Hi,

I have not spent a long time programming in D and am still discovering all the wonderful features it has to offer - but I can already say with certainty it is by far the best programming language I have ever used.

It seems to me that Walter, after all the years of developing the C++ compiler, has gathered immense knowledge of useful features and expensive features that not only bloat the language itself but also add significantly to compilation time.

Writing a compiler is certainly one of the more demanding programming tasks, to say the least - I wonder: Would the quality of D have suffered if it was an open source project in which virtually everyone, no matter how much experience or what background, could participate?

I know that many programmers dislike garbage collection. I suspect that only true experts like Walter really know how expensive a garbage collector is in various situations, can correctly evaluate its usefulness and devise an efficient implementation - and am afraid that if D had been a community-project from the ground up, this wonderful feature would have been one of the first to be dropped due to popular demand.

I've followed the "F Word" thread in D.gnu and and have the feeling that maybe it's a good thing that Walter pulls the strings.

Like: "I'm giving you a garbage collector and many other extremely useful features against your will, and although you won't immediately realize it, it's good for you." ;-)

-Andreas

Andreas,

I couldn't agree more.  Also, Walter does, from time to time, listen to us.  But I like it that he does not listen to us all the time.  Otherwise, he would go crazy.  Or as we, the hispanic community say, "loco."

Great job, Walter!

Thanks for the wonderful post, Andreas.  We don't see enough of these.

josé

Andreas Schmid says...
>
>Hi,
>
>I have not spent a long time programming in D and am still discovering all the wonderful features it has to offer - but I can already say with certainty it is by far the best programming language I have ever used.
>
>It seems to me that Walter, after all the years of developing the C++ compiler, has gathered immense knowledge of useful features and expensive features that not only bloat the language itself but also add significantly to compilation time.
>
>Writing a compiler is certainly one of the more demanding programming tasks, to say the least - I wonder: Would the quality of D have suffered if it was an open source project in which virtually everyone, no matter how much experience or what background, could participate?
>
>I know that many programmers dislike garbage collection. I suspect that only true experts like Walter really know how expensive a garbage collector is in various situations, can correctly evaluate its usefulness and devise an efficient implementation - and am afraid that if D had been a community-project from the ground up, this wonderful feature would have been one of the first to be dropped due to popular demand.
>
>I've followed the "F Word" thread in D.gnu and and have the feeling that maybe it's a good thing that Walter pulls the strings.
>
>Like: "I'm giving you a garbage collector and many other extremely useful features against your will, and although you won't immediately realize it, it's good for you." ;-)
>
>-Andreas
>
>
>
>

I'd have to agree here, Im glad Walter kept it closed source.  I think it was also a great move to leave the front-end open for tool writers / other compiler writers.  I think this will go along way for the development of the language also :).

Hip Hip!
Charlie


"Andreas Schmid" <monkey@gmx.info> wrote in message news:d4997k$v07$1@digitaldaemon.com...
> Hi,
>
> I have not spent a long time programming in D and am still discovering all the wonderful features it has to offer - but I can already say with certainty it is by far the best programming language I have ever used.
>
> It seems to me that Walter, after all the years of developing the C++ compiler, has gathered immense knowledge of useful features and expensive features that not only bloat the language itself but also add
significantly
> to compilation time.
>
> Writing a compiler is certainly one of the more demanding programming
tasks,
> to say the least - I wonder: Would the quality of D have suffered if it
was
> an open source project in which virtually everyone, no matter how much experience or what background, could participate?
>
> I know that many programmers dislike garbage collection. I suspect that
only
> true experts like Walter really know how expensive a garbage collector is
in
> various situations, can correctly evaluate its usefulness and devise an efficient implementation - and am afraid that if D had been a community-project from the ground up, this wonderful feature would have
been
> one of the first to be dropped due to popular demand.
>
> I've followed the "F Word" thread in D.gnu and and have the feeling that maybe it's a good thing that Walter pulls the strings.
>
> Like: "I'm giving you a garbage collector and many other extremely useful features against your will, and although you won't immediately realize it, it's good for you." ;-)
>
> -Andreas
>
>
>
>

"Andreas Schmid" <monkey@gmx.info> wrote in message news:d4997k$v07$1@digitaldaemon.com...
> I know that many programmers dislike garbage collection. I suspect that
only
> true experts like Walter really know how expensive a garbage collector is
in
> various situations, can correctly evaluate its usefulness and devise an efficient implementation - and am afraid that if D had been a community-project from the ground up, this wonderful feature would have
been
> one of the first to be dropped due to popular demand.

I, for a very long time, was convinced that garbage collectors were crutches for poor programmers, and that there's no way a gc app could beat a carefully written explicitly memory managed app. It's so obvious by inspection. It's the conventional wisdom (see the thread entitled "Why do you program in C++?" 4/18/2005 on comp.lang.c++.moderated).

Then, when writing a Java compiler, I was forced into dealing with one. Imagine my disbelief when I discovered that gc programs are often *faster*, in addition to being quicker to write and less buggy. This effect is often why D outperforms C++, to the point where the proponents of the Conventional Wisdom have literally accused me of "sabotaging" C++.

(Of course, gc isn't a panacea for all memory management problems, which is why D allows one to use explicit memory management where that makes sense.)

An interesting discovery I made was that much of the numbing complexity in C++ comes from attempts to deal with managing memory.

In article <d4997k$v07$1@digitaldaemon.com>, Andreas Schmid says...
>
>Hi,
>
>I have not spent a long time programming in D and am still discovering all the wonderful features it has to offer - but I can already say with certainty it is by far the best programming language I have ever used.
>
>It seems to me that Walter, after all the years of developing the C++ compiler, has gathered immense knowledge of useful features and expensive features that not only bloat the language itself but also add significantly to compilation time.
>
>Writing a compiler is certainly one of the more demanding programming tasks, to say the least - I wonder: Would the quality of D have suffered if it was an open source project in which virtually everyone, no matter how much experience or what background, could participate?
>
>I know that many programmers dislike garbage collection. I suspect that only true experts like Walter really know how expensive a garbage collector is in various situations, can correctly evaluate its usefulness and devise an efficient implementation - and am afraid that if D had been a community-project from the ground up, this wonderful feature would have been one of the first to be dropped due to popular demand.
>
>I've followed the "F Word" thread in D.gnu and and have the feeling that maybe it's a good thing that Walter pulls the strings.
>
>Like: "I'm giving you a garbage collector and many other extremely useful features against your will, and although you won't immediately realize it, it's good for you." ;-)
>
>-Andreas
>

1) It was never doubted that Walter should pull the strings.  I agree he always should...

2) It was never suggested (to my knowledge) that the language should be
open-sourced.  This was not the object of the "F-word" discussions.

For #1, it's a matter of degree (or interpretation of what "pulling the strings" really means).  Many suggestions have been made to encourage faster improvements to D (bug fixes or language features critical to current projects), specifically shared work load and better management.

For #2, "open-sourcing" has some pretty hefty connotations.  Previous discussions really made no aspersion to such an idea.  They emphasized better interaction/communication/feedback with/to Walter.  There were hopes that if Walter surrounded himself with a semi-official committee of sorts, there would be better accountability and responsiveness.  This is the current problem.  The single man team called Walter doesn't or can't respond to suggestions from people struggling with langauage issues in important projects (especially as the size of the d community grows and the number of d projects increases -- overload!).  And if he does respond, fixes don't occur fast enough to keep important projects rocketing forward.

All the deligthtful suggestions recently proffered to solve this problem were indeed "good" as far as their intent goes.  But I can't see the Big guy even coming close to gleaning this newsgroup's priority items with or without decorative tags, let alone responding to suggestions. Direct emails to him would be a better solution -- *shudder*.  The bug-fixing marathon alone is enough to keep that guy busy for a long time. Take a look at dstress.

Why am I beating at this again?  Boy, Matthew was right, I am beginning to sound like a GOM. Oh no, it can't be happening yet!

By the way, I'm just kinda grumpy, not so much where this topic is concerned
anymore... and it has more to do with my not having my one and only laptop to
console (oops! pun!) me. :-) (in for repairs *sigh*)

- JJR

Well, despite carping a lot recently (and having a lot to carp about, to be sure), there is no doubt that D has *much* merit.

Lars and I are currently considering ways of enhancing std.openrj. One of the things I've wanted to do is read the comment for a record and represent it as a property of the Record object.

I've just coded and tested this, and it took me 10 - yes, that's ten, a one and a zero, minutes - to code and test. And more of that was spent changing the makefile than the D code.

How d'ya like them apples?!?

:-)


"Andreas Schmid" <monkey@gmx.info> wrote in message news:d4997k$v07$1@digitaldaemon.com...
> Hi,
>
> I have not spent a long time programming in D and am still discovering all the wonderful features it has to offer - but I can already say with certainty it is by far the best programming language I have ever used.
>
> It seems to me that Walter, after all the years of developing the C++ compiler, has gathered immense knowledge of useful features and expensive features that not only bloat the language itself but also add significantly to compilation time.
>
> Writing a compiler is certainly one of the more demanding programming tasks, to say the least - I wonder: Would the quality of D have suffered if it was an open source project in which virtually everyone, no matter how much experience or what background, could participate?
>
> I know that many programmers dislike garbage collection. I suspect that only true experts like Walter really know how expensive a garbage collector is in various situations, can correctly evaluate its usefulness and devise an efficient implementation - and am afraid that if D had been a community-project from the ground up, this wonderful feature would have been one of the first to be dropped due to popular demand.
>
> I've followed the "F Word" thread in D.gnu and and have the feeling that maybe it's a good thing that Walter pulls the strings.
>
> Like: "I'm giving you a garbage collector and many other extremely useful features against your will, and although you won't immediately realize it, it's good for you." ;-)
>
> -Andreas
>
>
>
> 

"Walter" <newshound@digitalmars.com> wrote in message news:d49ed9$13kn$1@digitaldaemon.com...
>
> "Andreas Schmid" <monkey@gmx.info> wrote in message news:d4997k$v07$1@digitaldaemon.com...
>> I know that many programmers dislike garbage collection. I suspect that
> only
>> true experts like Walter really know how expensive a garbage collector is
> in
>> various situations, can correctly evaluate its usefulness and
>> devise an
>> efficient implementation - and am afraid that if D had been a
>> community-project from the ground up, this wonderful feature
>> would have
> been
>> one of the first to be dropped due to popular demand.
>
> I, for a very long time, was convinced that garbage collectors
> were crutches
> for poor programmers, and that there's no way a gc app could beat
> a
> carefully written explicitly memory managed app. It's so obvious
> by
> inspection. It's the conventional wisdom (see the thread entitled
> "Why do
> you program in C++?" 4/18/2005 on comp.lang.c++.moderated).
>
> Then, when writing a Java compiler, I was forced into dealing with
> one.
> Imagine my disbelief when I discovered that gc programs are often
> *faster*,
> in addition to being quicker to write and less buggy. This effect
> is often
> why D outperforms C++, to the point where the proponents of the
> Conventional
> Wisdom have literally accused me of "sabotaging" C++.
>
> (Of course, gc isn't a panacea for all memory management problems,
> which is
> why D allows one to use explicit memory management where that
> makes sense.)
>
> An interesting discovery I made was that much of the numbing
> complexity in
> C++ comes from attempts to deal with managing memory.

Yes, and, alas, this gets tied up in other GC-languages with other resources, which is so wrong-headed it makes your cheeks laugh. Thankfully we have auto in D, and therefore adroitly sidestep the debate completely. ;)

On Fri, 22 Apr 2005 10:01:53 +1000, Matthew wrote:

[snip]
> And more of that was spent changing the makefile than the D code.

Have I mentioned my Build utility? ;-)

-- 
Derek Parnell
Melbourne, Australia
http://www.dsource.org/projects/build/ v2.03 released 20/Apr/2005
http://www.prowiki.org/wiki4d/wiki.cgi?FrontPage
22/04/2005 11:05:44 AM

Personally, I think it's a good thing to have a single person or group thereof in control of a single project.  Indeed, that only makes sense.  It has obviously benefitted D, and no one can say that Walter isn't a very smart man who knows what he's doing (or, they couldn't say that and be right.)

However, I don't like the slant against open source here.  I think I know what you're saying, or hope I do, but it almost sounds like you're saying things about open source that aren't totally true.

A great example of an open source project is Mozilla Firefox.  Its development is led by a small group of people, and not a single piece of code goes into the tree without their approval.  They are, however, only a subset of the developers who work on Firefox; some of the larger group's changes are accepted, some are not.

Every patch must be checked by two separate people to go into the tree, in their system.

Personally, I think D would benefit from having not only more people, but much more importantly having peer review.  Peer review is perhaps the most important, or at least one of the most important, parts of open source.

Some projects choose to throw the project to the dogs, and let anyone do whatever they want.  To me, that sounds totally crazy.  It tends to create disorganized boats, and I don't believe any project would benefit from it.

I think D is a great project, and solves many of the problems of D without the problems other solutions have had.  But, it could use a bit more open source.  Then again, I'm an open source guy.

-[Unknown]


> It seems to me that Walter, after all the years of developing the C++ compiler, has gathered immense knowledge of useful features and expensive features that not only bloat the language itself but also add significantly to compilation time.
> 
> Writing a compiler is certainly one of the more demanding programming tasks, to say the least - I wonder: Would the quality of D have suffered if it was an open source project in which virtually everyone, no matter how much experience or what background, could participate?

On Thu, 21 Apr 2005 18:29:14 -0700, Unknown W. Brackets wrote:

> Personally, I think it's a good thing to have a single person or group
> thereof in control of a single project.  Indeed, that only makes sense.
>   It has obviously benefitted D, and no one can say that Walter isn't a
> very smart man who knows what he's doing (or, they couldn't say that and
> be right.)

Totally agree.

[snip]

> Personally, I think D would benefit from having not only more people, but much more importantly having peer review.  Peer review is perhaps the most important, or at least one of the most important, parts of open source.

Absolutely! And not only on open source projects. All projects, including non-software ones, will always benefit from good peer reviewing.

I too wish that Walter would accept some help. He still needs to have ultimate say about what goes into D, but there is no need for him to do all the leg-work.

-- 
Derek Parnell
Melbourne, Australia
http://www.dsource.org/projects/build/ v2.03 released 20/Apr/2005
http://www.prowiki.org/wiki4d/wiki.cgi?FrontPage
22/04/2005 11:38:42 AM