On Friday, 25 September 2015 at 21:46:35 UTC, Laeeth Isharc wrote:
> I was speaking about the general case, but since you made it a personal reference - if I spent time to step back and admire my handiwork, I wouldn't at this point have time to finish the broader project as its at the limit of what's possible.

Priorities are understandable, but I meant the boredom argument, which I usually hear:
> creative people don't like doing boring things like write documentation

On Saturday, 26 September 2015 at 00:28:19 UTC, Jonathan M Davis wrote:
> A lot of folks write code because they want to get something done and simply because they like coding. Most programmers consider documentation to be a chore, even when they're really excited about what they did. In general, I wouldn't expect someone to even open source something if the problem was that they were ashamed about how they did it.

If the objective is to get thing done, then even if code is horrible, it's worth to share, because it gets thing done. This is also the reason for commercial open source: they free each other from the nightmare of software development by sharing the source. It's understandable why one doesn't want to see this nightmare second time.

On Tuesday, 29 September 2015 at 15:31:30 UTC, Laeeth Isharc wrote:
> On Sunday, 27 September 2015 at 09:51:42 UTC, Ola Fosheim Grøstad wrote:
>> But even after years of polish Go is still perceived as risky:
>
> Of course it's risky.  Yet why do people who are sensible commercial people who aren't in the business of gambling use it?  Because it's a very good tool for certain kinds of job, and the benefits outweight the costs, risks being one of those costs.

Yet people are looking at creating a derivative language of Go for operating system development:

https://groups.google.com/d/topic/golang-nuts/6dI4vIxRgn8/discussion

Why did they not go with D?

> observation.  He wrote _adopting_ and rather than actually address what he said, you strawmanned it and said _playing with_.
>  I hardly need to point out the difference.

Playing with is the starting point for adoption. That is how programming languages gain traction. You start playing with it, then make some small things with it, if it does not disappoint it moves up the chain. C++ didn't start out big, neither did Python or most other languages. This is also how tools are adopted in larger projects. You make small projects (or pilots) first. But if you want to use tools in big projects you actually require external support for it from multiple parties to avoid lock-in and many other factors.

> But you certainly have made many blanket statements about how others behave and should behave and it's my belief that you don't have a proper basis for doing so.

I am describing how best practices affects decision making priorities. This is not "prescriptive", it is "descriptive". It does not relate to any particular party, but I certainly defend the viewpoint that long running projects in general better off picking a base that is supported and where the solutions to problems are known in advance.

> We know that you think D is a toy language, although you also say that you aren't calling it a toy language.

That's a rather manipulative assertion.

> Empirically speaking, some very smart people have built their business around D.

And so they have around Visual Basic, Php, Javascript and just about any language imaginable.

> When you tell people like that that in effect they are idiots, you ought to have some basis if you wish to be taken seriously.

Another manipulative assertion. I've never said anything about people who adopt D. They have their reasons, and their strategy. I have no interest in forming an opinion about what they do.

What I have said is that if you adopt D for a large project you have to be prepare to take custody of the compiler and runtime. You need several employees that are capable of that or an actual support contract with a solid organization.

The ecosystem around the D compilers is very vulnerable.

> And for the language foundation people, they'll do best by listening to those who do use D successfully to solve their own problems, and there are plenty of those, and most of these have better things to do than post on the forum.

I have no opinions on a future D foundation.

Bute generally, pure development organizations are more likely to provide support for open source projects than non-development organizations.

> How often do you see emsi, sociomantic, weka, or the other well-known D users post here about this kind of question?

I have no opionions on those organizations. But if they are the ones that actually drive the development of D then maybe it would be possible to formulate a strategic target for D that can give the project more direction.

> You imply that this is a pattern, when I am not aware of such, and indeed, as Walter pointed out, a significant shift a few years back was from people saying "I'm a Java guy at work, but I use D for side projects" to "Here is how I use D at work".

Walter has in the past been excruciatingly clear on D being a system level programming language and that competing with C# and other similar application level languages would be futile and not within the goals for him.

If that has changed, I'd like to see him spell it out.

I hope not. D has some potential as a system level language, much less potential as an application level language.

> avoid speaking about the ecosystem.  If Go didn't have nice networking libraries, its adoption would have been rather different.  These things are a package deal.

Go is not a system level language as per today.

> It's a big world, and even Andrei and Walter should not pretend that they understand all the possible ways in which people might use D and what might be important to them.  (And they don't).

Actually, they should try to understand this for a defined target group. If not they will not be able to build a solid language that is competitive.

On Tuesday, 29 September 2015 at 15:31:30 UTC, Laeeth Isharc wrote:
>
> In my experience, risk is the excuse, and habit and human dislike of change is a much more powerful reason.
>

I love this line.

On Tuesday, 29 September 2015 at 05:52:13 UTC, Ola Fosheim Grøstad wrote:

> This logic is very difficult to follow. Software project management is often done by people who are programmers. From a project health point of view D2 suffers from the same issues as C++, the language feature set makes it easy to create a mess, and therefore the demands of investments in the development process gets higher.

You can create a mess in any language. Having written significant amounts of D code, I can tell you that D is very good at avoiding a mess.

> This aspect is one significant reason for why languages like Go and Java are getting traction.

Which confirms what I've observed. People prefer set menus, rules and strict guidelines - and D seems not to appeal to them due to the lack of an ideology.

> Geeks have no trouble picking up new languages, C++ programmers most certainly will have no trouble picking up D. The semantics are too close, but D2 does not solve C++'s issues, and brings another set of issues that C++ does not have. This is not a fear issue. It relates directly to qualitative issues.

This is not my impression. Even "geeks" don't touch D (I know this from personal experience), even when there's no risk involved, e.g. when writing a small internal tool. As soon as they hear they have to learn about ranges and map!(a => to!string(a)) and the like, they lose interest. Fear or plain laziness ("couldn't be ar*sed"), one of the two. "I certainly won't learn D" is a comment I've heard myself.

> Projecting "fear" onto professional decision making is just a way to make excuses for D's shortcomings.

The shortcomings D has wouldn't even interest the majority of those who reject D. They wouldn't get deep enough in their daily tasks to find out.

> Sun was a big player in IBM's core market and the Java design was very orthodox. Risk is certainly the single most important factor for avoiding change. If you change your core toolset you also will have to change the process and infrastructure.

You've said it again. Java's design is orthodox, so IBM embraced it. Again, people prefer simple set menus, rules and strict guidelines. It's more of a psychological thing than objective risk aversion.


> You are assuming that technologists have timid attitudes towards playing with new technologies. That is not true. Most technologists I know of find that fun. Adopting tech for your personal use or for small tools is one thing, adopting it for deployment is a completely different issue.

See my answer above about "geeks".

> What tools can D successfully replace? Give a focused answer to that and you can improve on D to a level where it becomes attractive.

One example that come immediately to mind is data processing in Python. A lot of it is parsing and counting which is much faster and often easier to do in D/Phobos.

> But keep it real. Fear among programmers is not D's main issue.

I think it is. It took me a while to realize this. Why is there this passionate hostility towards D? I don't go to a Go or Rust forum to tell them that I don't like this or that feature and that it's all crap. I've decided they're not the right tools for what I need and that's it.
> That's just an excuse.

On Tuesday, 29 September 2015 at 11:40:20 UTC, Ola Fosheim Grøstad wrote:

>
> There is nothing theoretical about this, I am only concerned about the language, not the standard library. The same with C++.
>
> One usually don't judge a system level language based on its libraries. System level usage of the same system level language can be very different because people use different core libraries. So there is essentially no reason to complain about D's libraries.
>
> If you look for system level programming you also essentially agree to writing the libraries you need or create bindings to whatever system you intend to build for.  I am not interested in Phobos, I am not fond of it and I don't focus on it since I don't have to use it. I am interested in the language/runtime, not libraries which I understand that I have to do on my own.

Ah, then a lot of your attitudes start making sense. But then you shouldn't comment on D's usability in the real world.

On Tuesday, 29 September 2015 at 05:52:13 UTC, Ola Fosheim Grøstad wrote:

And don't forget a*se covering, risk aversion is often not much more than that. It's one of the most common things in organizations. If things go wrong, at least you stuck to the protocol, the the well-established, widely used language. So they can't get you there. If not they fry you, even if the failure is due to other things.

On Tuesday, 29 September 2015 at 06:16:18 UTC, Ola Fosheim Grøstad wrote:
> On Tuesday, 29 September 2015 at 05:52:13 UTC, Ola Fosheim Grøstad wrote:
>
> 1. That C# and Java programmers end up being disgruntled is not a failure of the language, that is a failure of communicating that D is a system level programming language. It is not a fear issue, they just ended up in the wrong neighbourhood.
>

Yes, I'm mainly a C# programmer. There are 4 years since I'm here and I'm not disgruntled. I doubt that D is just "a system level programming language", this definition is not even on the landing page. On the contrary, the landing page talks about efficiency, control, modelling power, safety and productivity. The original OP complained about compiler error messages and the lack of a true IDE, these are not "qualities" of a system level programming language, I see them as basic failures.

My main complaints are also the compiler error messages ("Out of memory" is the most annoying one) and the Linux-centric approach of the development, but I'm far from being disgruntled.

On Tuesday, 29 September 2015 at 22:05:48 UTC, rumbu wrote:
> My main complaints are also the compiler error messages ("Out of memory" is the most annoying one) and the Linux-centric approach of the development, but I'm far from being disgruntled.

I've never understood the "Linux-centric" complaint. I've been using D on Windows for 11 years with no problems. Hell, in the early days, Linux was the red-headed stepchild. DMD may not be deeply integrated into the MS ecosystem of dev tools (which could certainly be an issue for a Windows-only dev shop that uses Visual Studio and peripherals for everything), but that hardly makes it Linux-centric.

On 9/29/2015 7:24 AM, Atila Neves wrote:
> That's as true as saying that D is similar enough to Java that it
> wouldn't be a big jump. You'd end up with code that looks like C++ or
> Java that no seasoned D developer would write.
>
> The difference is actually quite big. If it weren't, why would
> any of us bother?

It's interesting looking at the ddmd source code. It's translated from C++, and it shows. It doesn't look much like D code.

On Wed, Sep 30, 2015 at 04:32:52AM +0000, Mike Parker via Digitalmars-d wrote:
> On Tuesday, 29 September 2015 at 22:05:48 UTC, rumbu wrote:
> >My main complaints are also the compiler error messages ("Out of memory" is the most annoying one) and the Linux-centric approach of the development, but I'm far from being disgruntled.
> 
> I've never understood the "Linux-centric" complaint. I've been using D on Windows for 11 years with no problems. Hell, in the early days, Linux was the red-headed stepchild. DMD may not be deeply integrated into the MS ecosystem of dev tools (which could certainly be an issue for a Windows-only dev shop that uses Visual Studio and peripherals for everything), but that hardly makes it Linux-centric.

I find these kinds of comments rather humorous, actually. Every once in a while, somebody would barge into the forum and decry the current state of things, bemoaning that D is too Linux-centric and that Windows gets no love.

Then some time later, somebody else barges in, complaining about why he failed to install D on his Linux box and that the D developers must therefore be Windows people and D needs more Linux love.

I've seen both types of complaints. So which is it? Is D Windows-centric or Linux-centric? Maybe the answer is neither, it's the PBCAK problem. ;-)


T

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