This is a bit of a generic reply to a constant theme I see here.

It pains me to see a lot of great D projects languish in obscurity, and often the author(s) eventually get frustrated with that and abandon them.

The problem is that "Field of Dreams", i.e. "build it and they will come" is a Hollywood fantasy. The authors simply must promote it. That means, at the barest minimum, writing a nice article that answers the basic questions:

   who
   what
   where
   when
   why
   how

and then getting that article published & promoted in social media, online magazines, etc. Note that online magazines are BEGGING for content. Some will even PAY MONEY for decent content.

Throwing code up on github isn't good enough. Expecting people to read the source code to figure out who/what/where/etc is never going to work. A one line announcement "Hi! I just released Dxxxxx! Enjoy!" is going to fail. Hoping that others will pick up the flag and carry it for you is a pipe dream.

I know that people often are reluctant to promote their own stuff because they feel it's immodest. All I can say is get over it! Look at Donald Trump, Steve Jobs, Gene Simmons, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, etc. None of them are/were remotely shy about promotion.

Besides, it's fun when others read one's articles and comment on them, a lot more fun than waiting to be discovered.

On Monday, 5 August 2013 at 19:44:12 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:
> This is a bit of a generic reply to a constant theme I see here.
>
> It pains me to see a lot of great D projects languish in obscurity, and often the author(s) eventually get frustrated with that and abandon them.
>
> The problem is that "Field of Dreams", i.e. "build it and they will come" is a Hollywood fantasy. The authors simply must promote it. That means, at the barest minimum, writing a nice article that answers the basic questions:
>
>    who
>    what
>    where
>    when
>    why
>    how
>
> and then getting that article published & promoted in social media, online magazines, etc. Note that online magazines are BEGGING for content. Some will even PAY MONEY for decent content.
>
> Throwing code up on github isn't good enough. Expecting people to read the source code to figure out who/what/where/etc is never going to work. A one line announcement "Hi! I just released Dxxxxx! Enjoy!" is going to fail. Hoping that others will pick up the flag and carry it for you is a pipe dream.
>
> I know that people often are reluctant to promote their own stuff because they feel it's immodest. All I can say is get over it! Look at Donald Trump, Steve Jobs, Gene Simmons, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, etc. None of them are/were remotely shy about promotion.
>
> Besides, it's fun when others read one's articles and comment on them, a lot more fun than waiting to be discovered.

Wow Walter, your post really motivated me right now. For a few days I have this idea about an next gen OS. I only told it to my friends and I haven't written it anywhere(but I was planing to). Now I will probably create a blog and start writing programming articles and explaining ideas I have and projects I work on. But the thing that you said about promoting counts for D too. The D community is rather small compared to other languages. But in recent days I see more and more people starting talking about it. From time to time I see a post about D in reddit and probably Dconf '13 boosted the growth. I really hope that D one day becomes a success and I will try to write and promote D too in my non-currently-existent blog :)

On 8/5/2013 3:44 PM, Walter Bright wrote:
> Throwing code up on github isn't good enough.

On a related note, I almost never hear about D projects on Hacker News. It's a good place for language promition. Heck, even vanilla github project get up-voted there if they have some kind of cool factor to them.

On Monday, 5 August 2013 at 21:51:56 UTC, Gambler wrote:
> On 8/5/2013 3:44 PM, Walter Bright wrote:
>> Throwing code up on github isn't good enough.
>
> On a related note, I almost never hear about D projects on Hacker News.
> It's a good place for language promition. Heck, even vanilla github
> project get up-voted there if they have some kind of cool factor to them.

It seems that the D community has been getting better in regards to writing about why it's such a great language, but most of the stuff I've seen on Hacker News/Reddit is from a select few, i.e., Walter, Andrei, a scattering of a few other people... Hopefully, though, the recent "call to arms" for article writing will facilitate an influx of publicity for D.

On 8/5/2013 2:51 PM, Gambler wrote:
> On a related note, I almost never hear about D projects on Hacker News.
> It's a good place for language promition. Heck, even vanilla github
> project get up-voted there if they have some kind of cool factor to them.


I've posted a number of articles about D on HN. They don't get much traction there for whatever reason, but I keep trying.

It's like being becalmed on the ocean in a sailboat. If the wind isn't blowing, you won't go anywhere. But if you don't put up your sail, you won't catch any wind when it does blow.

Or like the old joke in the advertising industry: "I know I'm wasting half of my money on advertising. The problem is, I don't know which half."

On 8/5/2013 2:14 PM, Borislav Kosharov wrote:
> Wow Walter, your post really motivated me right now. For a few days I have this
> idea about an next gen OS. I only told it to my friends and I haven't written it
> anywhere(but I was planing to). Now I will probably create a blog and start
> writing programming articles and explaining ideas I have and projects I work on.
> But the thing that you said about promoting counts for D too. The D community is
> rather small compared to other languages. But in recent days I see more and more
> people starting talking about it. From time to time I see a post about D in
> reddit and probably Dconf '13 boosted the growth. I really hope that D one day
> becomes a success and I will try to write and promote D too in my
> non-currently-existent blog :)

Keep us posted!

On Monday, 5 August 2013 at 19:44:12 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:
> This is a bit of a generic reply to a constant theme I see here.
>
> It pains me to see a lot of great D projects languish in obscurity, and often the author(s) eventually get frustrated with that and abandon them.
>
> The problem is that "Field of Dreams", i.e. "build it and they will come" is a Hollywood fantasy. The authors simply must promote it. That means, at the barest minimum, writing a nice article that answers the basic questions:
>
>    who
>    what
>    where
>    when
>    why
>    how
>
> and then getting that article published & promoted in social media, online magazines, etc. Note that online magazines are BEGGING for content. Some will even PAY MONEY for decent content.
>
> Throwing code up on github isn't good enough. Expecting people to read the source code to figure out who/what/where/etc is never going to work. A one line announcement "Hi! I just released Dxxxxx! Enjoy!" is going to fail. Hoping that others will pick up the flag and carry it for you is a pipe dream.
>
> I know that people often are reluctant to promote their own stuff because they feel it's immodest. All I can say is get over it! Look at Donald Trump, Steve Jobs, Gene Simmons, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, etc. None of them are/were remotely shy about promotion.
>
> Besides, it's fun when others read one's articles and comment on them, a lot more fun than waiting to be discovered.

I think my problem is that there are so many people in the D community that I would consider MUCH better at software development than myself, so I get pretty self conscious when it comes to me talking about my stuff. You're right though, I should definitely get over it and spread the word!

I promise I will write some stuff and post in the announce section once I have a little more time.(classes are currently destroying me)

On 8/5/2013 8:44 PM, Jeremy DeHaan wrote:
> I think my problem is that there are so many people in the D community that I
> would consider MUCH better at software development than myself, so I get pretty
> self conscious when it comes to me talking about my stuff. You're right though,
> I should definitely get over it and spread the word!

Yes, you should!

> I promise I will write some stuff and post in the announce section once I have a
> little more time.

Great!

> (classes are currently destroying me)

Classes in the summer?

On Monday, 5 August 2013 at 19:44:12 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:
> This is a bit of a generic reply to a constant theme I see here.
>
> It pains me to see a lot of great D projects languish in obscurity, and often the author(s) eventually get frustrated with that and abandon them.
>
> The problem is that "Field of Dreams", i.e. "build it and they will come" is a Hollywood fantasy. The authors simply must promote it. That means, at the barest minimum, writing a nice article that answers the basic questions:
>
>    who
>    what
>    where
>    when
>    why
>    how
>
> and then getting that article published & promoted in social media, online magazines, etc. Note that online magazines are BEGGING for content. Some will even PAY MONEY for decent content.
>
> Throwing code up on github isn't good enough. Expecting people to read the source code to figure out who/what/where/etc is never going to work. A one line announcement "Hi! I just released Dxxxxx! Enjoy!" is going to fail. Hoping that others will pick up the flag and carry it for you is a pipe dream.
>
> I know that people often are reluctant to promote their own stuff because they feel it's immodest. All I can say is get over it! Look at Donald Trump, Steve Jobs, Gene Simmons, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, etc. None of them are/were remotely shy about promotion.
>
> Besides, it's fun when others read one's articles and comment on them, a lot more fun than waiting to be discovered.

You seem to like DrDobbs for publishing your articles. How are
they?

On 8/5/2013 11:01 PM, qznc wrote:
> You seem to like DrDobbs for publishing your articles. How are
> they?

DrDobbs has always been good to me and my efforts, even in the 1980s. The editors, first Jon Erickson and now Andrew Binstock, are a pleasure to work with. DrDobbs is a great way to reach a wider programming audience.