On Wednesday, 6 August 2014 at 16:19:39 UTC, Brad Anderson wrote:
> I don't think it's difficult for them, I think they often just don't know they can. Environment variables just aren't as well known on Windows these days. If you are an 18 year old getting into programming you likely have never even heard of environment variables or batch files and may not even know how to use the command prompt (or open it for that matter). Windows Vista came out when they were 10 years old and the days of having to know and use the command prompt for typical users were long gone by this point. I'm thirty so I knew and used MS-DOS as a kid (I had to) but if you've never used these things how would you know you could?

There are OS courses at institutes, where you have linux, gcc and learn, how pipes, shared memory and synchronization mechanisms work.

On Thursday, 7 August 2014 at 11:30:19 UTC, Kagamin wrote:
> On Wednesday, 6 August 2014 at 16:19:39 UTC, Brad Anderson wrote:
>> I don't think it's difficult for them, I think they often just don't know they can. Environment variables just aren't as well known on Windows these days. If you are an 18 year old getting into programming you likely have never even heard of environment variables or batch files and may not even know how to use the command prompt (or open it for that matter). Windows Vista came out when they were 10 years old and the days of having to know and use the command prompt for typical users were long gone by this point. I'm thirty so I knew and used MS-DOS as a kid (I had to) but if you've never used these things how would you know you could?
>
> There are OS courses at institutes, where you have linux, gcc and learn, how pipes, shared memory and synchronization mechanisms work.

These are just broad overview courses that barely scratch the surface. A 4 month course can barely teach you anything about such a broad topic.

On 7 August 2014 21:30, Kagamin via Digitalmars-d-announce < digitalmars-d-announce@puremagic.com> wrote:

> On Wednesday, 6 August 2014 at 16:19:39 UTC, Brad Anderson wrote:
>
>> I don't think it's difficult for them, I think they often just don't know they can. Environment variables just aren't as well known on Windows these days. If you are an 18 year old getting into programming you likely have never even heard of environment variables or batch files and may not even know how to use the command prompt (or open it for that matter). Windows Vista came out when they were 10 years old and the days of having to know and use the command prompt for typical users were long gone by this point. I'm thirty so I knew and used MS-DOS as a kid (I had to) but if you've never used these things how would you know you could?
>>
>
> There are OS courses at institutes, where you have linux, gcc and learn, how pipes, shared memory and synchronization mechanisms work.
>

It's not because it's hard, it's because it's perceived as totally backwards, and it undermines the trust in the ecosystem. It's all about perception.

The Windows/Visual Studio development culture is pretty immature, and
expects nothing less than the level of polish and presentation that
Microsoft put into Visual Studio.
I have direct experience with hundreds of these sorts of developers. The
prevailing opinion is that Linux is rubbish for nerds, and if the ecosystem
presents itself in that style, it won't be taken seriously. You can't gain
the confidence of this community of developers unless you appeal to them on
their terms. First impressions and basic presentation are extremely
important to perception.
I think configuration friction in particular is extremely important to
eliminate; you are dealing with someone whose investment in D can be
measured in seconds, probably knows absolutely nothing about the ecosystem
technically, and is not yet sure if they even want to. Any friction between
them and a helpful little wizard that generates a hello world project for
them so they can start hacking about and see how it feels may quite
possibly dismiss it on contact.

On Thursday, 7 August 2014 at 15:35:11 UTC, Manu via Digitalmars-d-announce wrote:
> The Windows/Visual Studio development culture is pretty immature, and
> expects nothing less than the level of polish and presentation that
> Microsoft put into Visual Studio.

I have no idea how one can call one shitty program that can't even install itself to "just work" as polished

(reference to http://forum.dlang.org/post/xwfpcuavpdpwmvnbndmt@forum.dlang.org)

On 8 August 2014 01:41, Dicebot via Digitalmars-d-announce < digitalmars-d-announce@puremagic.com> wrote:

> On Thursday, 7 August 2014 at 15:35:11 UTC, Manu via Digitalmars-d-announce wrote:
>
>> The Windows/Visual Studio development culture is pretty immature, and expects nothing less than the level of polish and presentation that Microsoft put into Visual Studio.
>>
>
> I have no idea how one can call one shitty program that can't even install itself to "just work" as polished
>
> (reference to http://forum.dlang.org/post/xwfpcuavpdpwmvnbndmt@forum.
> dlang.org)
>

Umm, I don't know what you're talking about exactly. But let me get this straight, it looks like you're saying you are annoyed that it didn't 'just work' out of the box? :P

But regardless, you're talking about `make -f win64.mak`, which suggests
that you're clearly not a windows/visual studio developer, and therefore
wouldn't understand ;)
You're meant to open the .sln file and press the build button...

On Thursday, 7 August 2014 at 16:53:57 UTC, Manu via Digitalmars-d-announce wrote:
> Umm, I don't know what you're talking about exactly. But let me get this
> straight, it looks like you're saying you are annoyed that it didn't 'just
> work' out of the box? :P

Yeah this is the inly compiler I have used so far where you can't just type `cl.exe helloworld.c` after installation and expect it to not crash - with an intention that you must use special environment wrapper before that is never mentioned to you during installation.

> You're meant to open the .sln file and press the build button...

I'll tell my scripts next time that all they need is to press a build button, yeah

On 8 August 2014 02:57, Dicebot via Digitalmars-d-announce < digitalmars-d-announce@puremagic.com> wrote:

> On Thursday, 7 August 2014 at 16:53:57 UTC, Manu via Digitalmars-d-announce wrote:
>
>> Umm, I don't know what you're talking about exactly. But let me get this straight, it looks like you're saying you are annoyed that it didn't 'just work' out of the box? :P
>>
>
> Yeah this is the inly compiler I have used so far where you can't just type `cl.exe helloworld.c` after installation and expect it to not crash - with an intention that you must use special environment wrapper before that is never mentioned to you during installation.


Yeah, the first I ever became aware about that environment script was when
Walter pointed it out to me a few years ago.
I've never encountered anybody try and use MSC from the command line in
about 15 years professionally. That's what I mean about this culture; it's
the opposite of linux, and it outright rejects practises that are
linux-like.

 You're meant to open the .sln file and press the build button...
>>
>
> I'll tell my scripts next time that all they need is to press a build button, yeah
>

What's a script? Is that related to the command prompt? We left that behind in Windows95... ;)

On Thursday, 7 August 2014 at 17:05:29 UTC, Manu via Digitalmars-d-announce wrote:
> On 8 August 2014 02:57, Dicebot via Digitalmars-d-announce <
> digitalmars-d-announce@puremagic.com> wrote:
>
>> On Thursday, 7 August 2014 at 16:53:57 UTC, Manu via
>> Digitalmars-d-announce wrote:
>>
>>> Umm, I don't know what you're talking about exactly. But let me get this
>>> straight, it looks like you're saying you are annoyed that it didn't 'just
>>> work' out of the box? :P
>>>
>>
>> Yeah this is the inly compiler I have used so far where you can't just
>> type `cl.exe helloworld.c` after installation and expect it to not crash -
>> with an intention that you must use special environment wrapper before that
>> is never mentioned to you during installation.
>
>
> Yeah, the first I ever became aware about that environment script was when
> Walter pointed it out to me a few years ago.
> I've never encountered anybody try and use MSC from the command line in
> about 15 years professionally. That's what I mean about this culture; it's
> the opposite of linux, and it outright rejects practises that are
> linux-like.

well I don't mind that habits are totally different - but the fact that it is considered an excuse for distributing broken programs (and cl.exe is broken by most basic software usability principles) is frustrating at least. "Polishing" means exactly paying attention to details like that, making sure that features on one uses still work when stumbled upon. And making your GUI even more fancy is, well, making you GUI fancy. Nothing to do with polishing.

>> I'll tell my scripts next time that all they need is to press a build
>> button, yeah
>>
>
> What's a script? Is that related to the command prompt? We left that behind
> in Windows95... ;)

Yeah you know those old school things that allow us to spend time on something actually useful instead of pressing buttons ;)

On Thursday, 7 August 2014 at 17:11:23 UTC, Dicebot wrote:
> well I don't mind that habits are totally different - but the fact that it is considered an excuse for distributing broken programs (and cl.exe is broken by most basic software usability principles) is frustrating at least. "Polishing" means exactly paying attention to details like that, making sure that features on one uses still work when stumbled upon. And making your GUI even more fancy is, well, making you GUI fancy. Nothing to do with polishing.

And here I also mean that all other Windows builds of compilers / interpreters I have used / tried passed that simple sanity test. Some may require complicated setup to do complicated things but "hello world" is always just that simple.

Microsoft seems to be the only company who can afford doing things like that with users and expect them to suck it >_<

On Thursday, 7 August 2014 at 17:05:29 UTC, Manu via Digitalmars-d-announce wrote:
> I've never encountered anybody try and use MSC from the command line in about 15 years professionally.

LOL. That's almost always how I use VS when I'm forced to use it at work. As soon as I figured out that I could build from the command line using VS, I stopped opening it unless I had to in order to run the debugger.

But I'm not even vaguely a typical Windows developer. I'm pretty hardcore Linux, all things considered.

- Jonathan M Davis