June 06, 2016
On Monday, June 06, 2016 09:12:19 Ethan Watson via Digitalmars-d wrote:
> Yet despite being ahead of the pack, its slow adoption doesn't speak well for it. But there is precedent for slow adoption,

It's my understanding that python had slow adoption. It's huge now, but it took them a long time to get there. Slow growth does not necessarily equate to forever being small.

- Jonathan M Davis

June 06, 2016
On Monday, 6 June 2016 at 08:09:29 UTC, Laeeth Isharc wrote:
>
> Maybe we need official containers that use the allocator,  better messaging with concrete examples that get the point across that D generates less garbage than some other languages whose history might be putting people off, and better examples, tutorials,  and documentation on how to do things without the GC.

+1 to "better examples, tutorials, and documentation on how to do things iwthout the GC."
June 06, 2016
On Monday, 6 June 2016 at 08:15:42 UTC, Russel Winder wrote:
> On Sun, 2016-06-05 at 19:20 -0700, Walter Bright via Digitalmars-d wrote:
>> […]
>> 
>> * The garbage collector eliminates probably 60% of potential users right off.
>
> And i bet over 80% of them are just saying this based on zero evidence, just prejudice.
>
> Go went with the attitude "Go has a GC, if you cannot deal with that #### off". Many people did exactly that and the Go community said "byeeee". Arrogant this may have been, but Pike, Cox, et al. stuck to their guns and forged a community and a niche for the language. This then created traction. Now GC in Go is not an issue.

This.

I think the biggest problem about D is it's trying to satisfy *everyone*. It's literally combining C++, Java, Python, and ~the like. At some point it even tries to mimic Rust! Trying to be everything at once is key po
June 06, 2016
On Monday, 6 June 2016 at 09:12:19 UTC, Ethan Watson wrote:
> On Monday, 6 June 2016 at 08:00:30 UTC, Laeeth Isharc wrote:

> D is still ahead of the pack in terms of features.

I always think of Jurassic Park, when the D community talks of features. Specifically Jeff Goldblum's line of "Your scientist were so concerned if they could, they didn't stop to think if they should". D has pretty much most of the features present in every programming language. I'm not sure if that is a positive or negative personally.
June 06, 2016
On Monday, 6 June 2016 at 13:15:12 UTC, Jonathan M Davis wrote:
> On Monday, June 06, 2016 09:12:19 Ethan Watson via Digitalmars-d wrote:
>> Yet despite being ahead of the pack, its slow adoption doesn't speak well for it. But there is precedent for slow adoption,
>
> It's my understanding that python had slow adoption. It's huge now, but it took them a long time to get there. Slow growth does not necessarily equate to forever being small.
>
> - Jonathan M Davis

Ada also had slow adoption. So has Erlang. O.o


June 06, 2016
On Monday, 6 June 2016 at 13:51:30 UTC, NX wrote:
>
> This.
>
> I think the biggest problem about D is it's trying to satisfy *everyone*. It's literally combining C++, Java, Python, and ~the like. At some point it even tries to mimic Rust! Trying to be everything at once is key po-----

-------int of failure. You try to be everything, then you see you're non of them. There is no clear vision what D is aiming to be.

Think about it. Let's say we seamlessly combined GC + borrow semantics + manual memory management. How can you expect a library writer to decide it's way? There are way too many things to consider. And then we may write 2-3 versions of the same lib; say, one that uses GC and the other one that requires manual memory management. What a mess!

D have GC. I am completely fine with GCs. But there are things that hurt rea
June 06, 2016
On Monday, 6 June 2016 at 13:53:13 UTC, BigDog wrote:
> On Monday, 6 June 2016 at 09:12:19 UTC, Ethan Watson wrote:
>> On Monday, 6 June 2016 at 08:00:30 UTC, Laeeth Isharc wrote:
>
>> D is still ahead of the pack in terms of features.
>
> I always think of Jurassic Park, when the D community talks of features. Specifically Jeff Goldblum's line of "Your scientist were so concerned if they could, they didn't stop to think if they should". D has pretty much most of the features present in every programming language. I'm not sure if that is a positive or negative personally.


How about doing a collaborative poll and giving Andrei and Walter some feedback (backed with "some" number)?
This time I found a platform that allows everyone to add new answers and select from the existing ones:

http://www.rkursem.com/poll/view.php?id=7f7ebc16c280d0c3c

Happy voting!

Disclaimer: I am _not_ affiliated with this website by any means.
June 06, 2016
And this forum is impossible to use on smart phones...

I gave up. You know the rest...
June 06, 2016
On Monday, 6 June 2016 at 14:00:29 UTC, Seb wrote:
> On Monday, 6 June 2016 at 13:53:13 UTC, BigDog wrote:
>> On Monday, 6 June 2016 at 09:12:19 UTC, Ethan Watson wrote:
>>> On Monday, 6 June 2016 at 08:00:30 UTC, Laeeth Isharc wrote:
>>
>>> D is still ahead of the pack in terms of features.
>>
>> I always think of Jurassic Park, when the D community talks of features. Specifically Jeff Goldblum's line of "Your scientist were so concerned if they could, they didn't stop to think if they should". D has pretty much most of the features present in every programming language. I'm not sure if that is a positive or negative personally.
>
>
> How about doing a collaborative poll and giving Andrei and Walter some feedback (backed with "some" number)?
> This time I found a platform that allows everyone to add new answers and select from the existing ones:
>
> http://www.rkursem.com/poll/view.php?id=7f7ebc16c280d0c3c
>
> Happy voting!
>
> Disclaimer: I am _not_ affiliated with this website by any means.

One thing I mentioned in another post is the documentation is lacking...particularly parts don't work and the examples are rather chaotic.

As I dig into the language further (for some reason I haven't determined why yet) I also find that the standard library is has big giant holes. Particularly in the graphics department, which pretty much was a deal killer for my project I was gonna try using D with. But also it seems to be missing formal data structures that it should have. Deques, Queues, Stacks, etc. Also no formal official http support is also a bummer...

I would dismiss this as "growing pains for a new language" then you find out D is almost 20 years old O.o

June 06, 2016
On 6/6/16 2:31 AM, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
> On 6/6/16 6:17 AM, Adam D. Ruppe wrote:
>> Though, I wish D would just own its decision instead of bowing to Reddit
>> pressure.
>
> Writing GC's issues off as pressure from reddit would be an
> understatement. -- Andrei
>

I agree. It's telling that nearly all real-world examples we've seen (sociomantic, remedy games, etc.) use D without GC or with specialized handling of GC.

I've had personal experience with "fixing" performance dramatically by removing or minimizing GC allocations. It is important to both get the GC operating more efficiently, and provide easier ways to avoid the GC (or better tutorials on how to do so).

-Steve