July 22, 2009
Walter Bright wrote:
> http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/93jh5/ask_proggit_the_d_programming_language_looks/ 

I noticed some people complain about installation difficulties, is there progress on the community project for writing installer for the three major OSs?

Andrei

July 22, 2009
On Wed, Jul 22, 2009 at 06:27:50PM -0500, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
> I noticed some people complain about installation difficulties, is there progress on the community project for writing installer for the three major OSs?


I think the installation difficulties are the result of poor instructions (especially on Linux), not anything technical.

The website talks about copying files places. This isn't necessary: the way it works is to unzip it and go. It doesn't get any simpler, but the instructions don't really reflect that.

I actually got a private email from a new D user over the weekend talking about how hard it is on Linux. I replied with my method:

1) Make helper scripts in /usr/bin with this content:
       $ cat /usr/bin/dmd
       #!/bin/bash

       /lib/ld-linux.so.2 /home/me/d/dmd2/linux/bin/dmd $*

2) Download the DMD zip from the changelog page into the path your script
   references (/home/me/d in my example).

3) Unzip it.

4) Have fun coding!


(Note you can do something very similar on Windows with a helper .bat file.)


That's how easy installing DMD is, but this guy, and many others, don't see it that way. I blame this page: http://www.digitalmars.com/d/2.0/dmd-linux.html#installation

The Windows page isn't much better.

That is much harder and less clear than it needs to be. I really think fixing those pages to have simpler, clearer instructions will make the requests for installers and packages go away.



> 
> Andrei

-- 
Adam D. Ruppe
http://arsdnet.net
July 22, 2009
Jarrett Billingsley schrieb:
> On Wed, Jul 22, 2009 at 6:30 PM, Walter
> Bright<newshound1@digitalmars.com> wrote:
> 
>> Much of D's improvements appear to be small, but the aggregate is large
>> enough that once you write a project in D, you'll find it pretty hard to go
>> back to another language.
> 
> This is EXACTLY the point I always try to make to newcomers.  It's so
> significant that I think it should be on the front page of the
> language spec, in bold, 72 point, red letters.

Seconded.
Even though the road is paved with obstacles I can't imagine going back to C++ or any other language.


By obstacles I mean among others:
- D1<->D2 and Phobos<->Tango problem - esp. when creating a library that shall be compilable with any combination the end user wants you have to use a lot of versions and aliases to accommodate that, like it is done in DFL.

- dozens of more or less abandoned projects that aren't usable with latest compilers anymore,
- furthermore many users tend to maintaining their own fork rather than contributing to the project, thus useful functionality is often spread and sometimes even unknown cause the fork isn't publicly available

- lack of IDEs, Descent is pretty good (and the only one regularly updated), but still has a long way to go. It's only reasonably usable with dsss, but rebuild is horribly outdated and always gets trapped in an infinite loop when using D2 and sometimes also refuses to work with D1.

xf.build is still in the early stages and using the compiler directly is out of question.

The newly added -deps parameter is probably a step forward, but wouldn't it be possible to simply include that rebuild functionality in dmd?
I mean if it is possible to scan the dependencies and write them to a file, it shouldn't be that hard to simply add those found modules to the "working queue", should it?

Build tools could then concentrate on the stuff dsss actually does like project management, installing and so on (which it does in a brilliant way imho, I really like the dsss.conf style)
July 23, 2009
On 2009-07-22 19:27:50 -0400, Andrei Alexandrescu <SeeWebsiteForEmail@erdani.org> said:

> Walter Bright wrote:
>> http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/93jh5/ask_proggit_the_d_programming_language_looks/

I 
>> 
> noticed some people complain about installation difficulties, is there progress on the community project for writing installer for the three major OSs?

My plan currently is to improve D for Xcode, make it work with DMD, create one or two project templates for D to display when you create a new project from Xcode, patch Apple's version of GDB to have better demangling support, and create an nice installer for all of this, ideally bundled with DMD 1 and 2 (if Walter permits). That should fix the install and toolchain problem on Mac OS X in a nice way. I plan to have this done by mid-August.

-- 
Michel Fortin
michel.fortin@michelf.com
http://michelf.com/

July 23, 2009
Bill Baxter wrote:
> Yeh, it's like what's the big diff between a Lamborghini and a Chevy
> Nova anyway?  They both have four tires.  They both run on gas.  So
> what's all the fuss about the Lamborghini?

It's like a car from the 60's vs a car today. It's hard to see what's really different, until you spend time driving one. There's just a boatload of little improvements in everything that add up to a lot.

It's no surprise that most people who fix up those old cars also upgrade the systems with modern technology.
July 23, 2009
Bill Baxter wrote:
> Even that does have a cumulative effect, though.  If you keep hearing
> "take my word for it" from different sources, eventually, if you have
> any curiousity at all, you'll want to check it out for yourself.

Right. Just keep making comments about D in public forums in appropriate contexts. It works.

I give presentations on D frequently. I always start with:

1. Who has heard of D?

2. Who has written programs in D?

Over time, the hands raised on (1) have gone from a few to essentially 100%. (2) is rising steadily.
July 23, 2009
Adam D. Ruppe wrote:
> That's how easy installing DMD is, but this guy, and many others, don't
> see it that way. I blame this page:
> http://www.digitalmars.com/d/2.0/dmd-linux.html#installation
> 
> The Windows page isn't much better.

Please post patches to bugzilla!
July 23, 2009
Walter Bright wrote:
> Bill Baxter wrote:
>> Yeh, it's like what's the big diff between a Lamborghini and a Chevy
>> Nova anyway?  They both have four tires.  They both run on gas.  So
>> what's all the fuss about the Lamborghini?
> 
> It's like a car from the 60's vs a car today.

Or like driving an American car vs. a Japanese or European car.

Andrei
July 23, 2009
On Wed, 22 Jul 2009 18:27:50 -0500, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:

> Walter Bright wrote:
>> http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/93jh5/
ask_proggit_the_d_programming_language_looks/
> 
> I noticed some people complain about installation difficulties, is there progress on the community project for writing installer for the three major OSs?
> 
> Andrei

I'm intending a rework of:

http://www.prowiki.org/wiki4d/wiki.cgi?D__Tutorial/InstallingDCompiler

but haven't got around to it and can only cover Linux and Windows.

The end result will be at:

http://www.prowiki.org/wiki4d/wiki.cgi?D__Tutorial/StartingWithD/Compiler/ DMD
July 23, 2009
On Wed, Jul 22, 2009 at 10:00 PM, Andrei Alexandrescu<SeeWebsiteForEmail@erdani.org> wrote:
>
> Or like driving an American car vs. a Japanese or European car.
>

Yeah, what *is* the deal with that?  In terms of little convenience features, American cars feel outright primitive compared to Japanese and European cars..

Sorry for the OT :P