Derek Parnell wrote:
> On Tue, 12 May 2009 15:59:05 -0500, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
> 
>> Walter Bright wrote:
>>> BLS wrote:
>>>> No, promoting D also means having a couple of newsgroup entries each day.
>>>> Otherwise you'll have several "10 entries a month" D newsgroups and this imo not very appealing to new visitors.
>>>> In other words, Bier erm, quantity rulez.
>>> Yeah, I had second thoughts along those same lines.
>> I think -users and -developers should work. It works for Boost very well.
> 
> I'm not used to Boost groups, so who is expected to post to "-users"? Are
> they users of D (that is, application developers)? Who posts to
> "-developers"? Are they the people developing D itself or
> application/tool/library developers (otherwise known as users of D)?
> 

Derek, may I contact you by Skype ?
I will stay for about 6 month in Brisbane to fulfill a software contract.
Live in Europe, Time difference GMT +8.

Björn  nanali at  wanadoo dot ...  fr

On Wed, 13 May 2009 00:46:25 +0200, BLS wrote:

> Derek, may I contact you by Skype ?

Sure.

-- 
Derek Parnell
Melbourne, Australia
skype: derek.j.parnell

Hello BLS,

> (I think it is not really top secret to talk about what is in use.
> 1) OCAML, 2) C and 3) ADA ... )

The only surprise there (if any) is OCAML. *Everyone* uses C and, last I heard, Ada is still the #1 choice for Bugs==DeadBodiesOrWorse development. From what I've heard, it's actually a darn nice language to work in if you are going to be doing all the engineering process stuff anyway.

Derek Parnell wrote:
> On Tue, 12 May 2009 15:59:05 -0500, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
> 
>> Walter Bright wrote:
>>> BLS wrote:
>>>> No, promoting D also means having a couple of newsgroup entries each day.
>>>> Otherwise you'll have several "10 entries a month" D newsgroups and this imo not very appealing to new visitors.
>>>> In other words, Bier erm, quantity rulez.
>>> Yeah, I had second thoughts along those same lines.
>> I think -users and -developers should work. It works for Boost very well.
> 
> I'm not used to Boost groups, so who is expected to post to "-users"? Are
> they users of D (that is, application developers)? Who posts to
> "-developers"? Are they the people developing D itself or
> application/tool/library developers (otherwise known as users of D)?
> 

Those who use Boost hang out in the users group. Those who are interested in the implementation of Boost hang out in the devel group, whether or not they have written a Boost library.

Andrei

Lutger wrote:
> 
> Rename .learn to .programming and .d to .design or .future.
> 
> And while we're at it: merge .dwt .gnu .ide .debugger into .tools or
> .toolchain or something like that.
> 
> That way you end up with even less newsgroups!
>

A good idea.

BLS wrote:
> F.I. I am in contact with airbus industries since 2.5 years and I can assure you they have an eye on D.


It'd be nice if some of them came to this NG.

(FWIW, I'd sure prefer to fly with ADA or D, than with C.) :-)

I'd love if they did some tests (like a test application) with D, ADA and some other language, and then look at the number of bugs, how long it took to write, etc.

They might also have some ideas about robust programming, that we haven't yet discussed here.



More generally, I'd love to see some of our NG celebrities get invited to mega corporations to give joint presentations of D.

(Pipe dreaming: Oracle, Google, Airbus, General Electric, Boeing, NASA, could jointly pay for three guys to offload a lot of tedium from Walter &co's back.)

(More pipe dreaming: to have a non-profit organisation that maintains a proper web site for D with paid staff (equals proper management), makes some industrial level documentation, and takes care of promoting D in various industries.)

Heck, for this dreaming I don't even need controlled substances!

On Wed, 13 May 2009 20:24:29 +0400, Georg Wrede <georg.wrede@iki.fi> wrote:

> (More pipe dreaming: to have a non-profit organisation that maintains a proper web site for D with paid staff (equals proper management), makes some industrial level documentation, and takes care of promoting D in various industries.)
>


I believe it is a must these days.

BCS wrote:
> Hello BLS,
> 
>> (I think it is not really top secret to talk about what is in use.
>> 1) OCAML, 2) C and 3) ADA ... )
> 
> The only surprise there (if any) is OCAML. *Everyone* uses C and, last I heard, Ada is still the #1 choice for Bugs==DeadBodiesOrWorse development. From what I've heard, it's actually a darn nice language to work in if you are going to be doing all the engineering process stuff anyway.
> 
> 
Hello BCS :)

http://www.astree.ens.fr/
This is something Walter definitely should read too.

What's the story :

"ASTRÉE is written in Objective Caml and is about 44000 lines long (plus external libraries). We needed a language with good performance (speed and memory usage) on reasonable equipment, easy support for advanced data structures, and type and memory safety. OCaml also allows for modular, clear and compact source code and makes it easy to work with recursive structures such as syntax trees"

Björn

Hello BLS,

>> Hello BLS,
>> 
>>> (I think it is not really top secret to talk about what is in use.
>>> 1) OCAML, 2) C and 3) ADA ... )
>>
>> The only surprise there (if any) is OCAML.
>
> Hello BCS :)
>

My point was about C and Ada and that anyone with a brain could figure out that every aerospace company uses them (so no secrets there). Not so with OCAML, that isn't a given.

Georg Wrede wrote:
> 
> 
> It'd be nice if some of them came to this NG.
> 

will meet one of the leading guys this summer, let's see.

> (FWIW, I'd sure prefer to fly with ADA or D, than with C.) :-)
> 

So you better fly with Boeing !

"ASTREE is a static analyzer for C programs that proves the absence of run-time errors in critical embedded software.
It has been applied to the flight control software of the Airbus 340 and 380 airplanes. "

ASTREE is written in OCAML.  // http://www.astree.ens.fr/

Björn