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| Posted by H. S. Teoh in reply to Imperatorn | PermalinkReply |
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H. S. Teoh
Posted in reply to Imperatorn
| On Wed, Nov 02, 2022 at 05:37:59PM +0000, Imperatorn via Digitalmars-d wrote: [...]
> Let's stop complaining and focus instead on making things better and keep improving D.
>
> It doesn't need to be big to count, just anything. Update the wiki, fix a spelling error, make sure information is up to date. Everything is valuable.
Side-story: when I first found D, I would run into problems and bugs, and complained about them here in the forums. Then I was told to file them in bugzilla, so I did. But things weren't going as fast as I'd like them to, so I decided to take things into my own hands and started submitting PRs. It doesn't actually take much to contribute to D; Phobos especially is quite easy to read and understand (in contrast with many programming language standard libraries -- e.g. I tried reading glibc code once and almost got PTSD from it). However, in those days the PR queue was backed up, so that was slow going as well. Then one day, after complaining about the PR queue, Andrei suddenly granted me write access to Phobos. So I started reviewing PRs and pushing them through. Since then, I've contributed to Phobos, druntime, dlang.org (the website repo), and even a few dmd PRs. I've also contributed to various other 3rd party D repos, primarily Adam's excellent arsd, and a couple of other miscellaneous projects. I'm just sad that these days I just don't have the time/energy to contribute as frequently as I used to, but it's still one of the most rewarding experiences I've had in the realm of open source software.
So my word to other would-be contributors: just do it! Contributing to D is not as hard as you might think. In fact, it's pretty easy, thanks to D making your typically obtuse source code much easier to read. A random internet nobody like myself literally just walked into the room out of the blue, contributed a couple of PRs, and was given the keys to Phobos, so to speak. It can happen to you too! ;-)
> Also, please try look at what the leadership is trying to do, and not just what they haven't done. They deserve way more appreciation, it's many hours of work and doesn't happen by itself.
And don't forget D was made (and still is being made) by volunteers, other than Walter himself, and given to you for FREE. The reasonable response, IMO, is gratitude, at the very least. And contributing back when you can. Rather than making demands with harsh criticisms as if Walter owed you something. (Spoiler: he does not.)
T
--
"A one-question geek test. If you get the joke, you're a geek: Seen on a California license plate on a VW Beetle: 'FEATURE'..." -- Joshua D. Wachs - Natural Intelligence, Inc.
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