On Monday, 6 October 2014 at 18:57:04 UTC, H. S. Teoh via Digitalmars-d wrote:
> Or, if you'll allow me to paraphrase it, pay the one-time cost of broken
> code now, rather than incur the ongoing cost of needing to continually
> workaround language issues.

Don in this very thread. Multiple times.

On 10/6/14, 11:55 AM, H. S. Teoh via Digitalmars-d wrote:
> On Mon, Oct 06, 2014 at 06:13:41PM +0000, Dicebot via Digitalmars-d wrote:
>> On Monday, 6 October 2014 at 16:06:04 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
> [...]
>>> It would be terrific if Sociomantic would improve its communication
>>> with the community about their experience with D and their needs
>>> going forward.
>>
>> How about someone starts paying attention to what Don posts? That
>> could be an incredible start. I spend great deal of time both reading
>> this NG (to be aware of what comes next) and writing (to express both
>> personal and Sociomantic concerns) and have literally no idea what can
>> be done to make communication more clear.
>
> I don't remember who it was, but I'm pretty sure *somebody* at
> Sociomantic has stated clearly their request recently: Please break our
> code *now*, if it helps to fix language design issues, rather than
> later.

More particulars would be definitely welcome. I should add that Sociomantic has an interesting position: it's a 100% D shop so interoperability is not a concern for them, and they did their own GC so GC-related improvements are unlikely to make a large difference for them. So "C++ and GC" is likely not to be high priority for them. -- Andrei

On 10/6/14, 12:00 PM, Dicebot wrote:
> On Monday, 6 October 2014 at 18:57:04 UTC, H. S. Teoh via Digitalmars-d
> wrote:
>> Or, if you'll allow me to paraphrase it, pay the one-time cost of broken
>> code now, rather than incur the ongoing cost of needing to continually
>> workaround language issues.
>
> Don in this very thread. Multiple times.

He made a few good and very specific points that subsequently saw action. This is the kind of feedback we need more of. -- Andrei

On Monday, 6 October 2014 at 19:08:24 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
> On 10/6/14, 12:00 PM, Dicebot wrote:
>> On Monday, 6 October 2014 at 18:57:04 UTC, H. S. Teoh via Digitalmars-d
>> wrote:
>>> Or, if you'll allow me to paraphrase it, pay the one-time cost of broken
>>> code now, rather than incur the ongoing cost of needing to continually
>>> workaround language issues.
>>
>> Don in this very thread. Multiple times.
>
> He made a few good and very specific points that subsequently saw action. This is the kind of feedback we need more of. -- Andrei

And here we go again for the multiple alias this: I'm pleased to have seen that it will be merged sooner than later.

Just to clarify, taking as an example our company:

- TDPL is a very good training book for C++/Java minions, and turns them in, well, not-so-good-but-not-so-terrible D programmers. It solve the "boss" perplexity about "there's basically no markets for D language programmers: how can we hire them in the future?".
For the chronicle, the next lecture is the EXCELLENT "D Templates: a tutorial", of Philippe Sigaud, an invaluable resource (thank Philippe for that!).

- TDPL is exactly what Dicebot wrote: a plan! Having to bet on something, a CTO like me *likes* to bet on a good plan (like the A-Team!)

- Being a good plan, and an ambitious one, as a company we scrutiny the efforts devoted to complete it, and that set the bar for future evaluation of the reliability of _future_ plans and proposal.

As an example, the *not resolution* of the shared qualifier mess, has a costs in term of how reliable we judge other proposed improvements (I know, that may be not fare, but that's it).

I'm not telling that the language must be crystallised, and I also understand that as times goes by, other priorities and good ideas may come up.

As a company, we don't mind if we are discussing about ARC, GC, or C++ interop, but we care about the efforts and time placed on the _taken_ decision, especially for the  _past_ plans, and we judge that care as strictly correlated to language maturity for business adoption.

Just my 2c... again, no pun intended! ;-P
---
/Paolo

On Monday, 6 October 2014 at 19:07:40 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
> On 10/6/14, 11:55 AM, H. S. Teoh via Digitalmars-d wrote:
>> On Mon, Oct 06, 2014 at 06:13:41PM +0000, Dicebot via Digitalmars-d wrote:
>>> On Monday, 6 October 2014 at 16:06:04 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
>> [...]
>>>> It would be terrific if Sociomantic would improve its communication
>>>> with the community about their experience with D and their needs
>>>> going forward.
>>>
>>> How about someone starts paying attention to what Don posts? That
>>> could be an incredible start. I spend great deal of time both reading
>>> this NG (to be aware of what comes next) and writing (to express both
>>> personal and Sociomantic concerns) and have literally no idea what can
>>> be done to make communication more clear.
>>
>> I don't remember who it was, but I'm pretty sure *somebody* at
>> Sociomantic has stated clearly their request recently: Please break our
>> code *now*, if it helps to fix language design issues, rather than
>> later.
>
> More particulars would be definitely welcome. I should add that Sociomantic has an interesting position: it's a 100% D shop so interoperability is not a concern for them, and they did their own GC so GC-related improvements are unlikely to make a large difference for them. So "C++ and GC" is likely not to be high priority for them. -- Andrei

Exactly. C++ support is of no interest at all, and GC is something we contribute to, rather than something we expect from the community.
Interestingly we don't even care much about libraries, we've done everything ourselves.

So what do we care about? Mainly, we care about improving the core product.

In general I think that in D we have always suffered from spreading ourselves too thin. We've always had a bunch of cool new features that don't actually work properly. Always, the focus shifts to something else, before the previous feature was finished.

At Sociomantic, we've been successful in our industry using only the features of D1. We're restricted to using D's features from 2007!! Feature-wise, practically nothing from the last seven years has helped us!

With something like C++ support, it's only going to win companies over when it is essentially complete. That means that working on it is a huge investment that doesn't start to pay for itself for a very long time. So although it's a great goal, with a huge potential payoff, I don't think that it should be consuming a whole lot of energy right now.

And personally, I doubt that many companies would use D, even if with perfect C++ interop, if the toolchain stayed at the current level.

As I said in my Dconf 2013 talk -- I advocate a focus on Return On Investment.
I'd love to see us chasing the easy wins.

On 08/10/2014 9:20 pm, "Don via Digitalmars-d" <digitalmars-d@puremagic.com> wrote:
>
> On Monday, 6 October 2014 at 19:07:40 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
>>
>> On 10/6/14, 11:55 AM, H. S. Teoh via Digitalmars-d wrote:
>>>
>>> On Mon, Oct 06, 2014 at 06:13:41PM +0000, Dicebot via Digitalmars-d
wrote:
>>>>
>>>> On Monday, 6 October 2014 at 16:06:04 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
>>>
>>> [...]
>>>>>
>>>>> It would be terrific if Sociomantic would improve its communication with the community about their experience with D and their needs going forward.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> How about someone starts paying attention to what Don posts? That could be an incredible start. I spend great deal of time both reading this NG (to be aware of what comes next) and writing (to express both personal and Sociomantic concerns) and have literally no idea what can be done to make communication more clear.
>>>
>>>
>>> I don't remember who it was, but I'm pretty sure *somebody* at Sociomantic has stated clearly their request recently: Please break our code *now*, if it helps to fix language design issues, rather than later.
>>
>>
>> More particulars would be definitely welcome. I should add that
Sociomantic has an interesting position: it's a 100% D shop so interoperability is not a concern for them, and they did their own GC so GC-related improvements are unlikely to make a large difference for them. So "C++ and GC" is likely not to be high priority for them. -- Andrei
>
>
> Exactly. C++ support is of no interest at all, and GC is something we
contribute to, rather than something we expect from the community.
> Interestingly we don't even care much about libraries, we've done
everything ourselves.
>
> So what do we care about? Mainly, we care about improving the core
product.
>
> In general I think that in D we have always suffered from spreading
ourselves too thin. We've always had a bunch of cool new features that don't actually work properly. Always, the focus shifts to something else, before the previous feature was finished.
>
> At Sociomantic, we've been successful in our industry using only the
features of D1. We're restricted to using D's features from 2007!! Feature-wise, practically nothing from the last seven years has helped us!
>
> With something like C++ support, it's only going to win companies over
when it is essentially complete. That means that working on it is a huge investment that doesn't start to pay for itself for a very long time. So although it's a great goal, with a huge potential payoff, I don't think that it should be consuming a whole lot of energy right now.
>
> And personally, I doubt that many companies would use D, even if with
perfect C++ interop, if the toolchain stayed at the current level.
>
> As I said in my Dconf 2013 talk -- I advocate a focus on Return On
Investment.
> I'd love to see us chasing the easy wins.

As someone who previously represented a business interest, I couldn't agree
more.
Aside from my random frustrated outbursts on a very small set of language
issues, the main thing I've been banging on from day 1 is the tooling. Much
has improved, but it's still a long way from 'good'.

Debugging, ldc (for windows), and editor integrations (auto complete,
navigation, refactoring tools) are my impersonal (and hopefully
non-controversial) short list. They trump everything else I've ever
complained about.
The debugging experience is the worst of any language I've used since the
90's, and I would make that top priority.

C++ might have helped us years ago, but I already solved those issues creatively. Debugging can't be solved without tooling and compiler support.

On 08/10/2014 11:55 pm, "Manu" <turkeyman@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 08/10/2014 9:20 pm, "Don via Digitalmars-d" <
digitalmars-d@puremagic.com> wrote:
> >
> > On Monday, 6 October 2014 at 19:07:40 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
> >>
> >> On 10/6/14, 11:55 AM, H. S. Teoh via Digitalmars-d wrote:
> >>>
> >>> On Mon, Oct 06, 2014 at 06:13:41PM +0000, Dicebot via Digitalmars-d
wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>> On Monday, 6 October 2014 at 16:06:04 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
> >>>
> >>> [...]
> >>>>>
> >>>>> It would be terrific if Sociomantic would improve its communication with the community about their experience with D and their needs going forward.
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> How about someone starts paying attention to what Don posts? That could be an incredible start. I spend great deal of time both reading this NG (to be aware of what comes next) and writing (to express both personal and Sociomantic concerns) and have literally no idea what
can
> >>>> be done to make communication more clear.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> I don't remember who it was, but I'm pretty sure *somebody* at Sociomantic has stated clearly their request recently: Please break
our
> >>> code *now*, if it helps to fix language design issues, rather than later.
> >>
> >>
> >> More particulars would be definitely welcome. I should add that
Sociomantic has an interesting position: it's a 100% D shop so interoperability is not a concern for them, and they did their own GC so GC-related improvements are unlikely to make a large difference for them. So "C++ and GC" is likely not to be high priority for them. -- Andrei
> >
> >
> > Exactly. C++ support is of no interest at all, and GC is something we
contribute to, rather than something we expect from the community.
> > Interestingly we don't even care much about libraries, we've done
everything ourselves.
> >
> > So what do we care about? Mainly, we care about improving the core
product.
> >
> > In general I think that in D we have always suffered from spreading
ourselves too thin. We've always had a bunch of cool new features that don't actually work properly. Always, the focus shifts to something else, before the previous feature was finished.
> >
> > At Sociomantic, we've been successful in our industry using only the
features of D1. We're restricted to using D's features from 2007!! Feature-wise, practically nothing from the last seven years has helped us!
> >
> > With something like C++ support, it's only going to win companies over
when it is essentially complete. That means that working on it is a huge investment that doesn't start to pay for itself for a very long time. So although it's a great goal, with a huge potential payoff, I don't think that it should be consuming a whole lot of energy right now.
> >
> > And personally, I doubt that many companies would use D, even if with
perfect C++ interop, if the toolchain stayed at the current level.
> >
> > As I said in my Dconf 2013 talk -- I advocate a focus on Return On
Investment.
> > I'd love to see us chasing the easy wins.
>
> As someone who previously represented a business interest, I couldn't
agree more.
> Aside from my random frustrated outbursts on a very small set of language
issues, the main thing I've been banging on from day 1 is the tooling. Much has improved, but it's still a long way from 'good'.
>
> Debugging, ldc (for windows), and editor integrations (auto complete,
navigation, refactoring tools) are my impersonal (and hopefully
non-controversial) short list. They trump everything else I've ever
complained about.
> The debugging experience is the worst of any language I've used since the
90's, and I would make that top priority.
>
> C++ might have helped us years ago, but I already solved those issues
creatively. Debugging can't be solved without tooling and compiler support.

Just to clarify, I'm all for nogc work; that is very important to us and I appreciate the work, but I support that I wouldn't rate it top priority. C++ is no significant value to me personally, or professionally. Game studios don't use much C++, and like I said, we already worked around those edges.

I can't speak for remedy now, but I'm confident that they will *need* ldc working before the game ships. DMD codegen is just not good enough, particularly relating to float; it uses the x87! O_O

On Wednesday, 8 October 2014 at 13:55:11 UTC, Manu via Digitalmars-d wrote:
> On 08/10/2014 9:20 pm, "Don via Digitalmars-d"
>> So what do we care about? Mainly, we care about improving the core
> product.
>>
>> In general I think that in D we have always suffered from spreading
> ourselves too thin. We've always had a bunch of cool new features that
> don't actually work properly. Always, the focus shifts to something else,
> before the previous feature was finished.
>>
>> And personally, I doubt that many companies would use D, even if with
> perfect C++ interop, if the toolchain stayed at the current level.
>
> As someone who previously represented a business interest, I couldn't agree
> more.
> Aside from my random frustrated outbursts on a very small set of language
> issues, the main thing I've been banging on from day 1 is the tooling. Much
> has improved, but it's still a long way from 'good'.
>
> Debugging, ldc (for windows), and editor integrations (auto complete,
> navigation, refactoring tools) are my impersonal (and hopefully
> non-controversial) short list. They trump everything else I've ever
> complained about.
> The debugging experience is the worst of any language I've used since the
> 90's, and I would make that top priority.

While it would be great if there were a company devoted to such D tooling, it doesn't exist right now.  It is completely unrealistic to expect a D community of unpaid volunteers to work on these features for your paid projects.  If anybody in the community cared as much about these features as you, they'd have done it already.

I suggest you two open bugzilla issues for all these specific bugs or enhancements and put up bounties for their development.  If you're not willing to do that, expecting the community to do work for you for free is just whining that is easily ignored.

My small list of D critiques/wishes from a pragmatic stance:

1) Replace the Stop the World GC
2) It would be great if dmd could provide a code-hinting facility, instead of relying on DCD which continually breaks for me. It would open more doors for editors to support better code completion.
3) Taking a hint from the early success of Flash, add Derelict3 (or some basic OpenGL library) directly into Phobos. Despite some of the negatives (slower update cycle versus external lib), it would greatly add to D's attractiveness for new developers. I nearly left D after having a host issues putting Derelict3 into my project. If I had this issue, we may be missing out from attracting newbies looking to do gfx related work.

I'm sure this has been talked about, but I'll bring it up anyway:
To focus our efforts, consider switching to ldc. Is it worth people's time to continue to optimize DMD when we can accelerate our own efforts by relying on an existing compiler? As some have pointed out, our community is spread thin over so many efforts... perhaps there are ways to consolidate that.

Just my 2cents from a D hobbyist..

On Wed, Oct 8, 2014 at 12:00 PM, Jonathan via Digitalmars-d <
digitalmars-d@puremagic.com> wrote:
...

> 3) Taking a hint from the early success of Flash, add Derelict3 (or some basic OpenGL library) directly into Phobos. Despite some of the negatives (slower update cycle versus external lib), it would greatly add to D's attractiveness for new developers. I nearly left D after having a host issues putting Derelict3 into my project. If I had this issue, we may be missing out from attracting newbies looking to do gfx related work.
>

Personally I take the opposite view - I'd much prefer a strong and easily consumed third-party library ecosystem than to shove everything into Phobos.  Dub is a wonderful thing for D, and needs to be so good that people use it by default.