In article <dpci28$nq$1@digitaldaemon.com>, Kris says...
>

(Was: Re: Implementation-hiding clarification)

All points well taken Kris; implementation hiding is an important topic, but I just don't have anything worthwhile to add. (Not trying to change or confuse the subject, just start a new thread because you brought up another vital point.)

<snip>

> We should all understand that there's a lot of inertia against change in IT.

Ain't that the truth.

I could use the features of D as an improvement over ksh/perl/C/++ for quite a bit of what I happen to be doing right now, but I don't think it would fly... Even if they would let me re-compile GCC with D built-in (dmd won't run on this platform), I don't think I could develop anything but throw-away code right now just because of the potential need for someone else to maintain it, and because there is not any sort of formal training offered for D, which is a big thing where I'm at right now.

Somehow D has to achieve that "buzz-word" status. How to do that? Writing articles is one way to help - what else?

>To get a foot into the commercial segment, D needs as much help as it can possibly get in order to avoid being marginalized ~ even just keeping the darned lawyers out of the way. Implementation-hiding is one such aspect that

I agree (not that I'm any more clear on how to actually accommodate mechanical implementation-hiding).

"To get a foot into the commercial segment..." is one of the big reasons I'm a stickler about RT perf. "out of the box" if you will (meaning both good optimization and a language that doesn't get in the way). Everything I've been doing the last 5 years has demanded good performance and alot of time is spent on that. This is not a D weak point by any stretch, but I submit that D needs to stand-out in that area to get noticed.

>helps. I can tell you that D is /not/ being considered where I work. Hence, I have a beef with certain weak attributes of the language and tools.

What else is stopping the adoption of D where you work (Kris and anyone else)?

- Dave

Dave skrev:
> What else is stopping the adoption of D where you work (Kris and anyone else)?
> 
Not much, for in house stuff I already use it. That could be a "we" if there was an easy way to install GDC on Debian Linux.

For stuff to out clients not, for these reasons;
* Not easy enough to make libraries with header files that can be used from C
* Phobos not quite as mature.

In general I think D as a language is good to go as it is, but a language is never better than the standard library it comes with. C# is nothing without the .NET libraries, Java needs the 10.000+ classes in java.*, and Objective-C is quite useless without Cocoa/OpenStep.

There are allot of project that are meant to "replace" or "merge into" Phobos. But perhaps what is needed is for Phobos to become an open project with many commiters, responsible for their parts. And a clear idea of what Phobos should be, if there where a clear goal I am sure I could make my company dedicate some resources to work towards it.

// Fredrik Olsson

The reason that I don't use D is because it doesn't mesh with my C++ source code.  If only there was a good way of doing this.  It would be easier if there was link compatibility with VC++.  This would allow interop between existing code and D code through a C interface.  Code could be ported to D gradually.

I use Qt for cross platform C++ work and as far as I can tell, it doesn't compile with Digital Mars C++.  Thus, I simply cannot use D.

-Craig

"Dave" <Dave_member@pathlink.com> wrote
>
> What else is stopping the adoption of D where you work (Kris and anyone else)?

Do you have a private address to reply on?

In article <dpf5bq$1def$1@digitaldaemon.com>, Kris says...
>
>"Dave" <Dave_member@pathlink.com> wrote
>>
>> What else is stopping the adoption of D where you work (Kris and anyone else)?
>
>Do you have a private address to reply on?
>

Sure: godaves@yahoo.com

- Dave

"Dave" <Dave_member@pathlink.com> wrote
> Sure:

Thx

Dave escribió:
> What else is stopping the adoption of D where you work (Kris and anyone else)?
> 
> - Dave
> 
> 

At my work, there'd be three different answers.

We're using .Net (C#) for presentation, mostly because it seems so easy (I'm not taking part of that, so I couldn't tell for sure). So if there was a somewhat similar (windowing) library for D with so many third-party controls as there are in .Net, then it could be considered. It's not so likely, though, because my company has some sort of agreement with Microsoft.

For the backend, we're using WebSphere MQ/Message Broker/etc. That's were I'm working now. What's missing for D would be, well, all that's offered by those applications, which is basically message queues and the awful loads of integration easiness provided by it. Surely DDL is a step in that direction. But, again, my company has businesses with IBM.

The final part would be some assorted programs written in C but need to be really high performant. What's needed for D here would be a 100% working compiler for AIX, HP-UX, Solaris, and many other Unices.

So, that's it for getting D in my workplace.

-- 
Carlos Santander Bernal

In article <dpf6cf$1fh0$1@digitaldaemon.com>, Dave says...
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>In article <dpf5bq$1def$1@digitaldaemon.com>, Kris says...
>>
>>"Dave" <Dave_member@pathlink.com> wrote
>>>
>>> What else is stopping the adoption of D where you work (Kris and anyone else)?

I'll bite. :)

At my workplace, we're primarily a ColdFusion web shop with growing inclination toward Java.  Java is gaining a larger and larger foothold since we got it for free on our webservers since we upgraded to CFMX.  Since we have so much riding on this platform already, its unlikely that we'd ever switch unless there was some break-through technology that did stuff nobody's ever seen before.  The same goes for any internal utils, as those will eventually have to be maintianed by other developers: so languages outside everyone's core skill set are further discouraged at this level too.

D would have to replace the following technologies:
- CFMX
- Java
- J2EE

I think most of us here can fill in the blanks on the above, its just going to take more engineering on D/DSP/DDL/Mango/Whatever.  D would also have to address the following business concerns as well or you'll never get such an entrenched institution to budge:

- Training
- Certification
- Producivity Gains
- Performance Gains
- Installation and Maintainence Costs*
- FOSS Licensing**

Sadly, the confidence of this group can only go so far to address these points. The work simply has to look good on paper, and in a format suitable for non-technical types at that.  Its an uphill battle, and it will take considerable effort to breach the current level of understanding for this new crop of technology.

* Free, as in beer, still costs employee time.  It is a common assumption that "free software" simply forwards the savings at the POS ($0) to the setup and maintanence costs due to it being an "inferior product".  This leads to the conclusion that the net gain in savings is an illusion, and could indeed cost you more than a COTS product.  Add to that the (sometimes false) security blanket of getting vendor support when purchasing a non-free product and you get a strong institutional opposition to free software.  D's saving grace here is Mr. Bright and DigitalMars.com.  Sadly, in non C-shops, neither are even close to familiar names.

** - With respect to FOSS, sometimes closed source shops can get the impression that *everything* open-source is GPL.  While the GPL is a noble cause, the stigma it has placed on all FOSS (viral licensing) is the single biggest problem (IMO) to the adoption of BSD and Artistic License products -- non OSS-saavy people simply don't know the difference.

- EricAnderton at yahoo

Dave wrote:
> What else is stopping the adoption of D where you work (Kris and anyone else)?

The fact that D cannot use third party DLLs that only come with COFF import libs. No kidding. It's an absolute show stopper.
Walters last post to this newsgroup has changed this situation completely. Bye-bye C++.

(But I'm not really a programmer, it's only a small part of what I do. I'm employed for my knowledge of semiconductor device physics. My choice of programming language doesn't get much more attention than my choice of soldering iron. Noone has looked at any of my source code for about five years).

Dave wrote:

> What else is stopping the adoption of D where you work (Kris and anyone else)?
> 

Ummm... Microsoft?