I would like to know if something has changed in the plans for the future of D, because I really think it needs some kind of formalization and standardization to be a good investment, especially for medium/large/commercial projects .

Thanks.

What is missing?

On Friday, 28 November 2014 at 12:35:28 UTC, Kagamin wrote:
> What is missing?

an ISO standard ?

On Saturday, November 29, 2014 01:30:55 Ledd via Digitalmars-d-learn wrote:
> On Friday, 28 November 2014 at 12:35:28 UTC, Kagamin wrote:
> > What is missing?
>
> an ISO standard ?

Someday, maybe, but most languages don't have an ISO standard, and I really on't see what it would buy us. What we're generally missing most is manpower. Putting a bunch of effort into formalizing it in a standard wouldn't really help us. If anything, it would just take away manpower from actually getting code written, getting bugs fixed, etc. And even if getting an ISO standard for D were a goal, C++ was something like 20 years old before it got an ISO standard, so even those languages that do have standards didn't generally get them very early in their development, meaning that we're not necessarily slow about getting a standard in comparison to those languages that do.

- Jonathan M Davis

On Saturday, 29 November 2014 at 02:43:14 UTC, Jonathan M Davis via Digitalmars-d-learn wrote:
> On Saturday, November 29, 2014 01:30:55 Ledd via Digitalmars-d-learn wrote:
>> On Friday, 28 November 2014 at 12:35:28 UTC, Kagamin wrote:
>> > What is missing?
>>
>> an ISO standard ?
>
> Someday, maybe, but most languages don't have an ISO standard, and I really
> on't see what it would buy us. What we're generally missing most is
> manpower. Putting a bunch of effort into formalizing it in a standard
> wouldn't really help us. If anything, it would just take away manpower from
> actually getting code written, getting bugs fixed, etc. And even if getting
> an ISO standard for D were a goal, C++ was something like 20 years old
> before it got an ISO standard, so even those languages that do have
> standards didn't generally get them very early in their development, meaning
> that we're not necessarily slow about getting a standard in comparison to
> those languages that do.
>
> - Jonathan M Davis

It depends on what kind of languages you are talking about .

There are de facto standards that basically don't need any standard mostly because there isn't even a real competition so the users that want to code and solve a certain problem can't even look at real alternatives, for example what are the alternatives when it comes to Postscript or TeX/LaTeX ? They are basically de facto standards .

There are also languages that are linking their lifetime to a "main" language, for example languages that transcode to other languages don't really need a standard because they are just an extra layer on top of another language. There are examples of languages that have source-to-source compilers to C, Javascript and Lua for example .

Given the ambitions of D I can't see how you can pretend to be a relevant language without a standard, it also boils down to creating a reliable ecosystem and make a contract with the community. Do you think that this situation is doing any good to D ? For example there is a significant lack of tools in D where C/C++ have plenty of tools for anything since forever, especially in the last years with llvm .

Name even just 1 tool in D that is comparable with the counterpart in C/C++, or try to rate the ecosystem for D after 13 years of existence .

Do you really think that a "system language", or just a language that aims to be popular, can possibly discard the idea of getting into an international standard ?

I still can't recall any major language that doesn't have a standard, what is the language/s you are thinking about ?

On Saturday, 29 November 2014 at 09:03:13 UTC, Ledd wrote:
> Do you really think that a "system language", or just a language that aims to be popular, can possibly discard the idea of getting into an international standard ?
>
> I still can't recall any major language that doesn't have a standard, what is the language/s you are thinking about ?

C was standardized in 1989. C++ was standardized in 1998. I'm unaware of ISO (or any other) standardization for Go, Python, Perl, Objective C, or PHP. And as I recall there is no ISO standard Java, and only for some old version of C#.

ISO standardization is very expensive. D is not even close to the popularity level necessary to begin thinking about that.

On Saturday, November 29, 2014 10:35:32 bachmeier via Digitalmars-d-learn wrote:
> On Saturday, 29 November 2014 at 09:03:13 UTC, Ledd wrote:
> > Do you really think that a "system language", or just a language that aims to be popular, can possibly discard the idea of getting into an international standard ?
> >
> > I still can't recall any major language that doesn't have a standard, what is the language/s you are thinking about ?
>
> C was standardized in 1989. C++ was standardized in 1998. I'm unaware of ISO (or any other) standardization for Go, Python, Perl, Objective C, or PHP. And as I recall there is no ISO standard Java, and only for some old version of C#.
>
> ISO standardization is very expensive. D is not even close to the popularity level necessary to begin thinking about that.

According to wikipedia, this is the list:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Programming_languages_with_an_ISO_standard

There aren't very many on the list, and most of them aren't used in serious production at this point. An ISO standard isn't even vaguely necessary for a language to succeed. It might be nice to have, but it's not required. Maybe someday, D will have an ISO standard, but at this point, our energies are best directed elsewhere. And not all aspects of the language are set in stone anyway. Yes, it's far more stable than it used to be, and we're trying very hard to avoid breaking existing code, but some features may require reworking to work the way we need them to, which could break code (e.g. shared is on the list of things that we need to rework on some level). Standarizing the language at this stage would harm those efforts, and we'd end up with a worse language as a result.

- Jonathan M Davis

On Saturday, 29 November 2014 at 17:48:31 UTC, Jonathan M Davis via Digitalmars-d-learn wrote:
> On Saturday, November 29, 2014 10:35:32 bachmeier via Digitalmars-d-learn wrote:
>> C was standardized in 1989. C++ was standardized in 1998. I'm
>> unaware of ISO (or any other) standardization for Go, Python,
>> Perl, Objective C, or PHP.

C and C++ have improved by being faced with a standardization process, but they also had many implementations before they started. I don't think D qualifies for ISO standardization.

But Python is a bad example. Several incompatible versions of Python are being used, this is bad for the Python community. Python 2.7 carries so much weight today that the commercial sector are developing JITs for it, and ignoring Python 3… It might have been easier to move forward with formal standardization since that would have given Python 3 more weight.

Go is not standardized yet, probably because they aren't done?

Google did standardize Dart with ECMA, so they clearly see the value. The ECMAScript standardization has been very important IMO.

> production at this point. An ISO standard isn't even vaguely necessary for a
> language to succeed. It might be nice to have, but it's not required.

Standardization might be a requirement for use in larger governmental projects. Having a standard makes the language "electible" from an evaluation point of view.


> Standarizing the language at this stage would harm those efforts, and we'd
> end up with a worse language as a result.

Yes, D is not ready for standardization, but a formal write up is needed.

Having to write up a formal specification will put light on special cases and inconsistencies, so having a formal write up is probably more important than formal standardization at this point.

On Sat, 29 Nov 2014 10:35:32 +0000
bachmeier via Digitalmars-d-learn <digitalmars-d-learn@puremagic.com>
wrote:

> On Saturday, 29 November 2014 at 09:03:13 UTC, Ledd wrote:
> > Do you really think that a "system language", or just a language that aims to be popular, can possibly discard the idea of getting into an international standard ?
> >
> > I still can't recall any major language that doesn't have a standard, what is the language/s you are thinking about ?
> 
> C was standardized in 1989. C++ was standardized in 1998.
and both "standards" sux. i won't buy anything that contains "undefined behavior" in it as any kind of standard. this is pile of shit.

i mean, so-called "standardization by committee" does nothing valuable.