Why it isn't popular?  We must popularize it. There aren't any tutorials with D, books and other stuff. How about writing a D programming forum?

On Sunday, 20 January 2013 at 09:52:42 UTC, SaltySugar wrote:
> Why it isn't popular?  We must popularize it. There aren't any tutorials with D, books and other stuff.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0321635361/classicempire
http://ddili.org/ders/d.en/index.html

> How about writing a D programming forum?

http://forum.dlang.org/

On Sunday, 20 January 2013 at 09:52:42 UTC, SaltySugar wrote:
> Why it isn't popular?  We must popularize it. There aren't any tutorials with D, books and other stuff. How about writing a D programming forum?

It is unpopular because some problems are still not solved (linking, dynamic libraries, IDEs, some compiler internals - 64 ABI, corrupting memory lambdas, nested struct crashes, debugging, win32 COFF, third-party libraries, etc.) and because many are satisfied with languages they are using.

On Sunday, 20 January 2013 at 10:01:36 UTC, deadalnix wrote:
> On Sunday, 20 January 2013 at 09:52:42 UTC, SaltySugar wrote:
>
>> How about writing a D programming forum?
>
> http://forum.dlang.org/

I think he is aware of this forum because he appears to post the message via it.

Am 20.01.2013 12:10, schrieb Maxim Fomin:
> On Sunday, 20 January 2013 at 10:01:36 UTC, deadalnix wrote:
>> On Sunday, 20 January 2013 at 09:52:42 UTC, SaltySugar wrote:
>>
>>> How about writing a D programming forum?
>>
>> http://forum.dlang.org/
> 
> I think he is aware of this forum because he appears to post the message via it.

I am not using the forum, but still sending messages. You can send messages directly via a NNTP client, you don't have to use the forum, so it's definitly possible he doesn't know of it.

On Sun, Jan 20, 2013 at 6:21 PM, David <d@dav1d.de> wrote:

> I am not using the forum, but still sending messages. You can send messages directly via a NNTP client, you don't have to use the forum, so it's definitly possible he doesn't know of it.
>

David, that can be guessed on basis of the email headers. And the OP does appear to have used dlang forum.

Regards
- Puneet

On Sunday, 20 January 2013 at 09:52:42 UTC, SaltySugar wrote:
> Why it isn't popular?  We must popularize it. There aren't any tutorials with D, books and other stuff. How about writing a D programming forum?

I think it is on its way there though. There is the excellent book that Andrei wrote which will give a most useful insight on the language.

I have heard of D from a coworker but was uninterested in learning a new language at the time (and there might be many others in that situation). I use D now because I started a new project and D fitted my needs perfectly.

I think D shines when people start looking for a new language, especially as a C/C++ (IMHO) replacement. As more and more will, the more popular D will become.

As you know, those languages C/C++ are probably the most used languages worldwide (I am not saying not other rivals them) and in companies. Therefore, people who use it tend to use it for good reasons (legacy code compatibility, maturity of tools/compilers, efficient code generation, low memory consumption, etc...), and their minds will be hard to change, unless a smooth transition is guaranteed.

I think that new projects/research are the bread and butter of D at that time. One of its most attracting advantage for someone working with legacy code is that it easily binds to C (so a HUGE code base and native os APIs), so I believe D really has a chance at becoming widely used.

It is true however that, as you learn to love your new language (D), you will also find out that some issues haven't been ironed out yet (for the reference compiler for example, as someone mentioned), and that can be a deal breaker for some. Those of us that still uses it must find that its goodies outweighs its drawbacks: drawbacks which I think are for the most part UNRELATED to the language itself.

Personally, I believe that D is slowly but surely making its place as a viable, more powerful alternative to C++( ( ++C)++ ).

On Sunday, 20 January 2013 at 14:31:25 UTC, Phil Lavoie wrote:
> On Sunday, 20 January 2013 at 09:52:42 UTC, SaltySugar wrote:
>> Why it isn't popular?  We must popularize it. There aren't any tutorials with D, books and other stuff. How about writing a D programming forum?

> I have heard of D from a coworker but was uninterested in learning a new language at the time (and there might be many others in that situation). I use D now because I started a new project and D fitted my needs perfectly.
>
> I think D shines when people start looking for a new language, especially as a C/C++ (IMHO) replacement. As more and more will, the more popular D will become.
>
> As you know, those languages C/C++ are probably the most used languages worldwide (I am not saying not other rivals them) and in companies. Therefore, people who use it tend to use it for good reasons (legacy code compatibility, maturity of tools/compilers, efficient code generation, low memory consumption, etc...), and their minds will be hard to change, unless a smooth transition is guaranteed.

 The standard library needs to be complete/reliable as well along with everything needed for parallel processing. An obvious need and interest is also present to have libraries/features not rely on the GC (in places where there is no GC); Meaning likely only the replaced functions (that needed the GC) need be re-written. Perhaps naming it like std.nogc.stdio for clarity; Naturally anything in std.stdio will be forwarded through the nogc so transition is invisible API-wise.

 I'm sure once the library & compiler & language are fully fixed and ready that D will become very very popular. C++ will never stop being used (embedded systems, games that they need every cycle and can't risk switching languages), but it's ugliness and issues can be reduced, maybe even replaced as the standard language some day.

On Sunday, 20 January 2013 at 09:52:42 UTC, SaltySugar wrote:
> Why it isn't popular?  We must popularize it. There aren't any tutorials with D, books and other stuff. How about writing a D programming forum?

I don't think the problem is purely a technical one as some may be suggesting. For example, even if all the technical issues were resolved, I doubt usage will increase much faster than they currently are. It won't hurt to make things 100% production ready, but I doubt that's the biggest hurdle to overcome.

With mountains of investment in existing C/C++ infrastructure, who is going to make the leap to D? The cost of switching must be far less than the cost of not switching.

I also figure a lot of people remain perfectly content with C/C++, and will never consider changing to something else simply because they don't have a significant enough reason to look for a better alternative. Even if there are a lot of dissatisfied C/C++ programmers, I bet most of them don't even know that there's a viable alternative. As far as I know, aside from D, there's nothing else that can replace C/C++, except maybe Rust, but it's still an experiment not suitable for production use, so the perception may be that using C/C++ is the only choice you have.

One possible way to get programmers to at least begin considering D, is to expose them to D through useful applications that are written in D that can be interfaced directly to C/C++. D has a compatible ABI, but in this case there is a technical problem to overcome, and it's with D's inability to support dynamic linking fully.

If we're to develop tactics for popularizing D, we have to consider more than technical issues, and when considering technical issues, we have to carefully choose the problem areas that are likely to matter the most.

Unfortunately, we don't have a coordinated action plan, and everything proceeds in a more or less random way. So I'd say improving the way D is developed through better coordination is the best way to achieve more rapid progress.

For those who prefer random chaos to guide the way, nothing stops that from continuing, you can have both an organized system in place, and a chaotic one at the same time.

--rt

On Mon, 21 Jan 2013 02:00:12 +0100
"Rob T" <alanb@ucora.com> wrote:

> On Sunday, 20 January 2013 at 09:52:42 UTC, SaltySugar wrote:
> > Why it isn't popular?  We must popularize it. There aren't any tutorials with D, books and other stuff. How about writing a D programming forum?
> 
> I don't think the problem is purely a technical one as some may be suggesting. For example, even if all the technical issues were resolved, I doubt usage will increase much faster than they currently are. It won't hurt to make things 100% production ready, but I doubt that's the biggest hurdle to overcome.
> 
> With mountains of investment in existing C/C++ infrastructure, who is going to make the leap to D? The cost of switching must be far less than the cost of not switching.
> 

D does continue to face an uphill battle for mindshare: These days,
most people who write code prefer to use languages that accept ANY
grammatically-correct code and deliberately remain silent about all
mechanically-checkable problems they can possibly ignore. Apparently
this is because they prefer to manually write extra unittests so that
only a subset of these errors are actually guaranteed to get caught
(if there's any guarantee at all). I'm not joking: I genuinely wouldn't
be surprised if the next popular "advancement" in computer languages
involves a way for compilers to stay silent about all grammatical errors
as well as the semantic errors they already ignore *by design*.

As bizarre and tongue-in-cheek as all that sounds, most programmers these days actually *DO* consider that to be vastly superior. (The thought that large numbers programmers can be that stupid is something I genuinely find disturbing.)

If I were a savvy businessman (read: no ethical fiber), I would
manufacture a line of fire alarms advertised as being 100% silent, and
therefore less bothersome and less inconvenient than the "old" kind,
and sell them exclusively to programmers. As long as I remember to
refer to the non-silent alarms as "old", and point out how
convenient and productive it is to not be bothered by pesky fire-alarm
sirens, I'd be guaranteed to make millions off of these short-sighted
suckers^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hprogrammers. (I just threw up a little in my mouth
at calling them "programmers", but well, *technically* that's what
they...sort of...are.)

A roundabout way to say it, but I guess the point I started out trying to make is this: The popularity of dynamic/interpreted/sandboxed/etc languages *is* IMO one of the more significant roadblocks in the way of D popularity. Silent fire alarms are what's hip, and here we are peddling an old-fashioned sounds-and-lights fire alarm. We're pragmatic instead of cool.