Hi!

I've been following D for at least one year. I like it and I think it's a very good programming language, even though I do not agree with everything it's being done.

One thing that has saddened me is seeing a lot of D's users trying to implement their own library or maybe trying to implement multiple libraries at the same time. Most of the results are very poor because libraries are not

1. completed
2. maintained
3. well-written

I've seen comments like "I'm no more maintaining this library because I'm not able to proceed since I do not have the skills". This of course doesn't bring any credibility to the language, to the community, etc. So we see some people trying bring the caravan forward, but I many of these people are not qualified enough clearly, since they do not even have the vision and the knowledge that starting a project like creating a serious GUI or modern IDE is not an easy task, and definitely it won't be a person alone that will create one a decent amount of years that will compete with the most performant ones.

My idea (which is mostly directed to the big names behind D) is that team work should somehow be promoted.

How could you do such a thing?

One possibility could be to announce interesting and useful projects in D and somehow ask for people interesting in working in such projects. These people should clearly be qualified for the job, but this isn't an easy task to verified. The projects could eventually or not be backed up by the announcer of the project.

These could be a few starting ideas and options.

The only way to get qualified to do these tasks like GUI toolkits is by doing. Keep this in mind.

As somebody who does indeed do implement multiple libraries at one time you're looking at it the wrong way. I switch between projects over periods that last for years not days or weeks. The point there of course is to prevent burn out and to enjoy what I'm working on at all times.

I may have plenty of libraries under the Devisualization name space as well as e.g. Cmsed that I no longer maintain. But it wasn't because of lack of skills in the subject area, it was simply the wrong direction for an implementation and I could not determine this ahead of time.
Eventually I will come back to them and implement them properly such as what I'm now doing with SPEW[0].

What this says about the community is that we give things a go. No matter how hard it is. We try, sometimes we fail and that is ok.

If there is a specific project you like, give a shout out! Seriously, it helps to tell us where our efforts are most appreciated.

[0] http://spew.cf

On Saturday, 14 January 2017 at 02:28:34 UTC, nbro wrote:
> How could you do such a thing?

freakin' easy: just pay people to do what you want. either that, or people will keep working on the things *they* are interested (and not someone else).

On Saturday, 14 January 2017 at 02:41:00 UTC, rikki cattermole wrote:
> The only way to get qualified to do these tasks like GUI toolkits is by doing. Keep this in mind.
>
> As somebody who does indeed do implement multiple libraries at one time you're looking at it the wrong way. I switch between projects over periods that last for years not days or weeks. The point there of course is to prevent burn out and to enjoy what I'm working on at all times.
>
> I may have plenty of libraries under the Devisualization name space as well as e.g. Cmsed that I no longer maintain. But it wasn't because of lack of skills in the subject area, it was simply the wrong direction for an implementation and I could not determine this ahead of time.
> Eventually I will come back to them and implement them properly such as what I'm now doing with SPEW[0].
>
> What this says about the community is that we give things a go. No matter how hard it is. We try, sometimes we fail and that is ok.
>
> If there is a specific project you like, give a shout out! Seriously, it helps to tell us where our efforts are most appreciated.
>
> [0] http://spew.cf

You didn't get my point at all.

On Saturday, 14 January 2017 at 02:57:05 UTC, ketmar wrote:
> On Saturday, 14 January 2017 at 02:28:34 UTC, nbro wrote:
>> How could you do such a thing?
>
> freakin' easy: just pay people to do what you want. either that, or people will keep working on the things *they* are interested (and not someone else).

Serious users, to whom I'm directing this post, who really believe in D's potential, should try to collaborate somehow, like ants which are trying to protect their nest and queen. A serious programmer knows that there's no point of starting a "another" project. There must be a goal and the the product must be useful somehow.

On Saturday, 14 January 2017 at 03:05:44 UTC, nbro wrote:
> On Saturday, 14 January 2017 at 02:57:05 UTC, ketmar wrote:
>> On Saturday, 14 January 2017 at 02:28:34 UTC, nbro wrote:
>>> How could you do such a thing?
>>
>> freakin' easy: just pay people to do what you want. either that, or people will keep working on the things *they* are interested (and not someone else).
>
> Serious users, to whom I'm directing this post, who really believe in D's potential, should try to collaborate somehow, like ants which are trying to protect their nest and queen. A serious programmer knows that there's no point of starting a "another" project. There must be a goal and the the product must be useful somehow.

"serious people" aren't working for free, you know, especially on "products". but you can keep looking for your "serious people", i won't intervene anymore. i'm not "serious programmer" after all.

On 14/01/2017 3:59 PM, nbro wrote:
> On Saturday, 14 January 2017 at 02:41:00 UTC, rikki cattermole wrote:
>> The only way to get qualified to do these tasks like GUI toolkits is
>> by doing. Keep this in mind.
>>
>> As somebody who does indeed do implement multiple libraries at one
>> time you're looking at it the wrong way. I switch between projects
>> over periods that last for years not days or weeks. The point there of
>> course is to prevent burn out and to enjoy what I'm working on at all
>> times.
>>
>> I may have plenty of libraries under the Devisualization name space as
>> well as e.g. Cmsed that I no longer maintain. But it wasn't because of
>> lack of skills in the subject area, it was simply the wrong direction
>> for an implementation and I could not determine this ahead of time.
>> Eventually I will come back to them and implement them properly such
>> as what I'm now doing with SPEW[0].
>>
>> What this says about the community is that we give things a go. No
>> matter how hard it is. We try, sometimes we fail and that is ok.
>>
>> If there is a specific project you like, give a shout out! Seriously,
>> it helps to tell us where our efforts are most appreciated.
>>
>> [0] http://spew.cf
>
> You didn't get my point at all.

Sadly I did and ketmar pretty much said what I was saying.
We work on what we want to because we can. Unless money is involved the only thing left is ones interest in a subject to drive you. Quite often that means figuring things out on your own and ignoring the rest.

Doesn't mean I don't want to work with others, I do. I have in the past contributed to Vibe.d, adrdox and I'm sure a lot of others. But unless there is a project that actually fits my needs I don't contribute towards it. This is why I have SPEW yet libasync and vibed:eventcore exists. They simply do not fulfill my needs in their goals (API mostly).

I tend to see projects in one of three states:

1. It doesn't exist.
2. It exists, but the last update was six months ago and it's broken.
3. It exists, does what I want, and I can use it with at most small
workarounds.

If it doesn't exist, I have to make it myself.

If it's broken and apparently unmaintained, I have no one to collaborate with. I might fork the project or implement my own.

If it already does what I want, I don't need to collaborate. I can (and sometimes do) work with upstream maintainers to add small features that I would like or to fix bugs.

Nobody has understood yet the goal of this post.

I'm not saying that everybody should work in a team or shouldn't try to create what one needs, if there isn't a better alternative.

I'm suggesting that for a few interesting, useful and possibly valuable projects, before they start (but eventually also after they have started) there could be something some promotion by the leaders of the D programming language to attract people to work on them.

Take for instance the case of IDEs. Different people have tried to create their own, or create bindings, but they ended up not being that good, uncompleted, maintained very sporadically. If there was something like I'm suggesting, I'm not saying it would solve all the problems, but it could help in creating at least small collaborations between D's users to work on the most valuable projects, without first thinking with their own head. This is first about sensitization of the masses.

So, as I've described, this is about putting together people working on projects where they are all interested, not to obligate someone to help. This is all about improving organization in order to improve the quality rather than the quantity.

Last, I'm not saying that money (or some sort reward) couldn't be involved in a few cases.

On 15/01/2017 12:38 AM, nbro wrote:
> Nobody has understood yet the goal of this post.
>
> I'm not saying that everybody should work in a team or shouldn't try to
> create what one needs, if there isn't a better alternative.
>
> I'm suggesting that for a few interesting, useful and possibly valuable
> projects, before they start (but eventually also after they have
> started) there could be something some promotion by the leaders of the D
> programming language to attract people to work on them.
>
> Take for instance the case of IDEs. Different people have tried to
> create their own, or create bindings, but they ended up not being that
> good, uncompleted, maintained very sporadically. If there was something
> like I'm suggesting, I'm not saying it would solve all the problems, but
> it could help in creating at least small collaborations between D's
> users to work on the most valuable projects, without first thinking with
> their own head. This is first about sensitization of the masses.
>
> So, as I've described, this is about putting together people working on
> projects where they are all interested, not to obligate someone to help.
> This is all about improving organization in order to improve the quality
> rather than the quantity.
>
> Last, I'm not saying that money (or some sort reward) couldn't be
> involved in a few cases.

We do understand what you're saying.
And I do agree about your proposal here.

The problem is getting everybody together to actually discuss problems and work on a solution.
For the past year me and Vladimir Panteleev have wanted to discuss image libraries and what is needed for one in Phobos. The problem is time. The solution we came up with I think was to do it at DConf, but there is no guarantee that either of us (well mostly me) will be there. More importantly other people who do have significant or more experience such as Manu Evans to be included as well.

Really, to get stuff like this done, we need money. We've tried going the team routes before but it just doesn't work. Nobody wants to work this way unless its actually official.

Sadly both A&W are quite busy, so I doubt they'll head something like this up. But maybe with this post we can get some funding sorted and have somebody handling this side of things!