"bobef" <bobef@lessequal.com> wrote in message news:dfs9jb$257v$1@digitaldaemon.com...
> Kyle Furlong wrote:
>> How much better if, under the guidance of Walter and with his approval, knowledgeable and experienced members of the community were allowed to help work out bugs and push dmd towards a 1.0 that has been coming for 6 years, and has never arrived.
>
> Maybe... I don't know...
>
>>
>> I get the feeling that the programming world is leaving D behind because the efforts of just one man, however heroic they may be, just cant keep up.
>
> I don't feel left behind. I feel like I am leaving them behind. The programming world is going down driven by microsoft and sun with languages like java and .net bullshit. The programming is becoming drag-and-drop and I am happy that D is left behind this nonsense. D is actualy reamaning a programming language instead of slow scripting lamers friendly drag and drop gui designer. And after few years when all newborn programmers become a .net or java programmers we, the D programmers, will rule the world because we will be one of the not many left that can do a fast software and low level software like drivers, oses and stuff ;) (I am joking but in same time serious)
I agree-we're remaking the standard here;to use an example, the accepted standard in the unix world from what I've seen is to write *everything* in C, which is nice in some ways, but horribly inconsistent, tricky, and lacking in things like good strings.  C++ made things slightly easier, but gave us some real bloated results that weren't all that worth it.  Now comes D, withamong other things  its great syntax, its great arrays, garbage collection, and a wonderful library with all sorts of functions.  I'm willing to just forget what the rest of the world says, and be confident that I program in one of the best languages out there right now.

>I'm 
> willing to just forget what the rest of the world says, and be confident that I program in one of the best languages out there right now. 
> 

Exactly! Not one of the best, but the best, because I *know* that I can do *everything* they can do with java or .net (and even better and faster) but they can't do what I can with D (or even C/C++)!

> IMHO, anyone who sees deficiencies in Walter's handling of D should ask himself: why don't I just go ahead and improve D?

The key question is who defines "improve"?

> And, the changelog shows that Walter is accepting patches, so just go ahead :-)

The patches so far have been pretty small or they have been entire modules. Which leads to the problem that the overall structure of the library is scattered - each module has its own style. Unorganized development of phobos has lead to an unorganized phobos.

Hi,

>>I'm willing to just forget what the rest of the world says, and be confident that I program in one of the best languages out there right now.
>
>Exactly! Not one of the best, but the best, because I *know* that I can do *everything* they can do with java or .net

Um... I love D and I don't want to knock it, but this statement is patently false. If your implication is that phobos is equivalent to the .NET framework, then you seriously need to reconsider.

Here's a quick example: Encryption. Other than hashing, there's nothing even remotely as complete as .NET's. Symmetric, PKI, certificates, etc.

>(and even better and faster)

If you can't even do it in the first place, I doubt you can do it better and faster.

>but they can't do what I can with D (or even C/C++)!

What is it that you can do in D, that can't be done in C#, C or C++?

--------------------

The overall point is: .NET is not BS. It's here today, and it's here to stay. It may be a little clunky here and there, but that's only going to get better.

Instead of trying to ignore it as if it were just a fad, it would be better to emulate its strong points. The framework library is one such point. The documentation is another such point.

Walter, by himself, cannot achieve this. There is simply not enough time. MS must have who knows how many thousands of code monkeys on payroll writing all this stuff. And for a reason.

For every day that Walter dedicates to fixing a web page, or writing a doc page, or some other random task, that's one day of D/compiler improvement lost. Think about it. It's a simple matter of time.

Therefore, IMHO, it would be best to delegate some of these tasks to other competent people. I'm sure plenty of qualified members in the community could step up to the job.

In that vein, do we really need a few mediocre, sparse, undocumented standard libraries? No. We need _one_ really good one. If you put all these people to work together, this goal would be accomplished.

Here are some of the things that can be effectively separated into discrete units:

D Specification.
Compiler front-end.
Compiler back-end.
Compiler-bugs.
Website.
Documentation.
Phobos.
Phobos-bugs.

If Walter can focus on only a fraction of those, then things could really pick up. Well, just my 2 cents.

Cheers,
--AJG.

AJG wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> 
>>>I'm willing to just forget what the rest of the world says, and be confident that I program in one of the best languages out there right now.  
>>
>>Exactly! Not one of the best, but the best, because I *know* that I can do *everything* they can do with java or .net 
> 
> 
> Um... I love D and I don't want to knock it, but this statement is patently
> false. If your implication is that phobos is equivalent to the .NET framework,
> then you seriously need to reconsider.
> 
> Here's a quick example: Encryption. Other than hashing, there's nothing even
> remotely as complete as .NET's. Symmetric, PKI, certificates, etc.
> 
> 
>>(and even better and faster) 
> 
> 
> If you can't even do it in the first place, I doubt you can do it better and
> faster.
> 
> 
>>but they can't do what I can with D (or even C/C++)!
> 
> 
> What is it that you can do in D, that can't be done in C#, C or C++?
> 
> --------------------
> 
> The overall point is: .NET is not BS. It's here today, and it's here to stay. It
> may be a little clunky here and there, but that's only going to get better. 
> 
> Instead of trying to ignore it as if it were just a fad, it would be better to
> emulate its strong points. The framework library is one such point. The
> documentation is another such point.
> 
> Walter, by himself, cannot achieve this. There is simply not enough time. MS
> must have who knows how many thousands of code monkeys on payroll writing all
> this stuff. And for a reason. 
> 
> For every day that Walter dedicates to fixing a web page, or writing a doc page,
> or some other random task, that's one day of D/compiler improvement lost. Think
> about it. It's a simple matter of time.
> 
> Therefore, IMHO, it would be best to delegate some of these tasks to other
> competent people. I'm sure plenty of qualified members in the community could
> step up to the job.
> 
> In that vein, do we really need a few mediocre, sparse, undocumented standard
> libraries? No. We need _one_ really good one. If you put all these people to
> work together, this goal would be accomplished.
> 
> Here are some of the things that can be effectively separated into discrete
> units:
> 
> D Specification.
> Compiler front-end.
> Compiler back-end.
> Compiler-bugs.
> Website.
> Documentation.
> Phobos.
> Phobos-bugs.
> 
> If Walter can focus on only a fraction of those, then things could really pick
> up. Well, just my 2 cents. 
> 
> Cheers,
> --AJG


Exactly

"Kyle Furlong" <kylefurlong@gmail.com> wrote in message news:dfrkpk$1hpn$1@digitaldaemon.com...
> Walter Bright wrote:
> > Any language that is being used is a work in progress. I can point to
any
> > number of languages with mature, unchanging compilers and
specifications,
> > they'll be in the "dead language" bin <g>. Heck, I just put out another
drop
> > of the C++ compiler.
> >
> > A much more interesting question is "is the compiler/language in a state where I can effectively use it"?
> >
> >
>
> I think the point/discussion I was trying to get at was that there is a large community of skilled, enthusiastic programmers here who I'm sure would like to help the d cause in a more intimate way. If the dmd compiler needs to stay closed, fine, but use the community.

Many of you *are* helping out!

"Kyle Furlong" <kylefurlong@gmail.com> wrote in message news:dfs229$1u34$1@digitaldaemon.com...
> All that said, he *is* just one man, with the time considerations that a man has. How much better if, under the guidance of Walter and with his approval, knowledgeable and experienced members of the community were allowed to help work out bugs and push dmd towards a 1.0 that has been coming for 6 years, and has never arrived.

D is quite usable as it is, right now. There's no need to wait for a 1.0. D now is far better than most languages are at 1.0, 2.0, or 3.0.

Ben Hinkle wrote:
>>IMHO, anyone who sees deficiencies in Walter's handling of D should ask himself: why don't I just go ahead and improve D?
> 
> 
> The key question is who defines "improve"?


That's easy: the one doing the improvement, and the ones using a patched compiler :-)


>>And, the changelog shows that Walter is accepting patches, so just go ahead :-)
> 
> 
> The patches so far have been pretty small or they have been entire modules. Which leads to the problem that the overall structure of the library is scattered - each module has its own style. Unorganized development of phobos has lead to an unorganized phobos. 


The original post was about the compiler, not the library -- although I admit that the latter plays an important role in the applicability of the language. Agreed that patches to the frontend are even sparser, but there are no real obstacles that I can see to developing a D compiler or library the open-source way... Still, organising development and obtaining structure is non-trivial, but there are open source projects that are equally challenging and do succeed in this.

If submitted patches are slow to appear in official DMD releases, maybe we should have a repository of patches on some wiki or so, so that people can apply them themselves? If you look at the Linux kernel for example, many patches get used long before they get accepted into the mainline kernel. We could have an equivalent to for example http://lwn.net/Articles/149221/ at the bottom of the page.

Also in analogy to Linux kernel development, someone could maintain an alternative GDC tree with selected patches applied, to make it easier to test them and encourage acceptance into the mainline.


:-)
Bastiaan.

Bastiaan Veelo wrote:
> Ben Hinkle wrote:
> 
>>> IMHO, anyone who sees deficiencies in Walter's handling of D should ask himself: why don't I just go ahead and improve D?
>>
>>
>>
>> The key question is who defines "improve"?
> 
> 
> 
> That's easy: the one doing the improvement, and the ones using a patched compiler :-)
> 
> 
>>> And, the changelog shows that Walter is accepting patches, so just go ahead :-)
>>
>>
>>
>> The patches so far have been pretty small or they have been entire modules. Which leads to the problem that the overall structure of the library is scattered - each module has its own style. Unorganized development of phobos has lead to an unorganized phobos. 
> 
> 
> 
> The original post was about the compiler, not the library -- although I admit that the latter plays an important role in the applicability of the language. Agreed that patches to the frontend are even sparser, but there are no real obstacles that I can see to developing a D compiler or library the open-source way... Still, organising development and obtaining structure is non-trivial, but there are open source projects that are equally challenging and do succeed in this.
> 
> If submitted patches are slow to appear in official DMD releases, maybe we should have a repository of patches on some wiki or so, so that people can apply them themselves? If you look at the Linux kernel for example, many patches get used long before they get accepted into the mainline kernel. We could have an equivalent to for example http://lwn.net/Articles/149221/ at the bottom of the page.
> 
> Also in analogy to Linux kernel development, someone could maintain an alternative GDC tree with selected patches applied, to make it easier to test them and encourage acceptance into the mainline.
> 
> 
> :-)
> Bastiaan.

Is there even a public repository for GDC at the moment?

Walter Bright wrote:
> "Kyle Furlong" <kylefurlong@gmail.com> wrote in message
> news:dfs229$1u34$1@digitaldaemon.com...
> 
>>All that said, he *is* just one man, with the time considerations that a
>>man has. How much better if, under the guidance of Walter and with his
>>approval, knowledgeable and experienced members of the community were
>>allowed to help work out bugs and push dmd towards a 1.0 that has been
>>coming for 6 years, and has never arrived.
> 
> 
> D is quite usable as it is, right now. There's no need to wait for a 1.0. D
> now is far better than most languages are at 1.0, 2.0, or 3.0.
> 
> 
> 

Some people are waiting for "A 1.0 release of DMD and the D spec, so we can have a long-term stable development platform. "