First of all... sorry Juan Carlos if I'm violating your privacy anyhow, but
I'm just too curious.
But... I want to know how close to this:
http://www.jcabs-rumblings.com/JCAB.html, people in this newsgroup are. Do
you guys think that's a lot? Have you done more? (I know Walter has)
I mean, I'm just a 20 years old student who knows Basic (QB, VB), most
C/C++, some Delphi, Java and HTML, and starting to deal with D, and that's
it. I thought that was a lot, but when I read all that, I was stunned.
Well, should I say congratulations? I mean, if I wanted to (I don't want to,
don't ask) put an objective in my life, and that was knowing, doing, etc.,
what Juan Carlos does... God, I would have a long way to go! (add the fact
that Spain is far more advanced in computers than any country in Latin
America, where I live).
Don't flame me for posting this... it's just that I'm too impressed.

In article <ak21ck$2vse$1@digitaldaemon.com>, Carlos says...
>
>First of all... sorry Juan Carlos if I'm violating your privacy anyhow, but
>I'm just too curious.
>But... I want to know how close to this:
>http://www.jcabs-rumblings.com/JCAB.html, people in this newsgroup are. Do
>you guys think that's a lot? Have you done more? (I know Walter has)

About the same, though in different directions.  Sounds like JCAB's projects were more fun (at least at the start and at the end of each -- I read enough Game Developer Magazine post-mortems to know what kind of hell game developers go through for most of their lives...), or at least more exciting, than mine.

I think if you are really interested in learning, you should look for a full time job in a company small enough to pile the work on you and large enough to have interesting things to do.  You'll learn stuff so fast you won't even realize what's happening.  If you can maintain programming as a hobby as well (I share that with JCAB), you can learn even faster, because things that you discover at work can have bigger impact at home, and vice versa.

For what it is worth, I am 31, and currently somewhat out of the actual programming loop at work.  They pushed me up into some more architectural and design stuff (because I appear to have a knack for it), so I find myself spending more time at home working out the mental kinks...  But I know that I learned more in the first year and a half that I was in my company than in all of my official schooling combined.  Academics have some good ideas, but they rarely know how to do anything realistic with them.  I think that is why I appreciate the pragmatic nature of D so much.

Keep an open mind, always look for challenges, and you'll surprise yourself with how much you can learn.

Mac

I'm currently one of the lead programmers at Treyarch, recently shipped Tony Hawk 2x for the Xbox game console.  I've been around for a long time as well, and have known JCAB for years (online only unfortunately haven't had the pleasure of finding him at E3).  JCAB's much more prolific than I am though.  We started up the OpenAL project together if I remember correctly.

The cool thing about D is that the language itself seems really easy to learn;  very suitable for a beginner.  Should be far easier to learn than C++, and now that operator overloading and templates are on the way should be almost as powerful.  The D community is still small relative to C++ but growing.  I'm surprised how many people are disillusioned with C++.  When I first started C++ I was overwhelmed by the complexity but enthralled by the power.  Now I just want something better.  D seems better to me in nearly all respects.

Sean


"Carlos" <carlos8294@msn.com> wrote in message news:ak21ck$2vse$1@digitaldaemon.com...
> First of all... sorry Juan Carlos if I'm violating your privacy anyhow,
but
> I'm just too curious.
> But... I want to know how close to this:
> http://www.jcabs-rumblings.com/JCAB.html, people in this newsgroup are. Do
> you guys think that's a lot? Have you done more? (I know Walter has)
> I mean, I'm just a 20 years old student who knows Basic (QB, VB), most
> C/C++, some Delphi, Java and HTML, and starting to deal with D, and that's
> it. I thought that was a lot, but when I read all that, I was stunned.
> Well, should I say congratulations? I mean, if I wanted to (I don't want
to,
> don't ask) put an objective in my life, and that was knowing, doing, etc.,
> what Juan Carlos does... God, I would have a long way to go! (add the fact
> that Spain is far more advanced in computers than any country in Latin
> America, where I live).
> Don't flame me for posting this... it's just that I'm too impressed.

"Sean L. Palmer" <seanpalmer@earthlink.net> wrote in message news:ak35qt$22qt$1@digitaldaemon.com...
> The cool thing about D is that the language itself seems really easy to learn;  very suitable for a beginner.  Should be far easier to learn than C++, and now that operator overloading and templates are on the way should be almost as powerful.  The D community is still small relative to C++ but growing.  I'm surprised how many people are disillusioned with C++.  When
I
> first started C++ I was overwhelmed by the complexity but enthralled by
the
> power.  Now I just want something better.  D seems better to me in nearly all respects.

Anything people can do to promote D will be beneficial to us all, as it will convince smart people that D is popular enough to make it worth investing time and effort in.

Some examples:

1) Write a web page about D (many of you have already done this, thanks!). The more independent web pages on D there are, the more prominent D will be in Google searches.

2) When you see language wars going on in a forum between C, C++, Java, C#, etc., point out how D is a superior solution.

3) Mention D expertise on your resume's.

4) Do a followup posting on Slashdot (D was slashdotted in Aug 2001, but the
compiler didn't exist then).

5) Write an article about D for some journal. =)

I might try...

On Thu, 22 Aug 2002 11:23:58 -0700, "Walter" <walter@digitalmars.com> wrote:

>1) Write a web page about D (many of you have already done this, thanks!). The more independent web pages on D there are, the more prominent D will be in Google searches.
>
>2) When you see language wars going on in a forum between C, C++, Java, C#, etc., point out how D is a superior solution.
>
>3) Mention D expertise on your resume's.
>
>4) Do a followup posting on Slashdot (D was slashdotted in Aug 2001, but the
>compiler didn't exist then).

5) Start comp.lang.d and have your usenet providers add it as well

6) Get D indexed at the topic branching portals

"Carlos" <carlos8294@msn.com> wrote in message news:ak21ck$2vse$1@digitaldaemon.com...

> First of all... sorry Juan Carlos if I'm violating your privacy anyhow,
but
> I'm just too curious. But... I want to know how close to this: http://www.jcabs-rumblings.com/JCAB.html, people in this newsgroup are.

   He he... So now I'm famous or something?

   No problem. The page is linked by Google already, and it's publicly
accessible, not private.

> Do you guys think that's a lot?

   It's quite a bit, I'll admit. Something I'm proud of. Still... I don't
think it's exceptionally much.

> Have you done more? (I know Walter has)
> I mean, I'm just a 20 years old student who knows Basic (QB, VB), most
> C/C++, some Delphi, Java and HTML, and starting to deal with D, and that's
> it. I thought that was a lot, but when I read all that, I was stunned.

   And you think you've done too little? Jeez! 20 years old? I'm 33, myself.
How much do you think you'll have learned and accomplished in 13 years?

> Well, should I say congratulations? I mean, if I wanted to (I don't want
to,
> don't ask) put an objective in my life, and that was knowing, doing, etc.,
> what Juan Carlos does... God, I would have a long way to go! (add the fact
> that Spain is far more advanced in computers than any country in Latin
> America, where I live).
> Don't flame me for posting this... it's just that I'm too impressed.

   I wouldn't dream of flaming such a flattering post. In any case, I'd
recommend that you do what you enjoy doing and what you do best, rather than
looking at someone else's accomplishments and trying to somehow emulate them
(not that you would, but you could try and that would be bad, IMHO). You'll
live happier that way.

Salutaciones,
                       JCAB

>
>
> 4) Do a followup posting on Slashdot (D was slashdotted in Aug 2001, but the
> compiler didn't exist then).

I think a lot of the complaints people had concerning the language have also
been
addressed since then, i.e. operator overloading and templates. I think a lot of
people
who didn't like it then might give it a second chance after they see all the
great new
features D has.

-Jon

For the other end of the spectrum: Nonprofessional, uneducated (both as a programmer and in the dropout sense), and 23, but with amateur experience all over the fool place.

I for one had almost given up on D due to the lack of exactly those two features.  It seemed at the time that Walter was dead set against them.  Now that operator overloading is in and templates are going in soon, I'm definitely going to have to take another crack at it.  Good debugger support would help immensely; that's probably the next big thing on my list.

Note that mostly I'm a game programmer, so without an optimizing compiler I can't get very far using D.  In fact, to use it for actual production games I'd need a D compiler for PS2, Xbox, and Gamecube.  That said, even in debug builds games can run pretty fast these days.  And if the GCC frontend for D ever goes live I'll have all the backend support I'd need.

Sean

"Jonathan Andrew" <jon@ece.arizona.edu> wrote in message news:3D653F23.7DB066C5@ece.arizona.edu...
> >
> >
> > 4) Do a followup posting on Slashdot (D was slashdotted in Aug 2001, but
the
> > compiler didn't exist then).
>
> I think a lot of the complaints people had concerning the language have
also
> been
> addressed since then, i.e. operator overloading and templates. I think a
lot of
> people
> who didn't like it then might give it a second chance after they see all
the
> great new
> features D has.
>
> -Jon