I've been using code-d for a while, and it generally works well. I've also noticed there's another plugin available, which at the time I first looked, appeared to be older and less-featured than code-d.

I've recently had a couple of colleagues ask me which plugin to install, and I noticed that both seem to be up-to-date these days, and this leads to confusion.

Looking at the feature list, it appears that both plugins do mostly the
same stuff.
My feeling is, having 2 very similar plugins is confusing to potential
users, and it undermines user confidence. Ie, users have the feeling that
they're competing hacky things maintained by some guy, rather than
something that's more 'official' with consolidated community support. I
also tend to presume in these situations that the 'proper' one is the one
with the most users/installs, but that's not clear either in this case.
I know this has nothing to do with the truth, but it's about perception and
first impressions. Little things matter.

If authors of both plugins are active here, I ask; why have 2 separate
plugins?
I can't imagine any reason for divergence. I would be a lot more
comfortable if there was only one with multiple contributors. Projects with
many contributors always inspire a lot more confidence than multiple
overlapping projects with one contributor each...

So, is there a reason not to merge the projects beyond ego?

On Tuesday, 4 July 2017 at 04:49:29 UTC, Manu wrote:
> If authors of both plugins are active here, I ask; why have 2 separate

The same reason there are multiple editors.

On 4 July 2017 at 14:59, bauss via Digitalmars-d < digitalmars-d@puremagic.com> wrote:

> On Tuesday, 4 July 2017 at 04:49:29 UTC, Manu wrote:
>
>> If authors of both plugins are active here, I ask; why have 2 separate
>>
>
> The same reason there are multiple editors.
>

Errr. No.
I don't think you can make an argument that one plugin performs in a way
that conforms to some peoples taste more than others... they do exactly the
same things, and even in the same way using the same tooling.
There might be implementation quality differences, I don't know, but that
leads to the conclusion that merging them would produce the best quality
result.

On Tuesday, 4 July 2017 at 04:49:29 UTC, Manu wrote:
> I've been using code-d for a while, and it generally works well. I've also noticed there's another plugin available, which at the time I first looked, appeared to be older and less-featured than code-d.
>
> I've recently had a couple of colleagues ask me which plugin to install, and I noticed that both seem to be up-to-date these days, and this leads to confusion.
>
> Looking at the feature list, it appears that both plugins do mostly the
> same stuff.
> My feeling is, having 2 very similar plugins is confusing to potential
> users, and it undermines user confidence. Ie, users have the feeling that
> they're competing hacky things maintained by some guy, rather than
> something that's more 'official' with consolidated community support. I
> also tend to presume in these situations that the 'proper' one is the one
> with the most users/installs, but that's not clear either in this case.
> I know this has nothing to do with the truth, but it's about perception and
> first impressions. Little things matter.
>
> If authors of both plugins are active here, I ask; why have 2 separate
> plugins?
> I can't imagine any reason for divergence. I would be a lot more
> comfortable if there was only one with multiple contributors. Projects with
> many contributors always inspire a lot more confidence than multiple
> overlapping projects with one contributor each...
>
> So, is there a reason not to merge the projects beyond ego?

It's just different users developing different solutions. I disagree with the notion that having multiple competing, up to date implementations would "undermine user confidence" in D. Quite the opposite, I'd think.

On Tuesday, 4 July 2017 at 04:49:29 UTC, Manu wrote:
> I've been using code-d for a while, and it generally works well. I've also noticed there's another plugin available, which at the time I first looked, appeared to be older and less-featured than code-d.

dlang-vscode.dlang seems to be more alive at pure minimum. Webfreak his code-d is more up to date and more easy to install. Well, months ago it was my impression.

The issue is sometimes some plugin authors take breaks. And sometimes the latest versions of D break something, making it impossible for the plugins to compile the dependencies. So its better the have choice then.

Is it better to have one plugin where both authors work upon. Yes. Will it happen: Probably not.

On 4 July 2017 at 22:41, Meta via Digitalmars-d <digitalmars-d@puremagic.com
> wrote:

>
>> It's just different users developing different solutions. I disagree with
> the notion that having multiple competing, up to date implementations would "undermine user confidence" in D. Quite the opposite, I'd think.
>

My point was, I feel like this is a case of different users developing the
same solution though.
Sure, it's reasonable to disagree, but I raise it because I have multiple
counts of anecdotal evidence from prospective users that it is a problem.

Let's consider more popular languages;
C++ has probably 1000 times the number of users... so I may expect roughly
2000 competing solutions? Nope, there's only one (not even 2).
C#, only one.
Java, there are 2, but the obvious winner is maintained by Red Hat.
Rust, there are 2, and no clear indicator which to choose (same problem).
Etc.

Anyway, I think it's a bad situation, and 3 colleagues have echoed the same sentiment independently. I could tolerate if there were meaningful differences between the solutions, but they're effectively the same solution, just written+maintained by different individuals.

Projects with multiple contributors are usually stronger than single-person
projects.
Competing one-man projects shooting it out in the wild-west is not
confidence inspiring at all, a single agreed solution supplied by an
authority (ie, "dlang.org") or something is preferred. If some enthusiastic
user wants to develop a meaningfully superior solution, power to them, but
the former should exist for the conservative minds. Most people don't want
to experiment, or take time trying to work out which solution is the better
or accepted standard, they explicitly prefer to conform, and that should be
the easiest path.

On 4 July 2017 at 23:27, Wulfklaue via Digitalmars-d < digitalmars-d@puremagic.com> wrote:

> On Tuesday, 4 July 2017 at 04:49:29 UTC, Manu wrote:
>
>> I've been using code-d for a while, and it generally works well. I've also noticed there's another plugin available, which at the time I first looked, appeared to be older and less-featured than code-d.
>>
>
> dlang-vscode.dlang seems to be more alive at pure minimum. Webfreak his code-d is more up to date and more easy to install. Well, months ago it was my impression.
>
> The issue is sometimes some plugin authors take breaks. And sometimes the latest versions of D break something, making it impossible for the plugins to compile the dependencies. So its better the have choice then.
>
> Is it better to have one plugin where both authors work upon. Yes. Will it happen: Probably not.
>

Right, and this is why I'm trying to make a plea to the respective authors; please consider merging the projects. The situation is bad. If the only meaningful factor keeping these things separate is ego, then it's objectively bad for the community.

On Tuesday, 4 July 2017 at 04:49:29 UTC, Manu wrote:
> My feeling is, having 2 very similar plugins is confusing to potential
> users, and it undermines user confidence. Ie, users have the feeling that
> they're competing hacky things maintained by some guy, rather than
> something that's more 'official' with consolidated community support.

I have to disagree with this. When I search for plugins and see a wide selection of completing products, it tells me that the language has a healthy ecosystem, with a lot of interested users. This in turn gives me faith in the language, and it's future, and makes me more comfortable investing time in it. I'm much more likely to forgive the bugs I find on the grounds that they will most likely be fixed.

On the other hand, if there was only one plugin, and it was the "official" plugin, branded with "D Language Foundation" or "Digital Mars", this would paint a different, yet also positive picture for me.

On 5 July 2017 at 12:37, bitwise via Digitalmars-d < digitalmars-d@puremagic.com> wrote:

> On Tuesday, 4 July 2017 at 04:49:29 UTC, Manu wrote:
>
>> My feeling is, having 2 very similar plugins is confusing to potential users, and it undermines user confidence. Ie, users have the feeling that they're competing hacky things maintained by some guy, rather than something that's more 'official' with consolidated community support.
>>
>
> I have to disagree with this. When I search for plugins and see a wide selection of completing products, it tells me that the language has a healthy ecosystem, with a lot of interested users. This in turn gives me faith in the language, and it's future, and makes me more comfortable investing time in it. I'm much more likely to forgive the bugs I find on the grounds that they will most likely be fixed.
>
> On the other hand, if there was only one plugin, and it was the "official" plugin, branded with "D Language Foundation" or "Digital Mars", this would paint a different, yet also positive picture for me.
>

I'm glad we can agree on that second point :)
On the former point; I personally can sympathise with that opinion only in
the context of being a nerd. It is my experience that most professional
programmers I've ever worked with are NOT nerds, they are just people who
have a job. Most people aren't interested in 'ecosystem health', they are
interested in authority, and intend/prefer to conform with the accepted
standards. The worst thing they can see is a 'vibrant' ecosystem. It looks
like 'linux nonsense' to these people.

On Wednesday, 5 July 2017 at 02:46:05 UTC, Manu wrote:
> On 5 July 2017 at 12:37, bitwise via Digitalmars-d < digitalmars-d@puremagic.com> wrote:
>
>> On Tuesday, 4 July 2017 at 04:49:29 UTC, Manu wrote:
>>
>>> My feeling is, having 2 very similar plugins is confusing to potential users, and it undermines user confidence. Ie, users have the feeling that they're competing hacky things maintained by some guy, rather than something that's more 'official' with consolidated community support.
>>>
>>
>> I have to disagree with this. When I search for plugins and see a wide selection of completing products, it tells me that the language has a healthy ecosystem, with a lot of interested users. This in turn gives me faith in the language, and it's future, and makes me more comfortable investing time in it. I'm much more likely to forgive the bugs I find on the grounds that they will most likely be fixed.
>>
>> On the other hand, if there was only one plugin, and it was the "official" plugin, branded with "D Language Foundation" or "Digital Mars", this would paint a different, yet also positive picture for me.
>>
>
> I'm glad we can agree on that second point :)
> On the former point; I personally can sympathise with that opinion only in
> the context of being a nerd. It is my experience that most professional
> programmers I've ever worked with are NOT nerds, they are just people who
> have a job. Most people aren't interested in 'ecosystem health', they are
> interested in authority, and intend/prefer to conform with the accepted
> standards. The worst thing they can see is a 'vibrant' ecosystem. It looks
> like 'linux nonsense' to these people.

I have to agree with that.


As you can see both plugins are wrappers around other tools (good, no wheel reinvention), and they offer some functionality on top.
All that follows applies because of this: using the same tools underneath means that the same results are provided. There is no difference in functionality, only on how it is exposed to the user.

https://github.com/Pure-D/code-d/blob/master/README.md

https://github.com/dlang-vscode/dlang-vscode/blob/master/README.md

The main difference (and I'm fairly sure pain point as well for new users, at least for me) is how these tools are installed or expected on the system.

UX is something that takes a bit of time and it's not always fun (need to test many different configurations, support different systems which do things in different ways) and I really see no point in duplicating this tedious work.

And if you look at the contributors tab, you see that both projects are not in a healthy state: one is developed solely by WebFreak001 and the other is split 3/4 and 1/4 between the two authors.
Which means that if one of them leaves the project (because of work,family, persona issues, boredom, any situation which might happen in life) the project is likely going to stagnate and become dead.

Having instead 3 active people on a project means that a lot of improvement and consistent work can be put into it, also easing the work needed to accept PR from the community.

I understand and appreciate the amount of work the developers of the two extensions put into them, but I think it's fair to accept that the current situation is not the best one for the users and the community.