As I recall, tomorrow/today we should have D v1.0, but sheesh, shouldn't we be making a big fuss about it? Shouldn't we hype up the web before releasing it?

On 2007-01-01 00:35:54 -0800, Hasan Aljudy <hasan.aljudy@gmail.com> said:

> As I recall, tomorrow/today we should have D v1.0, but sheesh, shouldn't we be making a big fuss about it? Shouldn't we hype up the web before releasing it?

All of the hype is in digitalmars.D.announce!  I'm far more excited about D than new years :-)

-- Jeff

Hasan Aljudy wrote:
> As I recall, tomorrow/today we should have D v1.0, but sheesh, shouldn't we be making a big fuss about it? Shouldn't we hype up the web before releasing it?

It's not necessarily tomorrow, is it? I somehow gained the impression that the goal was a feature freeze as close to new year as possible, then whatever time needed to polish things off before release? Not sure...

Anyway, that's just an aside. My real question is: are you sure that artificial hype is actually a good idea in this case? What's going to be so spectacular about D1.0 for the /general public/ over previous versions? I understand the impact on library developers especially, but most of those interested are probably already well aware of what's happening.

What I'm worried about is over-hyping a release that's essentially just a frozen specification, and having potential users come and be disappointed when they find a lack of great and immediately useable libraries (including the standard library), partly because no existing library developers will have had time to react to the release yet.

Any thoughts on that problem? Am I blowing this way out of proportion?

Hasan Aljudy wrote:
> As I recall, tomorrow/today we should have D v1.0, but sheesh, shouldn't we be making a big fuss about it? Shouldn't we hype up the web before releasing it?

Not sure if anyone else is, but I plan on trying to get us Slashdotted when 1.0 is released.

-- 
Kirk McDonald
Pyd: Wrapping Python with D
http://pyd.dsource.org

Jeff wrote:
> Hasan Aljudy wrote:
>> As I recall, tomorrow/today we should have D v1.0, but sheesh, shouldn't we be making a big fuss about it? Shouldn't we hype up the web before releasing it?
> 
> It's not necessarily tomorrow, is it? I somehow gained the impression that the goal was a feature freeze as close to new year as possible, then whatever time needed to polish things off before release? Not sure...
> 
> Anyway, that's just an aside. My real question is: are you sure that artificial hype is actually a good idea in this case? What's going to be so spectacular about D1.0 for the /general public/ over previous versions? I understand the impact on library developers especially, but most of those interested are probably already well aware of what's happening.
> 
> What I'm worried about is over-hyping a release that's essentially just a frozen specification, and having potential users come and be disappointed when they find a lack of great and immediately useable libraries (including the standard library), partly because no existing library developers will have had time to react to the release yet.
> 
> Any thoughts on that problem? Am I blowing this way out of proportion?

The idea is just to let people know about v1.0 and the feature freeze, because as it stands, I don't think anyone knows about it other the NG regulars. For example, even you don't know about it. It was announced by Walter a while ago in digitalmars.D.announce; that's it. No one outside the NG knows about it unless he's heard it from someone else.

Hasan Aljudy wrote:
> As I recall, tomorrow/today we should have D v1.0, but sheesh, shouldn't we be making a big fuss about it? Shouldn't we hype up the web before releasing it?

D 1.0 is not quite out yet.
~ Clay

There are a lot of us who are just keeping an eye on D's progress by checking the newsgroup / forum from time to time without posting, and we're often the guys who keep others updated. I've been telling friends and colleagues about D.

I've also been telling them that v1.0 would be officially released on Jan. 1, so there are quite a few of us who have been waiting for this date. It apparently isn't happening, but that's not a problem for me or any of my friends. It would be nice, though, to have a brief status report from Walter along with the state of his thinking regarding a dev plan. Having one always available on D's home page would save having to dig through the forum postings for Walter's posts and having to mentally collect his offhand comments to piece together into an implied plan.

This doesn't have to be an onerous task. The Mono Project handled it well, IMO. They simply listed what they already had, what they called it (version num), what they were thinking of adding next, what they thought they would probably call that (later version num), what had been pushed out to beyond next, what they might call that (v1.2? 2.0? vNever?). The plan had dates expressed to the nearest month, quarter, or year, depending on what their guess was at the time. And everytime they changed their minds, the plan changed. Fine. That was the true status, and the project was highly regarded.

Even less detail than that would be fine. Walter could just put up a few bullet points regarding what he has in mind currently and change them if he changes his mine. It would be helpful to me, and anyone else who wanted to check on D from time to time, to be able to see such a plan right on the home page, or from a link at the top of the home page. Most of us realize that we're getting D "for free" and aren't making any demands. We'd love to be able to track its progress a bit more easily, though.

Glen Perkins wrote:
> There are a lot of us who are just keeping an eye on D's progress by checking the
> newsgroup / forum from time to time without posting, and we're often the guys who
> keep others updated. I've been telling friends and colleagues about D.
> 
> I've also been telling them that v1.0 would be officially released on Jan. 1, so
> there are quite a few of us who have been waiting for this date. It apparently
> isn't happening, but that's not a problem for me or any of my friends. It would be
> nice, though, to have a brief status report from Walter along with the state of
> his thinking regarding a dev plan. Having one always available on D's home page
> would save having to dig through the forum postings for Walter's posts and having
> to mentally collect his offhand comments to piece together into an implied plan.
> 
> This doesn't have to be an onerous task. The Mono Project handled it well, IMO.
> They simply listed what they already had, what they called it (version num), what
> they were thinking of adding next, what they thought they would probably call that
> (later version num), what had been pushed out to beyond next, what they might call
> that (v1.2? 2.0? vNever?). The plan had dates expressed to the nearest month,
> quarter, or year, depending on what their guess was at the time. And everytime
> they changed their minds, the plan changed. Fine. That was the true status, and
> the project was highly regarded.
> 
> Even less detail than that would be fine. Walter could just put up a few bullet
> points regarding what he has in mind currently and change them if he changes his
> mine. It would be helpful to me, and anyone else who wanted to check on D from
> time to time, to be able to see such a plan right on the home page, or from a link
> at the top of the home page. Most of us realize that we're getting D "for free"
> and aren't making any demands. We'd love to be able to track its progress a bit
> more easily, though.
> 

digitalmars.com/d needs a couple things. Like Glen said, a status section, with whatever development schedule is current. Also guarantees that the server wont break when Dugg/Slashdotted on 1.0 release.