>> First informative link from front page is a link to comparation
>> table. First
>> look at this table shows that D has more features than others.
>> But more
>> detailed look shows that many of this features are not missing in
>> other
>> languages but raser implemented as libraries. Reasons for doing
>> it in
>> compiler are not described here.
>
> Listen, he admits in the first paragraph he's counting what's available in each language. Most people expect that the items in such a comparison list are going to be selected to favor the language being endorsed.
>
> Also, if someone has to be told that it might be a lot cooler to have a feature built-in as opposed to hacked-in, they may not be a programmer.

Wow!

First, huge respect for misrepresenting Vladimir's contrasting of built-in vs libraries with the much more colourful and loaded "built-in as opposed to hacked-in". (I guess that's a useful tactic in debate when the foundation of your argument is built on sand.)

Second, if you'll permit me a similar indulgence to re-re-write your response as "if someone has to be told that it might be a lot cooler to have a feature built-in as opposed to [in a library], they may not be a programmer", then I would have to address that by saying that's one of the most stupid things I think anyone's ever said on this newsgroup. Well done!

Why don't you email Bjarn Stroustrup or Guido van Rossum, and see if they agree?

"Matthew" <admin@stlsoft.dot.dot.dot.dot.org> wrote in message news:d4ud9f$1qrc$1@digitaldaemon.com...
> Without built-in regex, it's not going to sell as an alternative to Perl or Ruby.

A couple months back, I added numerous functions to std.string and std.regexp which mostly close the gap with Ruby.

"Matthew" <admin@stlsoft.dot.dot.dot.dot.org> wrote in message news:d4ud9f$1qrc$1@digitaldaemon.com...
> I just don't see D as an alternative to scripting languages. DMDScript might, but I've not (yet) used it, and don't really know anything about it.

DMDScript is an implementation of ECMA262 (i.e. javascript). It has nothing to do with D, other than being implemented in D.

In article <d4r4vt$18hb$1@digitaldaemon.com>, Walter says...
>
>
>"J C Calvarese" <jcc7@cox.net> wrote in message news:d4n2nl$1hr$1@digitaldaemon.com...
>> I think you're right. There's nothing necessarily /wrong/ the Digital Mars website, but a little CSS and a few simple graphical elements can go a long way. Obviously jazzy web design isn't Walter's favorite hobby, but there are many D programmers who are skilled at designing flashy web pages.
>
>Is a flashy web page really an advantage? I see a lot of flashy web pages, and they don't impress me that much. The DM pages are for programmers, who (I assume) want to see a straightforward page that loads fast and is not gimmicky. Maybe I'm all wrong about this.

FWIW, the Comeau website is certainly no flashier than the DigitalMars website and I haven't heard any complaints from the C++ community :)


Sean

> I guess nobody likes Times font!

Generally, yes.  The Times font is great for printed material, but on screen, fonts without serifs are typically easier to read.  Verdana, for example, is a very friendly-on-the-eyes sort of font.

Sometimes, a good compromise works well.  Georgia, for example, is a serif font that for some people still reads well on screen.

In any case, the pages aren't at all bad imho, but they lack... feel. It's all so basic, hardly any colors.  Lots of color is very obviously bad, but hardly any can tire your eyes.  Sometimes the tiny bit of pizazz is to keep you awake - if it becomes distracting, it's a problem... but that doesn't mean avoid it entirely.

PHP's documentation is generally considered to be very good, and when it is asked why the language is popular, the documentation is just about always named as a reason.  For one thing, most everything has at least one example - for another, everything has postable comments.  D isn't far off at all, in these respects... but do take a look:

http://www.php.net/array_keys

First, we have color.  The headings are in a very dark blue/purple. This isn't distracting and it isn't inaccessable, but it gives the page identity and feel.  It's like wearing a good tie - and the current D site is wearing a solid black tie.

The example text is also color coded there.  One way to achieve this almost transparently is JavaScript (yes, I know it was mentioned as to be avoided) - for example, any <pre> elements with a class set to code could be found and colored in an automated fashion.  If JavaScript was disabled, it'd just be black on white.  This would mean adding one line to every file, and adding the class... and not worrying about it.

Of course, that assumes some sort of color coding (which I hope you'll agree most programmers like) is desirable.  And, obviously, with the print media the color could be forced as black - because, again, screen and print are different worlds these days.

And... while I think frames are a... very debated concept, you'll see that the PHP documentation I linked to has an index of sorts, but without frames.  While there are benefits to frames, one of the major detriments is printing.  Some browsers will print each frame separately, others will just bungle it.  Some browsers, such as text-only ones (which programmers are decently likely to use!) don't even support frames.

Frames also hurt searching.  Go to Google, and search for "versionstatement".  D is in third place, which is wonderful - but click on the link.  No index, no real navigation aside from "[D]".  If I didn't know anything about D, I might be confused and I might have trouble finding more information.

I'd be more than willing to come up with example pages for some of what I've said.

-[Unknown]

"Unknown W. Brackets" <unknown@simplemachines.org> wrote in message news:d50p42$14r0$1@digitaldaemon.com...
> I'd be more than willing to come up with example pages for some of what I've said.

I think your comments are on target. Great! Why not pick one of the pages, and mock up an example?

Sean Kelly wrote:
> In article <d4r4vt$18hb$1@digitaldaemon.com>, Walter says...
> 
>>
>>"J C Calvarese" <jcc7@cox.net> wrote in message
>>news:d4n2nl$1hr$1@digitaldaemon.com...
>>
>>>I think you're right. There's nothing necessarily /wrong/ the Digital
>>>Mars website, but a little CSS and a few simple graphical elements can
>>>go a long way. Obviously jazzy web design isn't Walter's favorite hobby,
>>>but there are many D programmers who are skilled at designing flashy web
>>>pages.
>>
>>Is a flashy web page really an advantage? I see a lot of flashy web pages,
>>and they don't impress me that much. The DM pages are for programmers, who
>>(I assume) want to see a straightforward page that loads fast and is not
>>gimmicky. Maybe I'm all wrong about this.
> 
> 
> FWIW, the Comeau website is certainly no flashier than the DigitalMars website
> and I haven't heard any complaints from the C++ community :)
> 
> 
> Sean

I'm not familiar with the Comeau website (and I'm too lazy to search for a URL), but since Comeau didn't write the first C++ compiler they never had the same goals for their target audience. It's likely that their target audience is already sold on C++. They just need persuading to try a new compiler. We need to persuade people to try a compiler *and* and language.

If we can add a little finese to the first thing that perspective D programmers would see, we can promote D better.

-- 
jcc7
http://jcc_7.tripod.com/d/

But Comeau is preaching to the converted. ;)

"Sean Kelly" <sean@f4.ca> wrote in message news:d50f9n$s9p$1@digitaldaemon.com...
> In article <d4r4vt$18hb$1@digitaldaemon.com>, Walter says...
>>
>>
>>"J C Calvarese" <jcc7@cox.net> wrote in message news:d4n2nl$1hr$1@digitaldaemon.com...
>>> I think you're right. There's nothing necessarily /wrong/ the
>>> Digital
>>> Mars website, but a little CSS and a few simple graphical
>>> elements can
>>> go a long way. Obviously jazzy web design isn't Walter's
>>> favorite hobby,
>>> but there are many D programmers who are skilled at designing
>>> flashy web
>>> pages.
>>
>>Is a flashy web page really an advantage? I see a lot of flashy
>>web pages,
>>and they don't impress me that much. The DM pages are for
>>programmers, who
>>(I assume) want to see a straightforward page that loads fast and
>>is not
>>gimmicky. Maybe I'm all wrong about this.
>
> FWIW, the Comeau website is certainly no flashier than the
> DigitalMars website
> and I haven't heard any complaints from the C++ community :)
>
>
> Sean
>
> 

Derek Parnell says...
>
>On Fri, 29 Apr 2005 23:20:15 -0500, J C Calvarese wrote:
>
>
>> On the other hand, when I embed the date in a filename, I usually use YYYY_MM_DD because I like how it sorts.
>
>Me too, but I try to use dates as dd/Month/yyyy when they are intended for humans to read, just to avoid this ambiguity.

Me too.  I almost said, "great minds think alike," and then I remember that I was part of this, so I had to take it out. ;-)

josé

In Walter's (really D's) defense, I have to say that I have translated a perl script which extensively used Regular expression, and also a few JScript scripts that also used regexp, and they have worked perfectly.  So, I would say that Walter's correct.

josé

Walter says...
>
>
>"Matthew" <admin@stlsoft.dot.dot.dot.dot.org> wrote in message news:d4ud9f$1qrc$1@digitaldaemon.com...
>> Without built-in regex, it's not going to sell as an alternative to Perl or Ruby.
>
>A couple months back, I added numerous functions to std.string and std.regexp which mostly close the gap with Ruby.
>
>