Am 24.04.2012 21:53, schrieb Brad Roberts:
> Neither Walter (in this case) nor the question asked for re-writting anything.  In fact, that's frequently stated (again, by Walter and others, including myself) as explicitly a non-goal.  Rewriting applications to another language is an exercise in time wasting and bug-reintroduction. Unless you have _another_ driving reason to do a rewrite, don't.
> 
> So, the obvious follow up.. what have I done with D where I work?  Little, other than get it on the approved list of software we can use.  It's not on the list of officially supported languages (more a defacto thing than an actual list).  But the key problem is that I haven't written any new code in a very long time, something I miss more and more.  The applications I do touch are all pre-existing code bases, so see above about rewriting.
> 
> My 2 cents,
> Brad
> 

Exactly!!! That's the point. I fully agree with this and we should take account to this in every furthur endeavours. D must be seamlessly integratable with any kind of existing codebase.

On Tuesday, 24 April 2012 at 14:05:14 UTC, bearophile wrote:
> Eljay:
>
>> Looking at all the successful languages, I have noticed that all the successful ones I am familiar with have had some sort of sponsor pushing the technology.
>
> Python was widely used before Google "support". And I think Haskell has enjoyed corporate support for a lot of time.

And who's behind PHP?

On Wednesday, 25 April 2012 at 14:58:13 UTC, Kagamin wrote:
> On Tuesday, 24 April 2012 at 14:05:14 UTC, bearophile wrote:
>> Eljay:
>>
>>> Looking at all the successful languages, I have noticed that all the successful ones I am familiar with have had some sort of sponsor pushing the technology.
>>
>> Python was widely used before Google "support". And I think Haskell has enjoyed corporate support for a lot of time.
>
> And who's behind PHP?

Zend + the endless amount of ISPs that offer only cheap PHP installations, while charging endless amount of money for other types of server deployments.

On 25/04/12 16:58, Kagamin wrote:
> On Tuesday, 24 April 2012 at 14:05:14 UTC, bearophile wrote:
>> Python was widely used before Google "support". And I think Haskell has
>> enjoyed corporate support for a lot of time.
>
> And who's behind PHP?

... but importantly, Python and PHP (and Ruby, and Haskell, and others) were fully open source in their reference implementations from the get-go, or at least from very early on.  This isn't just important in itself, but has a multiplicative impact with inclusion in the Linux distros, BSD's, etc. which make up the server infrastructure of the web.

It also enables all sorts of 3rd-party suppliers who feel comfortable including the software in their hosting provision because they can be certain they won't in future suffer from the commercial constraints of a proprietary supplier.

D's reference implementation _still_ isn't fully open source -- only the frontend -- and the available open source compilers lag behind the reference.

Thank you Brad, that's the kind of response I was hoping to elicit.

> What's interesting to me is that it's really a deflection and dodges the entire point of the question.

Yes, I know.

I tried to step back and look at the bigger picture, and the issue of "what are the pain points which hinder D from being used".

As well as "what could the D community do to make D a more compelling alternative".

Even when I had my own one-man company, and could use any programming language I wanted -- and despite my own unbridled enthusiasm for D -- I ended up not using D.

On 4/25/2012 1:37 PM, Eljay wrote:
> Thank you Brad, that's the kind of response I was hoping to elicit.
> 
>> What's interesting to me is that it's really a deflection and dodges the entire point of the question.
> 
> Yes, I know.
> 
> I tried to step back and look at the bigger picture, and the issue of "what are the pain points which hinder D from being used".
> 
> As well as "what could the D community do to make D a more compelling alternative".
> 
> Even when I had my own one-man company, and could use any programming language I wanted -- and despite my own unbridled enthusiasm for D -- I ended up not using D.

Part of my point is that it's _easy_ to find reasons to not introduce change, regardless of the nature of the change. Even if the change is something that's low risk and done or used all the time.  It takes a little bravery and faith and determination to cause change.  It takes even more to make risky changes, and no doubt, using D carries risks.  BUT, unless those risks are taken, the status quo won't change.

It's a lot like interviewing potential employees.  It's really pretty easy to seek out reasons not to hire and pass on every candidate.  I know people that take that approach with their interviews.. and quickly get taken aside and re-trained how to interview or are just removed from the process altogether.  It takes a balanced approach.

We don't need more generalizations about why not to use D, we need people willing to take a minor risk and introduce D to demonstrate its strengths and accept the warts knowing that the trend is clearly in the right direction.

Another 2 cents,
Brad

On 25/04/12 17:38, Joseph Rushton Wakeling wrote:
> On 25/04/12 16:58, Kagamin wrote:
>> On Tuesday, 24 April 2012 at 14:05:14 UTC, bearophile wrote:
>>> Python was widely used before Google "support". And I think Haskell has
>>> enjoyed corporate support for a lot of time.
>>
>> And who's behind PHP?
>
> ... but importantly, Python and PHP (and Ruby, and Haskell, and others)
> were fully open source in their reference implementations from the
> get-go, or at least from very early on. This isn't just important in
> itself, but has a multiplicative impact with inclusion in the Linux
> distros, BSD's, etc. which make up the server infrastructure of the web.
>
> It also enables all sorts of 3rd-party suppliers who feel comfortable
> including the software in their hosting provision because they can be
> certain they won't in future suffer from the commercial constraints of a
> proprietary supplier.
>
> D's reference implementation _still_ isn't fully open source -- only the
> frontend -- and the available open source compilers lag behind the
> reference.

<rant>
"open source" is a horrible, duplicitous term. Really what you mean is "the license is not GPL compatible".
</rant>

Based on my understanding of the legal situation with Symantec, the backend CANNOT become GPL compatible. Stop using the word "still", it will NEVER happen.

On Thursday, April 26, 2012 11:07:04 Don Clugston wrote:
> <rant>
> "open source" is a horrible, duplicitous term. Really what you mean is
> "the license is not GPL compatible".
> </rant>
> 
> Based on my understanding of the legal situation with Symantec, the backend CANNOT become GPL compatible. Stop using the word "still", it will NEVER happen.

And it really doesn't need to. I honestly don't understand why it's an issue at all other than people completely misunderstanding the situation or being the types of folks who think that anything which isn't completely and totally open is evil.

Whether the backend is open or not has _zero_ impact on your ability to use it. The source is freely available, so you can look at and see what it does. You can even submit pull requests for it. Yes, there are some limitations on you going and doing  whatever you want with the source, but so what? There's _nothing_ impeding your ability to use it to compile programs. And the front- end - which is really where D itself is - _is_ under the GPL.

Not to mention, if really want a "fully open" D compiler, there's always gdc and ldc, so you there _are_ alternatives. The fact that dmd isn't really doesn't affect much except for the people whom are overzealous about "free software."

I think that the "openness" of dmd being an issue is purely  a matter of misunderstandings and FUD. And if Walter _could_ make the backend GPL, he may very well have done so ages ago. But he can't, so there's no point in complaining about it - especially since it doesn't impede your ability to use dmd.

- Jonathan M Davis

On 2012-04-26 11:07, Don Clugston wrote:

> Based on my understanding of the legal situation with Symantec, the
> backend CANNOT become GPL compatible. Stop using the word "still", it
> will NEVER happen.

Theoretically someone could:

A. Replace all parts of the backend that Symantec can't/won't license as GPL (don't know if that is the whole backend or not)

B. Buy the backend from Symantec

-- 
/Jacob Carlborg

On 26/04/12 11:07, Don Clugston wrote:
> <rant>
> "open source" is a horrible, duplicitous term. Really what you mean is "the
> license is not GPL compatible".
> </rant>

No, I don't mean "GPL compatible".  I'd be perfectly happy for the DMD backend to be released under a GPL-incompatible free/open source licence like the CDDL.

The problem is not GPL compatibility but whether sufficient freedoms are granted to distribute and modify sources.  That has a knockon impact on the ability of 3rd parties to package and distribute the software, to patch it without necessarily going via upstream, etc. etc., all of which affects the degree to which others can easily use the language.

> Based on my understanding of the legal situation with Symantec, the backend
> CANNOT become GPL compatible. Stop using the word "still", it will NEVER happen.

Please understand that I'm not suggesting any bad faith on the part of D's developers.  Walter's good intentions are clear in the strong support he's given to GDC and other freely-licensed compilers.

All I'm suggesting is that being free software (a somewhat better-defined term) was a key factor in some languages gaining popularity without corporate backing, and that the non-free nature of the DMD backend may have prevented D from enjoying this potential source of support.

On 26/04/12 11:27, Jonathan M Davis wrote:
> And it really doesn't need to. I honestly don't understand why it's an issue
> at all other than people completely misunderstanding the situation or being
> the types of folks who think that anything which isn't completely and totally
> open is evil.
>
> Whether the backend is open or not has _zero_ impact on your ability to use
> it. The source is freely available, so you can look at and see what it does.
> You can even submit pull requests for it. Yes, there are some limitations on
> you going and doing  whatever you want with the source, but so what? There's
> _nothing_ impeding your ability to use it to compile programs. And the front-
> end - which is really where D itself is - _is_ under the GPL.

You misunderstand my point.  I'm not saying anyone is evil; I'm simply pointing out that the licensing constraints prevent various kinds of 3rd party distribution and engagement that could be useful in spreading awareness and use of the language.  That _does_ have an impact on use, in terms of constraining the development of 3rd-party support and infrastructure.

> Not to mention, if really want a "fully open" D compiler, there's always gdc
> and ldc, so you there _are_ alternatives. The fact that dmd isn't really
> doesn't affect much except for the people whom are overzealous about "free
> software."

Yes, but GDC and LDC both (for now) lag behind DMD in terms of functionality -- I was not able to compile my updates to Phobos using GDC -- and it's almost inevitable that they will always have to play catch-up, even though the impact of that will lessen over time.  That's why I spoke about the "reference implementation" of the language: D2 has been available for quite some time now, but it's only last Autumn that a D2 compiler landed in my Linux distro.

> I think that the "openness" of dmd being an issue is purely  a matter of
> misunderstandings and FUD. And if Walter _could_ make the backend GPL, he may
> very well have done so ages ago. But he can't, so there's no point in
> complaining about it - especially since it doesn't impede your ability to use
> dmd.

To an extent I agree with you.  The good intentions of Walter and the other D developers are clear, it's always been apparent that there will be fully open source compilers for the language, etc. etc.; I wouldn't be here if I wasn't happy to work with DMD under its given licence terms.  But it's not FUD to say that the licensing does make more difficult certain kinds of engagement that have been very helpful for other languages, such as inclusion in Linux distros and BSD's or other software collections -- and that has a further impact in those suppliers' willingness or ability to ship other software written in D.

It's also fair to say that if the licensing was different, that would remove an entire source of potential FUD.

Again, I'm not saying that anyone is evil, that I find the situation personally unacceptable or that I don't understand the reasons why things are as they are.  I just made the point that _being_ free/open source software was probably an important factor in the success of a number of now-popular languages that didn't originally enjoy corporate support, and that the licensing of the DMD backend prevents it from enjoying some of those avenues to success.

.... and I _want_ to see that success, because I think D deserves it.

Best wishes,

    -- Joe