On Friday, 13 October 2017 at 10:07:39 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:
> On 10/12/2017 8:04 AM, moechofe wrote:
>> What is the wanted lifetime of the project?
>> Is D will manage to pass through time?
>> It is valuable to start a 40 years old project using D?
>
> Just download my engrams into the D-9000 computer.

you're engrams have already been downloaded...into your code...(isn't that the whole point of code anyway?) ... and the code lives on...(well...until it doesn't).

On 10/15/2017 2:36 PM, inspecta-deck wrote:
> Wo ist Walter?

In das Machinen mit der Blinkenlights und Sparken Spitzen.

On Thursday, 12 October 2017 at 15:04:57 UTC, moechofe wrote:
> What is the wanted lifetime of the project?
> Is D will manage to pass through time?
> It is valuable to start a 40 years old project using D?

Its a serious topic but that gets way too much joking.

While D is part of the foundation, that is not the issue. It is leadership, focus, goals, long term vision ... There are not that many people that can take over that task successfullly.

I noticed its all a joke to people. Posted in a other topic about the fragmented nature of D and the high focus on solo developers. And the issue of what happens if a main developer of a extension has no more time or god forbids dies. That same applies to D as a language.

That D is in a Foundation means nothing. Apple without Jobs is still Apple but you can see the difference in there products after his dead.

On 12 October 2017 at 17:04, moechofe via Digitalmars-d <digitalmars-d@puremagic.com> wrote:
> What is the wanted lifetime of the project?
> Is D will manage to pass through time?
> It is valuable to start a 40 years old project using D?

I would be a lot more worried if something happened to me, if I were you.

Iain.

On Monday, 16 October 2017 at 09:03:56 UTC, Rion wrote:
> On Thursday, 12 October 2017 at 15:04:57 UTC, moechofe wrote:
>> What is the wanted lifetime of the project?
>> Is D will manage to pass through time?
>> It is valuable to start a 40 years old project using D?
>
> Its a serious topic but that gets way too much joking.
>
> While D is part of the foundation, that is not the issue. It is leadership, focus, goals, long term vision ... There are not that many people that can take over that task successfullly.
>
> I noticed its all a joke to people. Posted in a other topic about the fragmented nature of D and the high focus on solo developers. And the issue of what happens if a main developer of a extension has no more time or god forbids dies. That same applies to D as a language.
>
> That D is in a Foundation means nothing. Apple without Jobs is still Apple but you can see the difference in there products after his dead.

You're right that it's a valid question for the project, as the main D frontend is largely developed by Walter:

https://github.com/dlang/dmd/graphs/contributors

Kenji did a lot for 5 years, adding more lines of code than even Walter during that time, but appears to have bowed out since early last year.

Walter really should be mentoring dmd contributors, and actively looking for more. Druntime and phobos, on the other hand, seem to be developed by others, and don't depend as much on one person.

To answer the original question, it is almost impossible to plan for a 40 year-old project, given how fast tech changes.  You have to be prepared to maintain ancient toolchains yourself for such a long time horizon, like I imagine COBOL devs do today.

In that case, one of the main criteria should be that the entire toolchain is open-source and fairly understandable, because you will almost certainly have to maintain it yourself.  I don't think you can depend on even mainstream languages like C, C++, or Swift being around and having good support in 40 years.

On Monday, 16 October 2017 at 09:09:03 UTC, Iain Buclaw wrote:
> On 12 October 2017 at 17:04, moechofe via Digitalmars-d <digitalmars-d@puremagic.com> wrote:
>> What is the wanted lifetime of the project?
>> Is D will manage to pass through time?
>> It is valuable to start a 40 years old project using D?
>
> I would be a lot more worried if something happened to me, if I were you.
>
> Iain.

A Bridge Too Far...

Field Marshal Model's aide: Field Marshal, thousands of paratroops have landed in this area, three kilometres from here.

Field Marshal Model: What? Why? There is nothing important here... me! I'm important! They must've landed here just to capture me.

[stands from his lunch and moves to the door]
Field Marshal Model: Get my car ready.

[makes to leave]
Field Marshal Model's aide: Yes, sir!

[about to leave himself]
Field Marshal Model: [pops back in and shouts] And don't forget my cigars!

On Monday, 16 October 2017 at 09:03:56 UTC, Rion wrote:
> On Thursday, 12 October 2017 at 15:04:57 UTC, moechofe wrote:
>> What is the wanted lifetime of the project?
>> Is D will manage to pass through time?
>> It is valuable to start a 40 years old project using D?
>
> Its a serious topic but that gets way too much joking.
>
> While D is part of the foundation, that is not the issue. It is leadership, focus, goals, long term vision ... There are not that many people that can take over that task successfullly.
>
> I noticed its all a joke to people. Posted in a other topic about the fragmented nature of D and the high focus on solo developers. And the issue of what happens if a main developer of a extension has no more time or god forbids dies. That same applies to D as a language.
>
> That D is in a Foundation means nothing. Apple without Jobs is still Apple but you can see the difference in there products after his dead.

People can joke about an issue, and still take it as being serious.
Consider the poor comedians if that were not the case.

And btw. you can't compare Apple(s) with oranges ;-)

Also, what happens to all the Windows users, if Microsoft goes out of business?

There is no such thing as 'risk free' software development?

Being open-source, having a growing (volunteer) community, and encouraging that community to grow further, is the open-source way of managing those risks. And that is *exactly* what the 'Foundation' is focused on.

It's all fairly new... be patient and give it time to grow.

On Monday, 16 October 2017 at 09:09:03 UTC, Iain Buclaw wrote:
> I would be a lot more worried if something happened to me, if I were you.

No kidding.

The foundation is irrelevant... it is accumulated knowledge that we'd lose with someone going away. Walter has a lot of it... but so do a lot of other people. Many of us work on the frontend. Backend less so, but even there we'd be ok.

But Iain's knowledge and connections with gdc is stuff I have no clue about... and given that he does basically everything alone, I don't think anyone else does either.

On 10/16/2017 2:03 AM, Rion wrote:
> Its a serious topic but that gets way too much joking.

It is a serious topic. One of the reasons for making it all Boost licensed was to make sure there'd be no legal problems for whoever wanted to pick up the torch.

The other thing is to make the user base as large as possible, as the more need there is, the more pressure to get involved to continue it.

As for me, I have no interest in retiring, and plan on working on D until they carry me out in a box or y'all fire me.

On 10/16/2017 2:09 AM, Iain Buclaw wrote:
> I would be a lot more worried if something happened to me, if I were you.

You're right, you're a heluva amazing one man show with gdc.