Long time D user here (from D1 era). I said to come back after two years to see how things evolved in the meantime.

Here is my Windows experience:

1. Downloaded DMD installer.
2. Cannot run, blocked by AppLocker, IOC blacklisted
3. Added to exception list
4. Cannot run, blocked by Windows SmartScreen
5. Bypass
6. You have DMD 2.090 installed, replace it? Yes
7. Failed, installer said run dmd-2.104.2.exe /f
8. Looking in cpanel to see if I an older version of D is installed. Nope.
9. Found an old folder with D. Deleted it.
10. Going to command prompt into downloads folder
11. Running dmd-2.104.2.exe /f
12. Error, an instance of DMD is already running.
13. Looking through my processes, there is no such thing
14. Running dmd-2.104.2.exe /f again. It works!
15. You don't have VS Tools 2019 installed. I have. 2015, 2017, 2019 and 2022
16. Ignore and go on.
17. Launch VSCode
18. Install code-d, C++ already installed
19. Create a new project
20. Run tasks - Run -> dub cannot be initialized
21. Go to code.dlang.org
22. Click on Download -> redirect to github/releases
23. WTF, only source code.
24. building Dub from source
25. Added manually to PATH
26. Go back to VSCode
27. Edit dub.json, adding target ./bin/hello.exe
28. Build Task, dub-auto - Run hello, ok
29. Build Task, dub-auto - Build hello -> config -> edit tasks.json
30. Documentation says that I should have a dub template. Nope, I have a CMake template.
31. Too complicated. Close VSCode, posting on forum :)

OK, I know, there is VisualD, but install process is still complicated.

On Thursday, 20 July 2023 at 16:22:47 UTC, Rumbu wrote:

FWIW, dub.exe is part of the download. The rest sucks, agreed.

On Thursday, 20 July 2023 at 16:22:47 UTC, Rumbu wrote:

Windows user here, but I don't have that many issues. The biggest thing is remembering sometimes to check the path order sometimes.

On Thursday, 20 July 2023 at 16:22:47 UTC, Rumbu wrote:

You have the advantage of being a longtime Windows user. I've given up on Windows support for anything I share. It's just too difficult. The Linux experience is really, really easy, and it would be nice if the Windows experience was just as easy. This would be a good opportunity for the D Language Foundation to step in (and with a solid plan, raise some money).

Among other things, with a good Windows experience, I could write R packages in D and share them on Github. It's kind of useless to do that until setting up a Windows development environment is straightforward for someone that's not a professional software developer.

On Thursday, 20 July 2023 at 18:28:12 UTC, bachmeier wrote:

It's interesting you both have problems. I have installed D on windows probably 10 times and never had an issue. If someone can repro, I would like to watch them repro so I can figure out what's going on. I would not mind coming up with a fix to make it simple.

On Thursday, 20 July 2023 at 16:22:47 UTC, Rumbu wrote:

I downloaded the latest version and Windows "protected" me from running the installer. So that much I was able to repro.

When I went to install, it asked me if I wanted to uninstall the old version, which I said I did, and then it uninstalled and installed perfectly. I tested that it compiled my project from one year ago and it worked like a charm. How do I know it didn't just fail to do anything, you might ask?

source\arsd\simpledisplay.d(6445,51): Deprecation: using `in ref` is deprecated, use `-preview=in` and `in` instead
...
source\arsd\http2.d(3567,17): Error: function `void arsd.http2.OpenSslSocket.close()` does not override any function, did you mean to override `nothrow @nogc scope @trusted void std.socket.Socket.close()`?
Error C:\Program Files\D\dmd2\windows\bin\dmd.exe failed with exit code 1.

Oh, D... smile and sigh

On Thursday, 20 July 2023 at 16:22:47 UTC, Rumbu wrote:

For what it's worth, "installing" and using LDC (and its provided dub) is painless on Windows.

On Thursday, 20 July 2023 at 16:22:47 UTC, Rumbu wrote:

Not a D user but though I'd give it try:

1. Download Windows 7z file from here: https://dlang.org/download.html

2. Unzipped file into this folder:

     D:\Utilities\dmd\dmd2
   

3. Found the binaries and add that folder to the PATH:

     D:\Utilities\dmd\dmd2\windows\bin
   

4. In a d:\Tutorial folder I ran this command and hit enter to all the questions asked:

    dub init my_test
   

5. Ran these commands to build the new project:

   cd my_test
   dub
   

The build creates an executable and it runs just fine.

    d:\Tutorial\my_test>my_test
    Edit source/app.d to start your project.

On Friday, 21 July 2023 at 04:55:00 UTC, Curious Observer wrote:

    d:\Tutorial\my_test>my_test
    Edit source/app.d to start your project.

Funny how things become a lot easier once you dispense with all the "convenience features" meant to increase "ease of use".

On Friday, 21 July 2023 at 04:55:00 UTC, Curious Observer wrote:

Yes, there are a lot of ways to install it, you can even git clone dmd and compile it, write your code in notepad++ or copy con hello.d, but here I am talking about user experience. Today, a programming language without a language aware editor and without debug features, it's unusable. Compare with rust:

1. Download installer
2. Run it, no user interaction except pressing Enter
3. Launch VSCode
4. Extensions/rust-analyzer
5. cargo new hello
6. rust-analyzer/run -> ok
7. rust-analyzer/debug/run -> ok