D User Poll - Ready for 1.0?

The poll is simple.

Do you think the D compiler is ready to be called 1.0?

Say yes if D is working great for you and explain what you have done with it.

Say no if D is unusable in its current state, or if there is something about the compiler that really bothers you that should be fixed before 1.0.

I posted this poll out of a general curiousity to see how many out there think D is ready and if not why.

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Yes.

   My honest opinion, from the little bit I've used D for, is that the D compiler is ready for 1.0. Granted, I'm a little college student who is just trying to learn game programming (and I'm not too far into all the fancy algorithms like the big shots are), so take my opinion with a grain of salt.

   I've never run into any show stopper bugs recently, for a while, and I've used some basic templates, modules, bindings, libs, and the build utility (a BIG selling point for D IMO, especially if you get a graphical frontend for it, will make the newbs very happy, and make makefiles look like a waste of time, allow you to concentrate more on programming, which is D's purpose, increase programmer productivity).

   I think D is really great and it can definitely holds its own against other languages. I'm sure compiler bugs could be fixed for the next three years or so (bop the gofer, fix one another pops up).

  The general acceptance of D can only happen when 1.0 emerges, otherwise it is just a beta language, and it is percieved as a moving target, so writing large amounts of code for it can seem dangerous.

And for those who need more features, be patient and wait for 2.0?

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Just trying to generate some discussion, and see other peoples views. :-)

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Also, I know some do not want to discriminate between compiler/lib, but IMO it would be hard to rollout a solid lib if the compiler is under construction. I think phobos is solid as it is (maybe i'm ignorant), and that any great/radical improvement will have to come from a great open source lib, like ares or mango, or a behind the scenes redesign by the top-notch library writers floating around here.

clayasaurus wrote: > The poll is simple. > > Do you think the D compiler is ready to be called 1.0? No. I think the big "1.0" should only happen when the language specification, compiler (DMD) and standard library (Phobos) have all reached that stage. Being in beta doesn't necessarily keep something from being used, but reaching 1.0 can be used as a sort of marketing tool to push adoption. Look at Firefox - I've been using it since Phoenix 0.5 and it's always been pretty stable, but it only became 1.0 when it was damn ready. Hell, I've been using Gaim for awhile, and they've only recently moved to 1.0 - seemingly just 'cause they felt it was about time. Look at all the tools Google has that are technically beta. ;) No, I feel best to wait until we're *sure* D is ready to be 1.0 before it becomes so. After all, you only reach 1.0 once. :) I do wish Gentoo had an ebuild available though. :(

>I do wish Gentoo had an ebuild available though. :( I'm successfuly using ebuilds from http://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=46806 for dmd and from http://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=48136 for gdc (but with small bug: I had to build one missing file (config.d) by hands).

Brad Anderson wrote: >> I do wish Gentoo had an ebuild available though. :( > > http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-163922-highlight-dmd.html > Look for the post by Genone If you are referring to the missing versioned zipfiles, and the licensing, that was fixed a month ago (DMD 0.113) http://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=46806#c12 Currently the only problem is the lack of a "make install" target in the linux.mak, and of course the missing x86_64... --anders

No, I don't believe it's currently 1.0 in that I wouldn't seriously recommend to my boss that we start using it. I do believe it's ready for personal "fun" projects, but I think too much risk surrounds it before I would recommend building a business atop it: - I don't know of any significant commercial application successfully written and released in D, and I don't want to be the first. - Phobos seems disorganized and undirected, thus leading me to believe it might change significantly. At this point, I'd probably insulate myself against future Phobos changes by creating my own "standard library" that wraps Phobos and "libc" (or I might use Ares). But this means I and my team would be building up expertise in how to program with my library (or Ares), not Phobos, and I'd really prefer to avoid that. - I perceive a lack of end-to-end development and debugging tools, and the tools that do exist don't feel "1.0". Furthermore, I see little progress in integrating with existing development tools and environments under Win32 (some great starts, but they seem to have stagnated). - I perceive a lack of interest among the D developer community. I see lots of started projects, but few completed ones, and little progress in the meantime. I can only assume *something* turned off these people who gave D a shot, and this increases my perceived risk around D. Note that no amount of compiler improvement will alleviate my fears. Further note that most of my fears could probably be alleviated through improved documetnation and better organization of what's already out there in a scattered form. In fact, the least risky component in my mind is the D compiler itself. I bet it works pretty good. It's just all the "low priority" stuff that's hanging me up. -david

> - I perceive a lack of interest among the D developer community. I see lots of started projects, but few completed ones, and little progress in the meantime. I can only assume *something* turned off these people who gave D a shot, and this increases my perceived risk around D. An excellent, and important, point. Working out the reason(s) for this would be a good use of our collective time. But be careful, David, lest you be marked a flamer, and become a Cassanandra-like presence. ;/

On Thu, 31 Mar 2005 20:21:53 +1000, Matthew <admin.hat@stlsoft.dot.org> wrote: >> - I perceive a lack of interest among the D developer community. I see lots of started projects, but few completed >> ones, and little progress in the meantime. I can only assume *something* turned off these people who gave D a shot, >> and this increases my perceived risk around D. > > An excellent, and important, point. Working out the reason(s) for this would be a good use of our collective time. Perhaps the compiler stopped these projects. In my experience finding out that the compiler does not allow something (yet) stops my ideas dead in their tracks. > But be careful, David, lest you be marked a flamer, and become a Cassanandra-like presence. ;/ I found his post both direct and honest. Less flame like, more knife like. Regan

"Regan Heath" <regan@netwin.co.nz> wrote in message news:opsoh0jlec23k2f5@nrage.netwin.co.nz... > >> But be careful, David, lest you be marked a flamer, and become a Cassanandra-like presence. ;/ > > I found his post both direct and honest. Less flame like, more knife like. Yikes. I hope I'm neither knife nor flame. Perhaps instead a cool, refreshing breeze... :)

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