Hi,

A new version of Visual D has just been released. It does not include major new features, but it addresses a number of issues and improvements. A reduced list of changes:

2012-05-01 Version 0.3.32

  * new version of cv2pdb with better handling of unicode characters in path names and better support for local variables in DWARF debug info
  * new version of mago with string literal support for associative array keys and easier stepping into main
  * some changes to reduce memory leaks due to false pointers
  * fixed some issues in the parser and lexer, added support for __vector(T)
  * goto definition: if executed on an import statement, now searching file through import paths
  * project properties: added output type DLL and subsystem option
  * fixed underlining syntax errors showing only first error
  * version highlighting now supports versions DigitalMars/GNU and Win32/Win64

The full list of changes is at http://www.dsource.org/projects/visuald/wiki/VersionHistory

Visual D is a Visual Studio package providing both project management and language services for the D programming language. It works with Visual Studio 2005-11 as well as the free Visual Studio Shells.

The Visual D installer can be downloaded from its website at http://www.dsource.org/projects/visuald

Rainer

On Tuesday, 1 May 2012 at 16:46:36 UTC, Rainer Schuetze wrote:
>   * goto definition: if executed on an import statement, now searching file through import paths

Thanks, I remember trying this before, good to know it now does the intuitive thing :)

On 5/1/2012 9:46 AM, Rainer Schuetze wrote:
> The Visual D installer can be downloaded from its website at
> http://www.dsource.org/projects/visuald

Can you please move it to github?

On 5/11/2012 9:49 PM, Walter Bright wrote:
> On 5/1/2012 9:46 AM, Rainer Schuetze wrote:
>> The Visual D installer can be downloaded from its website at
>> http://www.dsource.org/projects/visuald
>
> Can you please move it to github?
>

I considered that aswell recently, but I'm not yet convinced.

I see the increase in contributions to dmd after the move to github, but my own experience with it has not been too positive: making patches for dmd is rather time consuming, I always have to struggle to get the simple stuff done (while it was just adding a diff to the bugzilla in the subversion times). As a result, the number of patches that I have provided has dropped considerably. My feeling is that git allows a lot of complex things at the cost of making standard operations much more complicated than necessary.

Using git/github is probably less work for you compared to svn, but this also depends on a rather large infrastructure like the auto tester. I'm not sure it does actually help for a project with very few contributors.

There haven't been a lot of community contributions to Visual D so far. To everybody interested: Would a move to github change that?

Rainer

On Sunday, May 13, 2012 13:48:39 Rainer Schuetze wrote:
> On 5/11/2012 9:49 PM, Walter Bright wrote:
> > On 5/1/2012 9:46 AM, Rainer Schuetze wrote:
> >> The Visual D installer can be downloaded from its website at http://www.dsource.org/projects/visuald
> > 
> > Can you please move it to github?
> 
> I considered that aswell recently, but I'm not yet convinced.
> 
> I see the increase in contributions to dmd after the move to github, but my own experience with it has not been too positive: making patches for dmd is rather time consuming, I always have to struggle to get the simple stuff done (while it was just adding a diff to the bugzilla in the subversion times). As a result, the number of patches that I have provided has dropped considerably. My feeling is that git allows a lot of complex things at the cost of making standard operations much more complicated than necessary.
> 
> Using git/github is probably less work for you compared to svn, but this also depends on a rather large infrastructure like the auto tester. I'm not sure it does actually help for a project with very few contributors.
> 
> There haven't been a lot of community contributions to Visual D so far. To everybody interested: Would a move to github change that?

You actually find patches to be easier than using github? That strikes me as odd. I've always found patches to be a pain to deal with and git and github have been really easy overall. You just make your changes on another branch, push them up to github, and then create a pull request. If you're the one merging in the changes, it's as easy as pushing the "merge" button the pull request, and it's in the main repository.

Now, I don't deal with Visual D at all (I'm always on Linux, if nothing else), so I wouldn't be a contributor, and I have no idea if very many more people would be contribute if it were on github, but I'd definitely expect it to be easier for people to contribute if it were up on github than it would be for them to create patches and send those to you.

- Jonathan M Davis

> There haven't been a lot of community contributions to Visual D so far. To everybody interested: Would a move to github change that?

Sending pull requests to the project owner is made significantly easier, but my experience was that there won't be an enormous increase of contributions - nevertheless it's made easier if there are some willed contributors. The issue board is also great for community interaction, if you haven't noticed it already. :)

resending due to NNTP error, sorry if it causes duplicates.

On 5/13/2012 2:01 PM, Jonathan M Davis wrote:
> On Sunday, May 13, 2012 13:48:39 Rainer Schuetze wrote:
>> On 5/11/2012 9:49 PM, Walter Bright wrote:
>>> On 5/1/2012 9:46 AM, Rainer Schuetze wrote:
>>>> The Visual D installer can be downloaded from its website at
>>>> http://www.dsource.org/projects/visuald
>>>
>>> Can you please move it to github?
>>
>> I considered that aswell recently, but I'm not yet convinced.
>>
>> I see the increase in contributions to dmd after the move to github, but
>> my own experience with it has not been too positive: making patches for
>> dmd is rather time consuming, I always have to struggle to get the
>> simple stuff done (while it was just adding a diff to the bugzilla in
>> the subversion times). As a result, the number of patches that I have
>> provided has dropped considerably. My feeling is that git allows a lot
>> of complex things at the cost of making standard operations much more
>> complicated than necessary.
>>
>> Using git/github is probably less work for you compared to svn, but this
>> also depends on a rather large infrastructure like the auto tester. I'm
>> not sure it does actually help for a project with very few contributors.
>>
>> There haven't been a lot of community contributions to Visual D so far.
>> To everybody interested: Would a move to github change that?
>
> You actually find patches to be easier than using github? That strikes me as
> odd. I've always found patches to be a pain to deal with and git and github
> have been really easy overall. You just make your changes on another branch,
> push them up to github, and then create a pull request. If you're the one
> merging in the changes, it's as easy as pushing the "merge" button the pull
> request, and it's in the main repository.
>
> Now, I don't deal with Visual D at all (I'm always on Linux, if nothing else),
> so I wouldn't be a contributor, and I have no idea if very many more people
> would be contribute if it were on github, but I'd definitely expect it to be
> easier for people to contribute if it were up on github than it would be for
> them to create patches and send those to you.
>
> - Jonathan M Davis

The problem is that I need/want to use a branch of dmd that incorporates
a number of patches, and that is where I start making additional
changes. To send a pull request, I have to create a new branch, copy the
changes into it, push it and make the pull request. I have created a
batch to do that, but every other pull request something breaks and I
start cursing...

With the workflow of bugzilla/svn it was just copy and pasting the diff
into the bug report. I understand it is easier on Walter's side, though.

On 5/13/12 7:31 PM, Rainer Schuetze wrote:
> resending due to NNTP error, sorry if it causes duplicates.
>
> On 5/13/2012 2:01 PM, Jonathan M Davis wrote:
>> On Sunday, May 13, 2012 13:48:39 Rainer Schuetze wrote:
>>> On 5/11/2012 9:49 PM, Walter Bright wrote:
>>>> On 5/1/2012 9:46 AM, Rainer Schuetze wrote:
>>>>> The Visual D installer can be downloaded from its website at
>>>>> http://www.dsource.org/projects/visuald
>>>>
>>>> Can you please move it to github?
>>>
>>> I considered that aswell recently, but I'm not yet convinced.
>>>
>>> I see the increase in contributions to dmd after the move to github, but
>>> my own experience with it has not been too positive: making patches for
>>> dmd is rather time consuming, I always have to struggle to get the
>>> simple stuff done (while it was just adding a diff to the bugzilla in
>>> the subversion times). As a result, the number of patches that I have
>>> provided has dropped considerably. My feeling is that git allows a lot
>>> of complex things at the cost of making standard operations much more
>>> complicated than necessary.
>>>
>>> Using git/github is probably less work for you compared to svn, but this
>>> also depends on a rather large infrastructure like the auto tester. I'm
>>> not sure it does actually help for a project with very few contributors.
>>>
>>> There haven't been a lot of community contributions to Visual D so far.
>>> To everybody interested: Would a move to github change that?
>>
>> You actually find patches to be easier than using github? That strikes
>> me as
>> odd. I've always found patches to be a pain to deal with and git and
>> github
>> have been really easy overall. You just make your changes on another
>> branch,
>> push them up to github, and then create a pull request. If you're the one
>> merging in the changes, it's as easy as pushing the "merge" button the
>> pull
>> request, and it's in the main repository.
>>
>> Now, I don't deal with Visual D at all (I'm always on Linux, if
>> nothing else),
>> so I wouldn't be a contributor, and I have no idea if very many more
>> people
>> would be contribute if it were on github, but I'd definitely expect it
>> to be
>> easier for people to contribute if it were up on github than it would
>> be for
>> them to create patches and send those to you.
>>
>> - Jonathan M Davis
>
> The problem is that I need/want to use a branch of dmd that incorporates
> a number of patches, and that is where I start making additional
> changes. To send a pull request, I have to create a new branch, copy the
> changes into it, push it and make the pull request. I have created a
> batch to do that, but every other pull request something breaks and I
> start cursing...
>
> With the workflow of bugzilla/svn it was just copy and pasting the diff
> into the bug report. I understand it is easier on Walter's side, though.

But where did you get the diff from? I'm sure you checked out the project and made the changes on it. If that's the case, then it's the same as forking and cloning.

I *do* expect contributions to appear in Visual D. Since it's so easy to contribute in github, and it is standarized: people know how to do it: fork, work, make a pull request (as opposed to making a patch, sending it... mmm... is that the author's email? I hope it does work. And I hope it checks emails and mine doesn't go to the spam folder! Um, maybe I should post in the forums... but does he read them? Ah, maybe I will leave the patch for another day).

On 5/13/2012 4:48 AM, Rainer Schuetze wrote:
> Using git/github is probably less work for you compared to svn, but this also depends on a rather large infrastructure like the auto tester. I'm not sure it does actually help for a project with very few contributors.

Neither github nor git made the auto-tester necessary.  The volume of contributions did.

With SVN they came in via bugzilla and github via pull requests.  The ease of automation via the github apis and the dramatic increase in volume of contributions lead to implementing the tester.  I likely would have written it (or found one to install) for svn/bugzilla eventually too, but it would have been a bigger job.

Anyway, the choice of where you host your project very much is yours.  But I can agree with the others, evidence from both dmd/druntime/phobos as well as other projects I'm a part of clearly shows that you'll get more with github than dsource, regardless of svn vs git.  And you'll get more with git than svn.  Also, for what it's worth, a project with multiple contributors are is much more likely to survive for the long haul than a one man project.

My 2 cents,
Brad

On 5/13/2012 5:31 AM, Rainer Schuetze wrote:
> With the workflow of bugzilla/svn it was just copy and pasting the diff
> into the bug report. I understand it is easier on Walter's side, though.

Yes, it is definitely easier on my side.

But consider that the number of contributions to dmd has increased by at least a factor of 10 since we moved to github means that, in general, contributors find it easier, too.