have had the 
experience of just seeing things a bit earlier.  Datasets grow 
much faster than memory speed/computing power, and if python 
isn't enough for me today, maybe others will experience the same 
in coming years.  Is Facebook and their assessment of the 
productivity/efficiency tradeoff a monstrous edge case, or 
William Gibson's future here now but unevenly distributed?  
Probably a bit of both, but I am willing to bet more the latter 
than people think.

When it takes a very smart friend of mine at a big wall street 
house known for being not bad in technology an hour to run an 
analysis that takes me a few minutes using dmd debug and without 
bothering to optimize and it took me a few hours to write and 
having to wait for results is holding back his strategy (20% of 
it is based on this, which he copied from me after Deutsche Bank 
sneakily wrote up a white paper on it) - I think I can say that D 
has been a smart choice for me so far.  Probably others will find 
that in time, but humans take time to respond to changed 
conditions.  There's an extensive literature on organisational 
architecture - see Brynjolfsson's work.

Compare the documentation and web site to a couple of years back 
- so much better.  These things take time, but we are so much in 
a hurry when sometimes that doesn't make it go faster.

 I'm hoping that once D is on mobile, it will prove fertile 
 terrain and flourish there.  I think more could be done to 
 publicize it as a good language on the server, that scales well 
 and is much easier to develop with.


Your work on that is surely very important.  Once it's stable on 
Android ARM, I suppose it will take a little time for toolkits to 
be ported.  What could be done to make its benefits on the server 
clearer?  One obvious thing is better documentation and more blog 
posts.



 There will need to be a paid toolchain at some point, to spur 
 more development and more manpower on sanding down the rough 
 edges of the tools.  That's a chicken-and-egg situation right 
 now, as there might not be enough devs and businesses making 
 money off D to pay for such tools yet.


Hobby/open-source project today, business tomorrow?  Who would 
wish to bet against that happening with some of the free tool 
sets that are already here?  (And that would be something to be 
welcomed).



Laeeth.
Sep 23 2015
next sibling parent reply Joakim <dlang joakim.fea.st> writes:
On Wednesday, 23 September 2015 at 23:00:29 UTC, Laeeth Isharc 
wrote:

 I don't know if focusing on trying to produce a killer app (not 
 that I suggest you suggest that) will produce the desired 
 result, since it's trying to short-cut a process that is 
 essentially organic.  Too large an influx of new arrivals 
 before you are ready for them (docs, libraries, etc) isn't 
 necessarily only positive.  If you are going to host the 
 Olympics, it's a good idea to make sure the street signs are up 
 first.

 Of course often much better to visit a place before a massive 
 influx of tourists or permanent overseas residents.


I agree that D may not be ready for a large influx of new users, 
but that is a cyclic process that is necessary for growth, ie 10k 
new users come in, 5k go away because they run into issues, 5k 
stick around and a few pitch in to make things better.  A killer 
app is a way to get a lot of attention and potential new users 
quickly, but nobody's saying that alone is enough.  But it is one 
way to add to the userbase that might lead to more growth and 
more killer apps and libraries later.

Rails led to a lot of new ruby users, some of whom found flaws 
with the language and left.  Others worked on alternate 
implementations and improvements.


 What could be done to make its benefits on the server clearer?  
 One obvious thing is better documentation and more blog posts.


Same as always, publicizing the server successes it has had and 
blog posts comparing D and benchmarking vibe.d against other 
popular web languages and frameworks.  Some on the forums have 
suggested getting vibe.d in this apparently popular web benchmark:

https://www.techempower.com/benchmarks/

More D libraries aimed at use on the server, that make getting up 
and running there easier, along with posts publicizing them.  I 
thought this was an interesting snippet from a recent blog post, 
highlighting the importance of such marketing:

"What we never know is how quickly diffusion happens. I’ve 
observed 'no-brainer' technologies or ideas lie unadopted for 
decades, languishing in perpetual indifference and suddenly, with 
no apparent cause, flip into ubiquity and inevitability at a 
vicious rate of adoption.

Watching this phenomenon for most of my life, I developed a 
theory of causation. This theory is that for adoption to 
accelerate there has to be a combination of conformability to the 
adopter’s manifest needs (the pull) combined with a concerted 
collaboration of producers to promote the solution (the push). 
Absent either pull or push, adoption of even the brightest and 
most self-evident ideas drags on."
http://www.asymco.com/2015/09/21/how-quickly-will-ads-disappear/


 There will need to be a paid toolchain at some point, to spur 
 more development and more manpower on sanding down the rough 
 edges of the tools.  That's a chicken-and-egg situation right 
 now, as there might not be enough devs and businesses making 
 money off D to pay for such tools yet.


 Hobby/open-source project today, business tomorrow?  Who would 
 wish to bet against that happening with some of the free tool 
 sets that are already here?  (And that would be something to be 
 welcomed).


Since the D frontend and druntime/phobos are boost-licensed and 
at least ldc is mostly BSD-licensed, it is certainly allowed to 
integrate proprietary fixes and additions with some of the D 
compilers and the standard library.  This could be the basis for 
a paid toolchain, as I've pointed out before.  llvm/clang 
certainly started out as such a project and is part of a big 
business today, with proprietary additions.

On a related note, I feel like Microsoft is really missing the 
boat here, especially when reading Manu and Walter on why llvm 
doesn't support MS debuginfo:

"I've actually had quite a few conversations with LLVM dev's about
this, and one of the key excuses for not supporting MS debuginfo 
was
the classic 'it's not documented.' I promptly pointed them at your
work every single time it came up, but they ignored or dismissed 
it
every time. Dev's are funny like that."
http://forum.dlang.org/post/mailman.80.1439216033.13986.digitalmars-d puremagic.com

The problem for Microsoft is that all new languages are using 
llvm to generate code.  If that code cannot be debugged on 
Windows not only because they don't provide any open source way 
to integrate such languages with their platform but _do not even 
bother to document_ their debuginfo format, so the only way it 
gets supported is if Walter reverse-engineers it, there go all 
those potential Windows developers.  By contrast, the two major 
OS platforms of the last decade, iOS and Android, have toolchains 
that are almost completely or completely open-source.  This means 
random people on the internet, like Dan and me, have been able to 
get D mostly working on those platforms, with much less work.

Microsoft wouldn't even have to open source everything in their 
toolchain, just the parts that would make it easy for other 
languages to integrate.  Or at least document your damn debug 
format!  Maybe Microsoft thinks their in-house languages are much 
better, but even if that's true, you're missing out on all the 
devs using those outside languages.

Of course, part of this, which goes unmentioned by Manu, is that 
the llvm devs likely work for Apple and aren't incented to 
support Microsoft.  But there's nothing stopping Microsoft from 
contributing to llvm or just documenting the format.  They've 
been doing some stuff with llvm lately, so maybe things are 
changing, but this is a clear win that is likely much more 
important:

http://blog.llvm.org/2015/04/llilc-llvm-based-compiler-for-dotnet.html
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/vcblog/archive/2015/05/01/bringing-clang-to-windows.aspx

In that second link, they actually note "debugging-friendly 
code-generation" as a benefit of using the VC++ backend.  I'm 
sorry, if you have to refrain from documenting your format in 
order to help your backend, you've already lost.
Sep 24 2015
parent reply Joakim <dlang joakim.fea.st> writes:
On Thursday, 24 September 2015 at 09:38:16 UTC, Joakim wrote:

 On a related note, I feel like Microsoft is really missing the 
 boat here, especially when reading Manu and Walter on why llvm 
 doesn't support MS debuginfo:


btw, Walter wrote up a nice article in 2012 laying out all he had 
to go through to get dmd working on Win64:

http://www.drdobbs.com/cpp/porting-the-d-compiler-to-win64/240144208

No wonder Windows is a dying platform, given what he laid out 
there.
Sep 24 2015
next sibling parent reply Dmitry Olshansky <dmitry.olsh gmail.com> writes:
On 24-Sep-2015 13:51, Joakim wrote:

 On Thursday, 24 September 2015 at 09:38:16 UTC, Joakim wrote:

 On a related note, I feel like Microsoft is really missing the boat
 here, especially when reading Manu and Walter on why llvm doesn't
 support MS debuginfo:


 btw, Walter wrote up a nice article in 2012 laying out all he had to go
 through to get dmd working on Win64:

 http://www.drdobbs.com/cpp/porting-the-d-compiler-to-win64/240144208




 No wonder Windows is a dying platform, given what he laid out there.


Much as I'd like that to be true, the opposite might be the current 
situation. See all the new shiny and dead-simple APIs or Windows 10 
Universal Apps ...

And you know where most developers flow - like watter - where it's 
easiest to pass.

-- 
Dmitry Olshansky
Sep 24 2015
parent reply Joakim <dlang joakim.fea.st> writes:
On Thursday, 24 September 2015 at 11:25:57 UTC, Dmitry Olshansky 
wrote:

 On 24-Sep-2015 13:51, Joakim wrote:

 No wonder Windows is a dying platform, given what he laid out 
 there.


 Much as I'd like that to be true, the opposite might be the 
 current situation. See all the new shiny and dead-simple APIs 
 or Windows 10 Universal Apps ...

 And you know where most developers flow - like watter - where 
 it's easiest to pass.


Oh, if you use one of the established languages that MS already 
supports fully through their toolchain, I don't doubt it's easy.  
However, perhaps you're unaware, but there's a lot of 
hand-wringing in the Windows camp about how nobody develops for 
Windows anymore and Microsoft themselves are developing first for 
other OS's:

https://www.thurrott.com/mobile/android/3174/windows-android
https://www.thurrott.com/windows/windows-10/5818/and-the-biggest-problem-with-windows-10-is
https://www.thurrott.com/office/5904/because-microsoft-comes-first-not-windows-or-surface

Part of that is that Windows failed on mobile, which is where a 
lot of new app development takes place these days.  But part of 
it is that MS seems stuck in the past, with issues like not 
documenting their debuginfo format, where they still act like an 
OS monopoly when they're not even the majority computing platform 
anymore.  They've got to up their game to stay relevant, but 
perhaps they're not capable of that anymore.

On Thursday, 24 September 2015 at 13:04:38 UTC, Adam D. Ruppe 
wrote:

 On Thursday, 24 September 2015 at 10:51:09 UTC, Joakim wrote:

 btw, Walter wrote up a nice article in 2012 laying out all he 
 had to go through to get dmd working on Win64:


 The beauty of Windows though is you don't actually need to do 
 anything to actually work on the new versions. Your old tricks 
 generally still work.


Yes, all the old win32 apps still work on win64.  But you not 
only need legacy support but new apps coming on board.  That's 
where they're failing, and not enabling new languages is part of 
the problem.
Sep 24 2015
parent reply Dmitry Olshansky <dmitry.olsh gmail.com> writes:
On 24-Sep-2015 17:22, Joakim wrote:

 On Thursday, 24 September 2015 at 13:04:38 UTC, Adam D. Ruppe wrote:

 On Thursday, 24 September 2015 at 10:51:09 UTC, Joakim wrote:

 btw, Walter wrote up a nice article in 2012 laying out all he had to
 go through to get dmd working on Win64:


 The beauty of Windows though is you don't actually need to do anything
 to actually work on the new versions. Your old tricks generally still
 work.


 Yes, all the old win32 apps still work on win64.  But you not only need
 legacy support but new apps coming on board.  That's where they're
 failing, and not enabling new languages is part of the problem.


For instance, x64 SEH is actually beautiful and supports any language 
out of the box. Innovations happens on both (or rather on all) sides of 
the fence.

-- 
Dmitry Olshansky
Sep 24 2015
parent Joakim <dlang joakim.fea.st> writes:
On Thursday, 24 September 2015 at 15:35:40 UTC, Dmitry Olshansky 
wrote:

 For instance, x64 SEH is actually beautiful and supports any 
 language out of the box. Innovations happens on both (or rather 
 on all) sides of the fence.


Nobody is denying that there are still innovations happening in 
Windows.  The problem is that they still act as though they own 
the market, when they're now the minority computing platform.  
Worse, the larger platforms' toolchains are much more open, so 
they look much worse by comparison.  They need to stop shooting 
themselves in the foot, if they want to survive.  Personally, I 
don't mind if they don't. :)
Sep 24 2015
prev sibling parent Adam D. Ruppe <destructionator gmail.com> writes:
On Thursday, 24 September 2015 at 10:51:09 UTC, Joakim wrote:

 btw, Walter wrote up a nice article in 2012 laying out all he 
 had to go through to get dmd working on Win64:


The beauty of Windows though is you don't actually need to do 
anything to actually work on the new versions. Your old tricks 
generally still work.
Sep 24 2015
prev sibling parent reply Chris <wendlec tcd.ie> writes:
On Wednesday, 23 September 2015 at 23:00:29 UTC, Laeeth Isharc 
wrote:

 On Wednesday, 23 September 2015 at 16:22:35 UTC, Joakim wrote:

 To break out to an early majority, D will have to prove 
 itself, ie the innovators and early adopters have to show 
 empirically that it is working better for them and allowing 
 them to do more.


 I think you are spot on.


I agree. Conventional marketing won't get us far at this stage.

[snip - to which I agree]


 The naysayers are irrelevant, because you will always have 
 people that will tell you you are going to fail, and most 
 likely doing what they say you should do won't actually change 
 their minds.  I can understand how tiring it is to deal with 
 error messages (I was talking about this to someone the other 
 day), but mostly it's easier with time, and someone that 
 doesn't persist very long unlikely would be a core customer at 
 this particular stage of development.  One's priorities can't 
 be set by who complains loudest.


Thank you. Nicely put. Mind you, a lot of complaints are not 
related to the language itself (as others have said), but are 
secondary issues like IDEs 
(one-click-debug-compile-run-deploy-go-for-coffee-magic) and 
libraries, which are logically a step you take _after_ a language 
has been created. And it is true, doing what people tell you to 
do won't necessarily change their minds. They will find something 
else to complain about - like those nasty neighbors that tell you 
to cut the grass, then to trim the hedges, then to sweep the 
footpath etc. Let the grass grow!


 When it takes a very smart friend of mine at a big wall street 
 house known for being not bad in technology an hour to run an 
 analysis that takes me a few minutes using dmd debug and 
 without bothering to optimize and it took me a few hours to 
 write and having to wait for results is holding back his 
 strategy (20% of it is based on this, which he copied from me 
 after Deutsche Bank sneakily wrote up a white paper on it) - I 
 think I can say that D has been a smart choice for me so far.  
 Probably others will find that in time, but humans take time to 
 respond to changed conditions.  There's an extensive literature 
 on organisational architecture - see Brynjolfsson's work.


These things do make a difference. At least for the Python crowd. 
But be prepared that people might attack you saying that with C++ 
it would be 10-20% faster than D, because D has GC blah blah blah.

The amount of random criticism that is thrown at D, confirms, 
imo, that it is really good, else people wouldn't bother to 
attack it so passionately. Only really good creations are 
attacked with a passion - be it in art or technology.
Sep 24 2015
parent reply Laeeth Isharc <laeethnospam nospamlaeeth.com> writes:
On Thursday, 24 September 2015 at 09:48:24 UTC, Chris wrote:

 On Wednesday, 23 September 2015 at 23:00:29 UTC, Laeeth Isharc 
 wrote:

 On Wednesday, 23 September 2015 at 16:22:35 UTC, Joakim wrote:

 To break out to an early majority, D will have to prove 
 itself, ie the innovators and early adopters have to show 
 empirically that it is working better for them and allowing 
 them to do more.


 I think you are spot on.


 I agree. Conventional marketing won't get us far at this stage.


We agree (although the theory of marketing I think points in the 
same direction I described, whether or not that's what people 
understand by marketing).


 Thank you. Nicely put. Mind you, a lot of complaints are not 
 related to the language itself (as others have said), but are 
 secondary issues like IDEs 
 (one-click-debug-compile-run-deploy-go-for-coffee-magic) and 
 libraries, which are logically a step you take _after_ a 
 language has been created.


It's an ecosystem and things co-evolve.

Why do the documentation and IDE options fall short of what many 
newcomers might expect?  Because the community seems to me to be 
comprised of serious programming types, and for such people the 
importance of documentation and IDEs is less than it might be for 
others.  That's a strength of the community, not a weakness, but 
it just means at this time those aren't especially selling points 
of D (although it's improving every year).  At some point the 
dynamics will change and either existing D IDEs will become good 
enough, or someone will be motivated to write one.


 These things do make a difference. At least for the Python 
 crowd. But be prepared that people might attack you saying that 
 with C++ it would be 10-20% faster than D, because D has GC 
 blah blah blah.


Yes, but the reason it takes him an hour today whilst he is 
putting money to work behind this strategy is that the 
alternative to the internal scripting language is C++, and that 
will cost time and money.  Having to make a business case for 
something often means that projects with a high return on 
investment don't get done, or take a long time to be done, 
because of the human factors.

And if you have to wait 3 minutes (remember, this is on my home 
machine with dmd debug mode) or 2.7 minutes, it's not an 
important difference.  Because I still remember what I was 
thinking when I ran the study.  But after an hour I have 
completely forgotten and will be doing something else.

Of course you can scale up to more machines, but the cost of 
adding complexity for a small tool isn't zero, even if the cost 
of raw horsepower is close to zero.



 The amount of random criticism that is thrown at D, confirms, 
 imo, that it is really good, else people wouldn't bother to 
 attack it so passionately. Only really good creations are 
 attacked with a passion - be it in art or technology.


Yes - that's very insightful.  I wonder why that is.


Laeeth.
Sep 24 2015
parent Jonathan M Davis <jmdavisProg gmx.com> writes:
On Thursday, 24 September 2015 at 18:39:34 UTC, Laeeth Isharc 
wrote:

 On Thursday, 24 September 2015 at 09:48:24 UTC, Chris wrote:

 The amount of random criticism that is thrown at D, confirms, 
 imo, that it is really good, else people wouldn't bother to 
 attack it so passionately. Only really good creations are 
 attacked with a passion - be it in art or technology.


 Yes - that's very insightful.  I wonder why that is.


Similarly, I've heard it said that D programmers have no problem 
criticizing D while still using it because of how good we think 
it is, whereas the proponents of some other languages freak out 
if you say anything negative about their language at all (though 
I don't think that the D community is completely immune to that - 
especially in the context of D vs some other language rather than 
when just talking about D and how it could be improved).

- Jonathan M Davis
Sep 24 2015
prev sibling parent Shammah Chancellor <shammah.chancellor gmail.com> writes:
On Wednesday, 23 September 2015 at 12:19:48 UTC, Russel Winder 
wrote:

 Having just done a session at PyConUK 2015 aimed at weaning 
 people of
 pure Python and into polyglot – Python with (C++|D|Chapel) 
 (there
 should have been a Rust bit but…) – and as people probably 
 heard the D
 bit was a bit embarrassing for me, I got some interesting 
 comments
 during the rest of the conference.

 The most important can be paraphrased as "I had heard of D but 
 as it was getting no traction, I never looked at it again."

 This would seem to indicate that D really does need to have a 
 marketing campaign to show it does have traction and isn't just 
 a little ghetto as so many languages end up in. D's forays into 
 AAA games, finance, etc. all need to get permanent presence. In 
 this respect, Reddit is (almost) an irrelevance: bulk 
 perception is unaffected by Reddit, most programmers do not 
 even look at it, let alone follow it. It would be nice if Tiobe 
 and the like were an irrelevance, but that is less so.

 Having active regional groups is a first important factor, and 
 that is happening, though perhaps less than would be good. 
 Having lots of projects on GitHub (and BitBucket) that get 
 noticed. Clearly everyone is fighting JavaScript, but that is 
 not an issue for D per se. Go, Rust, C++, C are the "enemy".

 Maybe discuss this a bit at the coming London D Meeting – which 
 sadly clashes with the London Go Meeting…



Honestly, the biggest thing that would get some D traction is 
people writing developer tools in it.  I've been working on some 
release tooling in D to snapshot sets of repositories for later 
checkout and to generate changelogs from commit messages somewhat 
like dpkg-dch.

-Shammah
Oct 01 2015