On 18 March 2018 at 17:00, Manu <turkeyman@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 18 March 2018 at 02:19, Johan Engelen via Digitalmars-d <digitalmars-d@puremagic.com> wrote:
>> On Sunday, 18 March 2018 at 04:25:48 UTC, Manu wrote:
>>>
>>> What is so hard about implementing a pow intrinsic that CTFE can use?
>>> It's ridiculous that we can't CTFE any non-linear function...
>>> It's one of those blocker bugs that's been there almost 10 years.
>>
>>
>> It's been available in LDC since 1.6.0. https://godbolt.org/g/Yx7PyK
>>
>> - Johan
>>
>> (PS. The aggressive style of your message would not motivate me to improve
>> things for you.)
>
> It's not aggression, it's a decade of compounded frustration.
> I consider myself extremely patient with D, but how far am I supposed
> to extend patience before I admit that I'm wasting my precious time
> investing in something that's never going to 'get there'?
> I still want to love D, but I'm drifting away and using it less and
> less these days, and the main reason is that something so trivial as
> this, which has been a recorded bug for almost a decade and comes up
> often, still never moves. I'm always waiting... and so I find other
> things to do with my time.
>
> After being too busy to work on my side projects for a while, I
> finally had a small block of time. I jumped in, did a few things, then
> hit the same brick wall that I hit 3 years ago. My momentum comes to
> an instant halt, and I feel like I'm just less likely to return to the
> project again in the future wrt competing for priorities.
> Ideally, if I make my blockers known (this one is so simple!!), and
> try and re-awaken them semi-regularly... I'd like to think getting
> back to something 3 years later, I'm able to move forward. But it's
> still most of the same blockers I identified within my first 2-3 days
> of using D ~9 years ago; I still can't ARC, I still can't pass an
> rvalue by ref, and I still can't x^^y in ctfe.
> This one has gotta be by far the simplest thing I've ever complained about!
>
> Anyway, I've pretty much run out of energy to advocate a thing that
> still doesn't even solve my own needs (let along the needs of my
> companies), based on the assumption that it's fast moving, and
> deficiencies will be resolved 'soon enough' after it's made known that
> they are a blocker.
> I'm sorry, 'soon enough' is not soon enough... I've run out of
> patience, and I'm becoming increasingly frustrated and toxic.
>
> I was gonna spend today coding, but I think I'll go outside instead.

I want to just justify my apparent over-reaction... I think I'm not
the only one that feels this way fairly often.
Something that seems trivial only invokes over-reaction of this nature
when there is sufficient emotional energy behind it.
In my case, that is represented by investing a decade of my life into
something based on the promise (**wishful thinking?) that it'll get to
the point where I want it to be as a tool to do my work... but then
slowly awakening myself to the reality that that's actually unlikely
to happen, and the longer it takes, the less likely that eventual
reality becomes.
Perhaps it's breaking a delusion I imposed on myself years ago, but it
still produces a feeling of being robbed of time and energy.

Anyway, I suspect I'm not the only one that reaches this point and
tends to feel this way. I've seen a lot of good people come and go
after they 'burn out' in some way. Patience is finite.
There's no action item here... just wanted to share a reflection, and
perhaps there's some takeaway for the community with respect to
priorities?

On Monday, 19 March 2018 at 00:08:58 UTC, Manu wrote:
> On 18 March 2018 at 17:00, Manu <turkeyman@gmail.com> wrote:
>> [...]
>
> I want to just justify my apparent over-reaction... I think I'm not
> the only one that feels this way fairly often.
> Something that seems trivial only invokes over-reaction of this nature
> when there is sufficient emotional energy behind it.
> In my case, that is represented by investing a decade of my life into
> something based on the promise (**wishful thinking?) that it'll get to
> the point where I want it to be as a tool to do my work... but then
> slowly awakening myself to the reality that that's actually unlikely
> to happen, and the longer it takes, the less likely that eventual
> reality becomes.
> Perhaps it's breaking a delusion I imposed on myself years ago, but it
> still produces a feeling of being robbed of time and energy.
>
> Anyway, I suspect I'm not the only one that reaches this point and
> tends to feel this way. I've seen a lot of good people come and go
> after they 'burn out' in some way. Patience is finite.
> There's no action item here... just wanted to share a reflection, and
> perhaps there's some takeaway for the community with respect to
> priorities?

Perhaps the community simply has different priorities than you? For example, my Android port has never gotten much use either, which is fine as I primarily did that work for myself.

Nevertheless, you have to think of D as like working in a startup: if you see something that you think needs doing, you have to drive it yourself or it will never get done. Pretty much the same for most any OSS project too.

On Monday, March 19, 2018 00:28:15 Joakim via Digitalmars-d wrote:
> On Monday, 19 March 2018 at 00:08:58 UTC, Manu wrote:
> > On 18 March 2018 at 17:00, Manu <turkeyman@gmail.com> wrote:
> >> [...]
> >
> > I want to just justify my apparent over-reaction... I think I'm
> > not
> > the only one that feels this way fairly often.
> > Something that seems trivial only invokes over-reaction of this
> > nature
> > when there is sufficient emotional energy behind it.
> > In my case, that is represented by investing a decade of my
> > life into
> > something based on the promise (**wishful thinking?) that it'll
> > get to
> > the point where I want it to be as a tool to do my work... but
> > then
> > slowly awakening myself to the reality that that's actually
> > unlikely
> > to happen, and the longer it takes, the less likely that
> > eventual
> > reality becomes.
> > Perhaps it's breaking a delusion I imposed on myself years ago,
> > but it
> > still produces a feeling of being robbed of time and energy.
> >
> > Anyway, I suspect I'm not the only one that reaches this point
> > and
> > tends to feel this way. I've seen a lot of good people come and
> > go
> > after they 'burn out' in some way. Patience is finite.
> > There's no action item here... just wanted to share a
> > reflection, and
> > perhaps there's some takeaway for the community with respect to
> > priorities?
>
> Perhaps the community simply has different priorities than you? For example, my Android port has never gotten much use either, which is fine as I primarily did that work for myself.
>
> Nevertheless, you have to think of D as like working in a startup: if you see something that you think needs doing, you have to drive it yourself or it will never get done. Pretty much the same for most any OSS project too.

I definitely agree with this. If the folks fixing stuff don't have the same priorities as you, then there's a high risk that what you want to be fixed won't get fixed, and that's often how things go with open source projects. But at the same time, if you come to D, see all kinds of great things about it, and think that it's going to be fantastic but keep running into things that cause you problems when you try to use D, and then those pain points don't get fixed even after years of dealing with the language, that's going to be very frustrating - even more so if you've invested a lot of time and energy into it.

On some level, the only solution is to buckle down and fix your pain points yourself, but that can also be quite frustrating.

- Jonathan M Davis

On 18 March 2018 at 17:28, Joakim via Digitalmars-d <digitalmars-d@puremagic.com> wrote:
>
> Perhaps the community simply has different priorities than you? For example, my Android port has never gotten much use either, which is fine as I primarily did that work for myself.
>
> Nevertheless, you have to think of D as like working in a startup: if you see something that you think needs doing, you have to drive it yourself or it will never get done. Pretty much the same for most any OSS project too.

This is such an easy and readily-deploy-able response here.
What you say is true, and I totally understand this... but at the same
time, that's not actually the relationship I want to have with my
tool. A startup probably shouldn't still be a startup 10 years later.

In your case, doing the android work was obviously an interest you had
on the side, and you gain something from the work itself.
I have a small amount of that, but that's not where I'm at, and it
never has been. I want to use D to do my job, because I'm fed up with
C++. I want to engage in D the way I think D should **EXPECT** it's
users to engage in D; as an end-user, who uses the tool to get their
jobs done.
If D is a large-ish scale hobby project among a bunch of people with
mutual interests, then that should be more clearly communicated, but I
don't think that's the intent, and I feel perfectly fine interacting
with D in the way D is intended to be interacted with.

Incidentally, this particular work I'm doing is on a multimedia library intended for the community... so I really am truly trying to contribute something of value!! But like most of my projects, I tend to get blocked at some point, and then it goes on hold indefinitely.

For those not in the know, Manu is special.

He is in essence a use case for D himself.

We really should be trying to make him happy in terms of blockers.
It's just good business sense.

Shame we can't throw money at him, he would have great ROI value.

On 18 March 2018 at 17:55, Jonathan M Davis via Digitalmars-d <digitalmars-d@puremagic.com> wrote:
> On Monday, March 19, 2018 00:28:15 Joakim via Digitalmars-d wrote:
>> On Monday, 19 March 2018 at 00:08:58 UTC, Manu wrote:
>> > On 18 March 2018 at 17:00, Manu <turkeyman@gmail.com> wrote:
>> >> [...]
>> >
>> > I want to just justify my apparent over-reaction... I think I'm
>> > not
>> > the only one that feels this way fairly often.
>> > Something that seems trivial only invokes over-reaction of this
>> > nature
>> > when there is sufficient emotional energy behind it.
>> > In my case, that is represented by investing a decade of my
>> > life into
>> > something based on the promise (**wishful thinking?) that it'll
>> > get to
>> > the point where I want it to be as a tool to do my work... but
>> > then
>> > slowly awakening myself to the reality that that's actually
>> > unlikely
>> > to happen, and the longer it takes, the less likely that
>> > eventual
>> > reality becomes.
>> > Perhaps it's breaking a delusion I imposed on myself years ago,
>> > but it
>> > still produces a feeling of being robbed of time and energy.
>> >
>> > Anyway, I suspect I'm not the only one that reaches this point
>> > and
>> > tends to feel this way. I've seen a lot of good people come and
>> > go
>> > after they 'burn out' in some way. Patience is finite.
>> > There's no action item here... just wanted to share a
>> > reflection, and
>> > perhaps there's some takeaway for the community with respect to
>> > priorities?
>>
>> Perhaps the community simply has different priorities than you? For example, my Android port has never gotten much use either, which is fine as I primarily did that work for myself.
>>
>> Nevertheless, you have to think of D as like working in a startup: if you see something that you think needs doing, you have to drive it yourself or it will never get done. Pretty much the same for most any OSS project too.
>
> I definitely agree with this. If the folks fixing stuff don't have the same priorities as you, then there's a high risk that what you want to be fixed won't get fixed, and that's often how things go with open source projects.

And here it comes again!
I understand the reality, and echo-ing statement sounds so good to the
community... but it's a terrible opinion to propagate if the goal is
for D to be successful.
You're effectively saying "D is a hobby/toy, therefore you can't bank
on it with confidence". If I weren't a deluded zealot, there's NO WAY
I'd let my business invest in this technology when the crowd endlessly
repeats this sentiment.

So, while it IS a practical reality, there needs to be very strong
motivation from the community (and organisation) to combat that
practical reality.
I would strongly suggest; never say a sentence like this again. It's
the wrong attitude, and it gives an undesirable impression to users.
(assuming the goal is for D to be successful, and not a fun hobby for
the devs)

> But at the same time, if you come to D, see all kinds of great things about it, and think that it's going to be fantastic but keep running into things that cause you problems when you try to use D, and then those pain points don't get fixed even after years of dealing with the language, that's going to be very frustrating - even more so if you've invested a lot of time and energy into it.
>
> On some level, the only solution is to buckle down and fix your pain points yourself, but that can also be quite frustrating.

Or hire staff who are paid to work on 'boring' issues. I would make regular donations if I could be satisfied that my decade old issues would be addressed. I wonder how many others would too?

On 18 March 2018 at 18:11, rikki cattermole via Digitalmars-d <digitalmars-d@puremagic.com> wrote:
> For those not in the know, Manu is special.
>
> He is in essence a use case for D himself.
>
> We really should be trying to make him happy in terms of blockers. It's just good business sense.
>
> Shame we can't throw money at him, he would have great ROI value.

Haha!
I tried to mitigate coming across that way, and express myself in
terms of patience and frustration, which I think is probably something
a lot of people here can relate to.

Sure, there's no reason for anyone to care about my opinion, but I
have truly spent years investing in D, and strategies and attempts to
integrate it into my work *professionally*. Doing company
demonstrations, training colleagues, attempting small projects as
proof of concept, etc.
That's all I care about. I have hobby projects like everyone, but what
I *really* care about, is getting to the point where I can write D
code professionally in my field of work.
I also think I work in one of the prime fields where D has so much to
offer... but we also have an unusually high bar-to-entry.

On 18 March 2018 at 18:15, Manu <turkeyman@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 18 March 2018 at 17:55, Jonathan M Davis via Digitalmars-d <digitalmars-d@puremagic.com> wrote:
>> On Monday, March 19, 2018 00:28:15 Joakim via Digitalmars-d wrote:
>>> On Monday, 19 March 2018 at 00:08:58 UTC, Manu wrote:
>>> > On 18 March 2018 at 17:00, Manu <turkeyman@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> >> [...]
>>> >
>>> > I want to just justify my apparent over-reaction... I think I'm
>>> > not
>>> > the only one that feels this way fairly often.
>>> > Something that seems trivial only invokes over-reaction of this
>>> > nature
>>> > when there is sufficient emotional energy behind it.
>>> > In my case, that is represented by investing a decade of my
>>> > life into
>>> > something based on the promise (**wishful thinking?) that it'll
>>> > get to
>>> > the point where I want it to be as a tool to do my work... but
>>> > then
>>> > slowly awakening myself to the reality that that's actually
>>> > unlikely
>>> > to happen, and the longer it takes, the less likely that
>>> > eventual
>>> > reality becomes.
>>> > Perhaps it's breaking a delusion I imposed on myself years ago,
>>> > but it
>>> > still produces a feeling of being robbed of time and energy.
>>> >
>>> > Anyway, I suspect I'm not the only one that reaches this point
>>> > and
>>> > tends to feel this way. I've seen a lot of good people come and
>>> > go
>>> > after they 'burn out' in some way. Patience is finite.
>>> > There's no action item here... just wanted to share a
>>> > reflection, and
>>> > perhaps there's some takeaway for the community with respect to
>>> > priorities?
>>>
>>> Perhaps the community simply has different priorities than you? For example, my Android port has never gotten much use either, which is fine as I primarily did that work for myself.
>>>
>>> Nevertheless, you have to think of D as like working in a startup: if you see something that you think needs doing, you have to drive it yourself or it will never get done. Pretty much the same for most any OSS project too.
>>
>> I definitely agree with this. If the folks fixing stuff don't have the same priorities as you, then there's a high risk that what you want to be fixed won't get fixed, and that's often how things go with open source projects.
>
> And here it comes again!
> I understand the reality, and echo-ing statement sounds so good to the
> community... but it's a terrible opinion to propagate if the goal is
> for D to be successful.
> You're effectively saying "D is a hobby/toy, therefore you can't bank
> on it with confidence". If I weren't a deluded zealot, there's NO WAY
> I'd let my business invest in this technology when the crowd endlessly
> repeats this sentiment.
>
> So, while it IS a practical reality, there needs to be very strong
> motivation from the community (and organisation) to combat that
> practical reality.
> I would strongly suggest; never say a sentence like this again. It's
> the wrong attitude, and it gives an undesirable impression to users.
> (assuming the goal is for D to be successful, and not a fun hobby for
> the devs)
>
>> But at the same time, if you come to D, see all kinds of great things about it, and think that it's going to be fantastic but keep running into things that cause you problems when you try to use D, and then those pain points don't get fixed even after years of dealing with the language, that's going to be very frustrating - even more so if you've invested a lot of time and energy into it.
>>
>> On some level, the only solution is to buckle down and fix your pain points yourself, but that can also be quite frustrating.
>
> Or hire staff who are paid to work on 'boring' issues. I would make regular donations if I could be satisfied that my decade old issues would be addressed. I wonder how many others would too?

For what it's worth, I think I sound like nothing is moving ever, and
that's not actually the reality today at all. I so feel like momentum
has increased substantially recently on a number of fronts, but I'm
mostly a passive observer standing a bit off to the side somewhere.
I am constantly impressed and excited about all the work that's being
done here... I read the announcements, and think "yeah, I super can't
wait to get amongst that good stuff!! ...if only my project would be
un-blocked from the thing that blocked it 5 years ago".
In some way, I'm still waiting for the opportunity to do all the good
stuff with D that D can do (including Android ports!), but I'm usually
blocked by mostly boring trivia, and a couple of big things (ie, ARC).

On 19/03/2018 2:21 PM, Manu wrote:
> On 18 March 2018 at 18:11, rikki cattermole via Digitalmars-d
> <digitalmars-d@puremagic.com> wrote:
>> For those not in the know, Manu is special.
>>
>> He is in essence a use case for D himself.
>>
>> We really should be trying to make him happy in terms of blockers.
>> It's just good business sense.
>>
>> Shame we can't throw money at him, he would have great ROI value.
> 
> Haha!
> I tried to mitigate coming across that way, and express myself in
> terms of patience and frustration, which I think is probably something
> a lot of people here can relate to.
> 
> Sure, there's no reason for anyone to care about my opinion, but I
> have truly spent years investing in D, and strategies and attempts to
> integrate it into my work *professionally*. Doing company
> demonstrations, training colleagues, attempting small projects as
> proof of concept, etc.
> That's all I care about. I have hobby projects like everyone, but what
> I *really* care about, is getting to the point where I can write D
> code professionally in my field of work.
> I also think I work in one of the prime fields where D has so much to
> offer... but we also have an unusually high bar-to-entry.

Your entire reply is reason to care about your opinion :)

I'm not alone in thinking that you're a very valuable community member.
Perhaps you can have a chat with a member of DLF about getting a list of issues for you figured out?

On 18 March 2018 at 18:29, rikki cattermole via Digitalmars-d <digitalmars-d@puremagic.com> wrote:
> On 19/03/2018 2:21 PM, Manu wrote:
>>
>> On 18 March 2018 at 18:11, rikki cattermole via Digitalmars-d <digitalmars-d@puremagic.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> For those not in the know, Manu is special.
>>>
>>> He is in essence a use case for D himself.
>>>
>>> We really should be trying to make him happy in terms of blockers. It's just good business sense.
>>>
>>> Shame we can't throw money at him, he would have great ROI value.
>>
>>
>> Haha!
>> I tried to mitigate coming across that way, and express myself in
>> terms of patience and frustration, which I think is probably something
>> a lot of people here can relate to.
>>
>> Sure, there's no reason for anyone to care about my opinion, but I
>> have truly spent years investing in D, and strategies and attempts to
>> integrate it into my work *professionally*. Doing company
>> demonstrations, training colleagues, attempting small projects as
>> proof of concept, etc.
>> That's all I care about. I have hobby projects like everyone, but what
>> I *really* care about, is getting to the point where I can write D
>> code professionally in my field of work.
>> I also think I work in one of the prime fields where D has so much to
>> offer... but we also have an unusually high bar-to-entry.
>
>
> Your entire reply is reason to care about your opinion :)
>
> I'm not alone in thinking that you're a very valuable community member.

I'm not though... I'm a noisy whingey one that never actually gives
anything back!
I'm just a stubborn mule that's constantly trying to fight my way
through my next hurdle.

I think maybe my lessons are of some value, and I've been a forcing
function for a few important developments.
If I were to start over again today, I might have different
experience, thanks to a relative increase in ecosystem maturity
compared to when I started.

> Perhaps you can have a chat with a member of DLF about getting a list of issues for you figured out?

I've influenced more than I feel is reasonable with respect to my results. I've mostly failed, and not through lack of trying. There are lots of people here now who are having way more success than I have. I might do that if I could maneuver my workplace into a position where they were to consider a serious investigation again.

I still want x^^y to work though! :P