Date: September 7 to 9, 2018.
Location: Manchester, UK

GDC - D front-end GCC

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXRJJ_lrSxE

On Sunday, 7 October 2018 at 15:41:43 UTC, greentea wrote:
> Date: September 7 to 9, 2018.
> Location: Manchester, UK
>
> GDC - D front-end GCC
>
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXRJJ_lrSxE

Thanks for the link, just watched the whole video. The first half-hour sets the standard as an intro to the language, as only a compiler developer other than the main implementer could give, ie someone with fresh eyes.

I loved that Iain started off with a list of real-world projects. That's a mistake a lot of tech talks make, ie not motivating _why_ anybody should care about their tech and simply diving into the tech itself. I hadn't heard some of that info either, great way to begin.

My only nitpick is that I wish he'd emphasized how much of a focus D puts on metaprogramming, as I've noticed a lot of comments on proggit/HN/etc. saying that the power and ease of use of D's metaprogramming really stood out for them when trying the language.

On Monday, 8 October 2018 at 05:12:03 UTC, Joakim wrote:
> On Sunday, 7 October 2018 at 15:41:43 UTC, greentea wrote:
>> Date: September 7 to 9, 2018.
>> Location: Manchester, UK
>>
>> GDC - D front-end GCC
>>
>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXRJJ_lrSxE
>
> Thanks for the link, just watched the whole video. The first half-hour sets the standard as an intro to the language, as only a compiler developer other than the main implementer could give, ie someone with fresh eyes.
>
> I loved that Iain started off with a list of real-world projects. That's a mistake a lot of tech talks make, ie not motivating _why_ anybody should care about their tech and simply diving into the tech itself. I hadn't heard some of that info either, great way to begin.

I agree, a very nice talk, including the way the motivation part of was handled. I especially liked the example of the group who typically used Python for rapid prototyping, then re-wrote in C++ for production, who upon trying D for a prototype, were pleasantly surprised it was performant enough for production.

On Mon, 8 Oct 2018 at 07:15, Joakim via Digitalmars-d-announce <digitalmars-d-announce@puremagic.com> wrote:
>
> On Sunday, 7 October 2018 at 15:41:43 UTC, greentea wrote:
> > Date: September 7 to 9, 2018.
> > Location: Manchester, UK
> >
> > GDC - D front-end GCC
> >
> > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXRJJ_lrSxE
>
> Thanks for the link, just watched the whole video. The first half-hour sets the standard as an intro to the language, as only a compiler developer other than the main implementer could give, ie someone with fresh eyes.
>
> I loved that Iain started off with a list of real-world projects. That's a mistake a lot of tech talks make, ie not motivating _why_ anybody should care about their tech and simply diving into the tech itself. I hadn't heard some of that info either, great way to begin.
>
> My only nitpick is that I wish he'd emphasized how much of a focus D puts on metaprogramming, as I've noticed a lot of comments on proggit/HN/etc. saying that the power and ease of use of D's metaprogramming really stood out for them when trying the language.

Thanks, one of the feedbacks I got mentioned ripping out most grammar stuff and putting more emphasis on key selling points, however by the time I received that memo, I think it was 3 days before I was due to actually give the talk.  All I had time for was just ripping out stanza after stanza of notes I had written up.

It may or may not be obvious that I wanted to attempt to describe aspects with a slight affinity to how the landscape looks from the ABI/Codegen side, of which compile-time features get even less deserving attention.  Not to forget, talking about just the D language as a whole is easily a 3 hour talk, and I felt that I didn't really want to put too much emphasis on one part or another, especially when condensing it down to 25 minutes.

This also meant I was pretty much all was going off an auto-cue I had pre-authored and polished.  I wasn't really in the mood for winging it this time around as I've perhaps done in former Dconf talks - to which from 2017's experience, I can quite happily go on a tangent for hours and hours and...

-- 
Iain

On 10/7/2018 8:41 AM, greentea wrote:
> Date: September 7 to 9, 2018.
> Location: Manchester, UK
> 
> GDC - D front-end GCC
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXRJJ_lrSxE


Nice work, Iain!