April 30, 2005
Walter wrote:
> "J C Calvarese" <jcc7@cox.net> wrote in message
> news:d4u50k$1jcg$1@digitaldaemon.com...
> 
>>(By the way, I just found out about D++ today due to its link at
>>http://www.kochandreas.com/home/language/matrix.htm. I wonder how many
>>more people might stumble upon D if it were listed.)
> 
> 
> Amusingly, that page says it was last updated in October of 2005.

LOL

At first, I thought the same thing until I remembered that in some places in the world "10.04.2005" means April 10, 2005.

But you're just kidding, right?

-- 
jcc7
http://jcc_7.tripod.com/d/
April 30, 2005
On Fri, 29 Apr 2005 17:11:49 -0700, Walter wrote:

> "J C Calvarese" <jcc7@cox.net> wrote in message news:d4u50k$1jcg$1@digitaldaemon.com...
>> (By the way, I just found out about D++ today due to its link at http://www.kochandreas.com/home/language/matrix.htm. I wonder how many more people might stumble upon D if it were listed.)
> 
> Amusingly, that page says it was last updated in October of 2005.

No it doesn't. I says it was last updated on the 10th of April, 2005.

-- 
Derek Parnell
Melbourne, Australia
30/04/2005 11:13:47 AM
April 30, 2005
Benji, #2 and #3 are excellent additions to my post (and their overlooking quite telling about my particular perspectives and preferences).

Thanks. :-)


"Benji Smith" <dlanguage@xxagg.com> wrote in message news:d4ug5k$1t33$1@digitaldaemon.com...
> Matthew wrote:
>>         Java - yes, once comprehensive tools and libraries are
>> implemented. Big potential. Just a matter of time
>
> There are a few different things that D would need to accomplish before making any headway into the Java world.
>
> #1 -- Standard Library
>
> As you've mentioned, Java has a huge standard library, with (mostly) well-thought-out implementations of tons and tons of usefull classes. Just to give you an idea of the scope of the library, the Java 1.5 JRE includes 2485 classes and 794 interfaces, organized into 166 packages.
>
> Admittedly, D can dispense with some fraction of these classes because it has more intrinsic language features than Java. But it's likely that a suitable D standard library is still nowhere even remotely close to having the kind of fully fleshed-out library that Java has.
>
> When D has several thousand classes in its standard library, then Java people might start taking interest.
>
> #2 -- Ease of Use with 3rd Party Libraries
>
> Although the standard library is an issue, I think this one is more important, and more consistently overlooked.
>
> In Java, it's trivial to use classes from a third-party library. Here are the steps:
>
> 1. Download a JAR file containing the classes I'll be using.
>
> 2. Include the path to that JAR file in my classpath.
>
> 3. Now I'm able to use all of those classes as if I wrote them and had the source code available to me.
>
> With Java, I don't need to use any special semantics to call external code. The semantics are completely identical when methods in my own classes, methods from compiled classes, methods from classes in a JAR archive, or methods executed on classes constucted through reflection.
>
> The only thing I need to worry about, as a developer, is putting an import statement at the top of my source file pointing to the appropriate package/class. And then the runtime does everything else for me.
>
> What's more, I don't need to use any special linking semantics, and my classes will execute identically on windows or unix.
>
> D is light years away from offering anything that approaches this level of convenience and simplicity when it comes to executing third-party code. And until D provides those same niceties, I believe Java programmers will not be interested.
>
> #3 -- Documentation Deneration
>
> It's nice that there is some grassroots support starting to develop around Doxygen for producing API documentation from D files. But since Java implicitly supports the javadoc specification, I think Java developers would expect the same level of doc-generation support from any vendor of a D compiler.
>
> Either D needs a doc-generation tool of its own (produced by Digital Mars) or it needs a specification and a feature-complete Doxygen implementation (also produced by Digital Mars).
>
> This is the least important of my 3 points, but I think it's still an expectation of Java developers, and you won't be able to lure Java programmers to D without an official document-generation workflow.
>
> --BenjiSmith


April 30, 2005
"Derek Parnell" <derek@psych.ward> wrote in message news:120x3hvv15xxp$.d1p5yypli8xj$.dlg@40tude.net...
> On Sat, 30 Apr 2005 08:42:40 +1000, Matthew wrote:
>
>> "Derek Parnell" <derek@psych.ward> wrote in message
>>>I'm
>>> wondering if D's target audience is not the current
>>> C/C++/C#/Java
>>> crowd.
>>> Instead, might it be found in the Perl, Python, Ruby, Euphoria,
>>> and
>>> total-newbie groups that have not been exposed to the foibles of
>>> the 'C'
>>> legacy, and are looking for speed, power, and simplicity?
>>>
>>> Would attempting to "sell" to this set of people be a useful exercise?
>>
>> Without built-in regex, it's not going to sell as an alternative
>> to
>> Perl or Ruby.
>>
>> And I can't see how it's ever going to be a credible alternative
>> to
>> Python, which takes simplicity and usability to the extreme and,
>> perhaps more importantly, a wealth of libraries.
>>
>> I just don't see D as an alternative to scripting languages.
>
> I'm sorry, but I didn't make myself as clear as I thought I had. I
> was not
> suggesting D as an alternative to those scripting languages, but
> as an
> additional tool to be used in places that are outside of the
> scripting
> language problem domain.

Ok. Makes a lot more sense in that light.

> In other words, when people who have only been using such
> scripting
> languages, eventually need to use a programming language to do
> something
> that is better achieved though using a non-scripting language,
> then might
> not D be a useful tool for them?

Yes indeed.

> And if so, should the current D community
> and DigitalMars be actively promoting D to that group of potential
> users?

Not now, unless it wants to look very silly. People who are
migrating from scripting languages will want
    (i) ease of use of the language, which is nothing like the same
as ease of understanding of the language. Given the current state of
the available tool set, it'd be hard to imagine someone coming to D
as their first compiled language and not being strongly put off
    (ii) documentation
    (iii) libraries.

But, once these issues are sorted, then I think it'd be a very good first compiled-language for such people.







April 30, 2005
In article <d4ulbu$21gh$1@digitaldaemon.com>, J C Calvarese says...
>
>Walter wrote:
>> "J C Calvarese" <jcc7@cox.net> wrote in message news:d4u50k$1jcg$1@digitaldaemon.com...
>> 
>>>(By the way, I just found out about D++ today due to its link at http://www.kochandreas.com/home/language/matrix.htm. I wonder how many more people might stumble upon D if it were listed.)
>> 
>> 
>> Amusingly, that page says it was last updated in October of 2005.
>
>LOL
>
>At first, I thought the same thing until I remembered that in some places in the world "10.04.2005" means April 10, 2005.

"some places"? Just "some"?
To me, month/day/year is the weird thing! Who invented this messy order? Ah,
those who measure things with inches! ;-)


>But you're just kidding, right?
>
>-- 
>jcc7
>http://jcc_7.tripod.com/d/


April 30, 2005
Walter wrote:
> Overloadable assignment, and its cousins the copy constructor and move
> constructor, are the source of much of the complicated grief in C++
> programs. The primary (in fact, only from what I've seen) use for them is to
> manage memory. This is one major area where automatic memory management
> really cleans up and simplifies code. All that drudgery and complexity just
> goes away.

Agreed.

I think it's a forgone conclusion that this decision is not going to change in D; there's too much code that uses reference semantics.  And we've found solutions to just about all of the problems that it causes.  I'm curious, however, whether (in retrospect) you have changed your mind?  Specifically, I'm contrasting my proposal (use value semantics, but put limitations on class objects, to avoid the sorts of pitfalls you describe above) to the current D design.  If you were starting over today, which do you think you might choose?
April 30, 2005
a lurker wrote:
> In article <d4ulbu$21gh$1@digitaldaemon.com>, J C Calvarese says...

(I think if you were truly "a lurker", I wouldn't be reading your posts, but that's another issue entirely.)

> 
>>Walter wrote:
>>
>>>"J C Calvarese" <jcc7@cox.net> wrote in message
>>>news:d4u50k$1jcg$1@digitaldaemon.com...
>>>
>>>
>>>>(By the way, I just found out about D++ today due to its link at
>>>>http://www.kochandreas.com/home/language/matrix.htm. I wonder how many
>>>>more people might stumble upon D if it were listed.)
>>>
>>>
>>>Amusingly, that page says it was last updated in October of 2005.
>>
>>LOL
>>
>>At first, I thought the same thing until I remembered that in some places in the world "10.04.2005" means April 10, 2005.
> 
> 
> "some places"? Just "some"?
> To me, month/day/year is the weird thing! Who invented this messy order? Ah,
> those who measure things with inches! ;-)

Do you still have 3600 seconds in your hours or have converted to metric time? Let's not get into some waste of time argument about how "my meter is longer than your yard". Generally, people like that to which they're accustomed. If I see 04-05, I think April 5 before I consider it might be May 4. If I see 04-05-02, I guess it's April 5, 2002, but it could be May 2, 2004.

On the other hand, when I embed the date in a filename, I usually use YYYY_MM_DD because I like how it sorts. Go ISO!

-- 
jcc7
http://jcc_7.tripod.com/d/
April 30, 2005
On Fri, 29 Apr 2005 23:20:15 -0500, J C Calvarese wrote:


> On the other hand, when I embed the date in a filename, I usually use YYYY_MM_DD because I like how it sorts.

Me too, but I try to use dates as dd/Month/yyyy when they are intended for humans to read, just to avoid this ambiguity.


-- 
Derek Parnell
Melbourne, Australia
30/April/2005 2:22:30 PM
April 30, 2005
> to say it "doesn't compete with C++" is somewhat irrelevant since the marketplace will obviously consider anything that calls itself a successor to C and competing with Java/C# as competing with C++ as well.

My point was that D is not now, and is unlikely to become, any more credible/relevant an alternative to C++ than it is Perl/Python/Ruby.

Furthermore, by fostering, or at least not rejecting, the notion that it _is_ a credible/relevant alternative to C++ is detrimental to its chances of success, since people can reasonably criticise its _fundamentals_ wrt C++, which I don't believe is the case with Java/.NET.

Of course, I may be wrong, as I'm not exactly an expert in Java / .NET. But I'm not aware of any great negative relativism from Java/.NET aficionados, other than that the libraries and tools are deficient.

Thus, my proposition that D is it stands as a language, has no great impediment to being a competitor for C and Java/.NET given appropriate libraries/documentation/tools, which cannot be said for C++.

> We might as well be honest and say *how* it competes with C++ and where one might want to choose one over the other. To me the downside of the current web pages is that it tends to be very rah-rah for D and ignores any counter-argument. I wouldn't be surprised if C++ programmers responded better if their specific concerns were addressed (or at least acknowledged) on the site.

This is very true, but I think that's not going to bring in more C++ people into the inner circle. It might serve to get them past the front door, but they're still as likely to wander off in a huff of disdain, perhaps just a little more informed in their criticism.



My point about perspective is that discussion of D as an alternative to C++ should either stop, or be markedly downplayed, since this seems to be given very little credit in the wider C++ community (and maybe not all that much within the D community). Rather we should focus on genuine areas of specific competitiveness - i.e. given D with excellent libraries/docs/tools, why would one use .NET? - and on promoting D in its own right, which is at once both more optimistic and less fallacious.



April 30, 2005
"Russ Lewis" <spamhole-2001-07-16@deming-os.org> wrote in message news:d4uv7o$28c2$1@digitaldaemon.com...
> I think it's a forgone conclusion that this decision is not going to
> change in D; there's too much code that uses reference semantics.  And
> we've found solutions to just about all of the problems that it causes.
>   I'm curious, however, whether (in retrospect) you have changed your
> mind?  Specifically, I'm contrasting my proposal (use value semantics,
> but put limitations on class objects, to avoid the sorts of pitfalls you
> describe above) to the current D design.  If you were starting over
> today, which do you think you might choose?

I think the way it is is pretty good.