What D really needs to get things going is a great debugger or at least debugger engines for already existent environments.  Debugging D as C/C++ in VC, for example, is far from ideal...

In article <pan.2004.11.11.03.10.45.203156@yahoo.ca>, Ant says...
>
>On Wed, 10 Nov 2004 18:22:19 -0800, Charles Hixson wrote:
>
>> Charles Hixson wrote:
>>> ...
>>> OK.  That one's a bug.  But *CAN* an associative array be declared with
>>> integral indexes?  Or does one need to reimplement a hashtable class?  I
>>> suspect the latter,
>
>you suspect wrong.
>
>>> but I can't really tell.
>
>now you can.
>
>>> ...
>> I've checked again, and no, it can't.  The index to an associative array must be a char[].
>
>
>???????
>
>do I not understant what you say?
>consider the program and output:
>############
>import std.stdio;
>
>char[][int] aa;
>int[char] bb;
>
>void main()
>{
>
>	aa[1] = "one";
>	aa[2] = "two";
>	aa[-1] = "eno";
>	aa[-2] = "owt";
>
>	for(int i = -3 ; i<=3 ; i++ )
>	{
>		if ( i in aa )
>		{
>			writefln("aa[%d] = %s", i,aa[i]);
>		}
>		else
>		{
>			writefln("%d no in aa", i);
>		}
>	}
>
>	bb['a'] = 1;
>	bb['b'] = 2;
>
>	for( char c = 'a' ; c<'h' ; c++)
>	{
>		if ( c in bb )
>		{
>			writefln("bb['%s'] = %d", c,bb[c]);
>		}
>		else
>		{
>			writefln("'%s' not in bb", c);
>		}
>	}
>
>}
>############
>-3 no in aa
>aa[-2] = owt
>aa[-1] = eno
>0 no in aa
>aa[1] = one
>aa[2] = two
>3 no in aa
>bb['a'] = 1
>bb['b'] = 2
>'c' not in bb
>'d' not in bb
>'e' not in bb
>'f' not in bb
>'g' not in bb
>############
>
>I use objects all the time
>
>Ant
>

Charles Hixson wrote:
> Also, I feel like I should be able to submit a comment about unclarity of documentation when I encounter it, but the only place that I've discovered to do this is this mailing list.  And that really isn't a good place, as it is relatively high volume, and not specific to the point.  So messages tend to be both ignored and lost.  (Someone might tell me how to get around a problem, but if what I'm trying to do is get the documentation ammended, that's not to the point.)

You have a couple of other options that you might not realize.

I sometimes post specific documentation problems in the digitalmaras.D.bugs newsgroup. I usually put something like "documentation" in the subject line. Walter seems to respond to those posts (sometimes quickly, sometimes not).

On the other hand, the bottom of each page of the documentation now has a "feedback and comments" link. It's just a hyperlink to a corresponding wiki page, but I think it might be what you're looking for. Please feel free to edit the wiki pages to mention any issue you happen to find. That's why it's there.

Here's a list of all of the DocComments pages: http://www.prowiki.org/wiki4d/wiki.cgi?DocComments


-- 
Justin (a/k/a jcc7)
http://jcc_7.tripod.com/d/

In article <cmuu72$1dov$1@digitaldaemon.com>, asm577@yahoo.com says...
>
>What D really needs to get things going is a great debugger or at least debugger engines for already existent environments.  Debugging D as C/C++ in VC, for example, is far from ideal...
1 A good book or two will boot because the docs on Digital mars just tell how
the featurs work not
when , how or why to use them., e.g. I'm a low intermediate  in C++ (no C at
all) and I can't get
things running in D
2 and a good GUI libraty . This will cuase things to be usefull . Though I don't
think it will
superseed C++, but with time in my opinion myth get close and mabe with even
more time it
myth........

Mr. Gosling,

I seem to recall a decade ago when you posted roughly the same re: 'Java burying C++' in comp.languages.c++..

Will you please desist from littering the newsgroups with this tripe!

Sincerely,
Bjarne

In article <cmrfgl$276n$1@digitaldaemon.com>, wisefriend@hotmail.cx says...
>
>I think you all might as well take a long, hard look at the truth:  D has no future.  There once was a language quite similar to D that had all the features one could ask for.  It seemed like the perfect sytems and application programming language -- high level with the ability to go low level when necessary.  Oh, it had garbage collection, generics, design by committe... you name it.  That language was called Modula 3.  It is now dead.  D aims for the exact same space as Modula 3, that is to say, D aims to hide in one of the many crevices of computer history.  It's sad, really, to see such hard work all for naught.  You all might as well just give up now and start using C#.
>
>Yours truly,
>A Wise Friend
>

Hi Ilya,

nice to see that Sather is not completely forgotten. It was a beautiful language!

To add a few details about the sad history of the language: The language was actually mostly dead when I picked it up: the ISCI at Berkeley had stopped financing the project, the source was available but licensed in a restricted way. It took me some time to convince the people at Berkeley to relicense the code in GPL/LGPL, and then some more time to sort out the existing distribution. Anyhow, I never really got to the point of driving new development myself.

The existing compiler is near to unmaintainable. At one point of time, I started writing a new compiler from scratch. I even got it to the point where it could compile itself. Then I realized that the design was fundamentally flawed, tried to repair it, got stuck in a mess of sourcecode and ran out of time when everything was in a completely broken state. Never got myself to pick up the project again.

In parallel Keith Hopper in New Zealand was working on the new library. He barely reached a version 1.0 before he had to stop working on it because of private reasons. At about the same time, got more involved in real life as well, so Sather stalled completely. I never even managed to set up a honorful tombstone-website for the "dead project". :-(

Looking back, I would say that Sather as it is defined does not really have the potential of being a full-fledged general-purpose language. It contains a number of really nice ideas, but it is also lacking in a number points. Most importantly, there is no module concept. All classes live in one flat namespace. This actually makes the language inappropriate for anything but small academic projects. I had some beautiful ideas for a module concept, but they got drowned in the complexity of actually implementing the new compiler.

So, after all - it was a beautiful language, but it was still a bit too academic to survive in the real world...

Ciao,
Nobbi

Charles Hixson wrote:
> Other places where problems like this occur are things like specifying interfaces with template parameters.  I'm fairly certain that that one is, or ought to be, possible, but when I tried I could get the compiler to accept the interface declaration, but I couldn't figure out how to use it with a class.  So that's one I'm fairly certain is possible, or intended to be possible, to use with the language.

Frankly, you're sounding a lot like a troll to me.  But I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt.  Here'e a code example of how to use templated interfaces.  The code below returns 10 from main.

> interface FooInterface(T) {
>   T Foo();
> }
>  class FooClass(T) : FooInterface!(T) {
>   T Foo() { return 10; }
> }
>  int main() {
>   FooInterface!(int) f = new FooClass!(int);
>   return f.Foo();
> }

>I hope that D will become as popular as C and Java. D is very good language, it came later than C and Java, so it learned from their mistakes. And it is the only language with modern day features (like gc) that is not intepreted (as far as I know).

What about O'Caml? Native compiler + gc. But Java and C# isn't interpreted as well. They use JITing.

In article <cn2n6r$o63$1@digitaldaemon.com>, Matthias Becker says...
>
>>I hope that D will become as popular as C and Java. D is very good language, it came later than C and Java, so it learned from their mistakes. And it is the only language with modern day features (like gc) that is not intepreted (as far as I know).
>
>What about O'Caml? Native compiler + gc. But Java and C# isn't interpreted as well. They use JITing.
>
>
>
I don't like O'Caml. I don't get "functional" programming, and I guess that a lot of others don't, too, because "C"-style languages seem to be the standard.

> I think you all might as well take a long, hard look at the truth:  D has no future.  There once was a language quite similar to D that had all the features one could ask for.  It seemed like the perfect sytems and application programming language -- high level with the ability to
go
> low level when necessary.  Oh, it had garbage collection, generics, design by committe...
you
> name it.  That language was called Modula 3.  It is now dead.  D aims for the exact same space as
modula
> 3, that is to say, D aims to hide in one of the many crevices of computer history.  It's sad,
really,
> to see such hard work all
> for naught.  You all might as well just give up now and start using C#.
> 
> Yours truly,
> A Wise Friend

Sounds more like what once happened to democracy. Eventually there will be a
new language similar to D, and then it's "Evolve or die".

On Sun, 14 Nov 2004 02:16:06 -0600, Brad Anderson wrote:

> wisefriend@hotmail.cx wrote:
>> I think you all might as well take a long, hard look at the truth:  D has no
>> future.  There once was a
>> language quite similar to D that had all the features one could ask for.  It
>> seemed like the perfect
>> sytems and application programming language -- high level with the ability to go
>> low level when
>> necessary.  Oh, it had garbage collection, generics, design by committe... you
>> name it.  That language
>> was called Modula 3.  It is now dead.  D aims for the exact same space as Modula
>> 3, that is to say, D
>> aims to hide in one of the many crevices of computer history.  It's sad, really,
>> to see such hard work all
>> for naught.  You all might as well just give up now and start using C#.
>> 
>> Yours truly,
>> A Wise Friend
>> 
>> 
> I'll take this bait as well.  Maybe I shouldn't...
> 
> *Why don't you just fuck off.*
> 

I have a different opinion.
the guy can say what he wants.
He made only one post with one reasonably fundamented opinion,
I don't see any problem with that. He also give us an alternative.
I think his alternative isn't valid at but you know I have a
problem with MS so I can't realy trust my juggement there.
He might be motivated by immediate finacial return of any
work which is a very common thing I notice here in
north america (Canada).

Most of us don't agree with him, but I respect his opinion.
D will survive if we can produce better or faster with
it then with other tools, not for any oher reason.

now the guy might not be honest and he might be posting
out of fear of D (not likelly at this stage), or any other reason
but we have to give him the benefit of the doubt
at least until he start to repeat himself.

I welcome all opinions, I consired all possibilities.
I'm perfectly conscient that all my efford for the
past year might be lost.

now this is a perfect oportunity to again thank Walter for
comming up with D.
It's when  get in trouble with the compiler that I most
want to thank him (I curse him first, obviously).

Thanks for D, Walter. Keep up the good work.
We are still here every week waiting for a new release
that fixes this or that small bug.
When DMD is fixed we will need more people to come up
with better libraries. It's still to soon to get the
attencion of people except us hard core D supporters.

(sorry if it sounds corny)

Ant