Walter Bright Wrote:

> Bill Baxter wrote:
> > I think there was some hope that making a really stable D1.0 would somehow make D1.0 an attractive choice for companies.  But come on. It was a stretch when D1 was just a niche language.  Now it's a niche language that's also obsolete.
> 
> People made it clear they were not going to use a language for production if it got new features every month. D 1.0 is a complete and very usable language, with the goal of being stable and bug free.
> 

Are they going to use the language if it is practically dead? No new features added, D2 too experimental and practically another language. D2 goes so far away from D1 that the task to port a big project seems very unappealing. Plus it is a different language. I come from C++ and like D because it fixes the stupidness of C++ while remaining fast and not too high level. D2 becomes too high level for me... So what is the point to develop for D1? To be honest what I read recently about D2 drives me off. I love D1 and I'd love to have some of the D2 features, but not D2. Now I hope for something like LLVMDC that will keep D1 alive and maybe developing. I brought this up before, but unfortunately Walter didn't respond (http://www.digitalmars.com/webnews/newsgroups.php?art_group=digitalmars.D&article_id=76149). I fully support Bill Baxter's post.

bobef wrote:
> Walter Bright Wrote:
> 
>> Bill Baxter wrote:
>>> I think there was some hope that making a really stable D1.0 would
>>> somehow make D1.0 an attractive choice for companies.  But come on.
>>> It was a stretch when D1 was just a niche language.  Now it's a niche
>>> language that's also obsolete.
>> People made it clear they were not going to use a language for
>> production if it got new features every month. D 1.0 is a complete and
>> very usable language, with the goal of being stable and bug free.
>>
> 
> Are they going to use the language if it is practically dead? No new features added, D2 too experimental and practically another language. D2 goes so far away from D1 that the task to port a big project seems very unappealing. Plus it is a different language. I come from C++ and like D because it fixes the stupidness of C++ while remaining fast and not too high level. D2 becomes too high level for me... So what is the point to develop for D1? To be honest what I read recently about D2 drives me off. I love D1 and I'd love to have some of the D2 features, but not D2. Now I hope for something like LLVMDC that will keep D1 alive and maybe developing. I brought this up before, but unfortunately Walter didn't respond (http://www.digitalmars.com/webnews/newsgroups.php?art_group=digitalmars.D&article_id=76149). I fully support Bill Baxter's post.

I have a growing, evolving code base that I plan to use for a long time. Initially, I was developing it in D1. I've since moved to Java. My reasoning follows what is expressed here. D2 is so far gone from D1 that I have no interest in porting. Nor do I have any desire to use a language that seems obsoleted. Maybe that's just perception, but the dearth of mature development tools (considering the amount of time D1 has been stable -- since well before D 1.0 was released) certainly does little to dispel it.

I've not given up on D altogether. I'm actively (albeit slowly) working on one project with D1 while maintaining another, and have a couple in the pipe waiting for D2 to finalize (and for the D Runtime project to mature and for Tango to support D2). But all of that is on the side and doesn't put food on the table. As far as my meat and potatoes work, I feel like D missed the boat. All of the attention on D2 just turned me off. It's rather frustrating sometimes working with D1 code and pining for a feature that is already in/coming to D2.

bobef wrote:
> Walter Bright Wrote:
> 
>> Bill Baxter wrote:
>>> I think there was some hope that making a really stable D1.0 would
>>> somehow make D1.0 an attractive choice for companies.  But come on.
>>> It was a stretch when D1 was just a niche language.  Now it's a niche
>>> language that's also obsolete.
>> People made it clear they were not going to use a language for
>> production if it got new features every month. D 1.0 is a complete and
>> very usable language, with the goal of being stable and bug free.
>>
> 
> Are they going to use the language if it is practically dead? No new features added, D2 too experimental and practically another language. D2 goes so far away from D1 that the task to port a big project seems very unappealing. Plus it is a different language. I come from C++ and like D because it fixes the stupidness of C++ while remaining fast and not too high level. D2 becomes too high level for me... So what is the point to develop for D1? To be honest what I read recently about D2 drives me off. I love D1 and I'd love to have some of the D2 features, but not D2. Now I hope for something like LLVMDC that will keep D1 alive and maybe developing. I brought this up before, but unfortunately Walter didn't respond (http://www.digitalmars.com/webnews/newsgroups.php?art_group=digitalmars.D&article_id=76149). I fully support Bill Baxter's post.

The issue isn't the lack of new features, so much as bugs being labeled enhancements and not being fixed in D1.

If you want the new features, you can switch to D2, so I don't see that as a problem. (I want the new features, but I'm waiting for Tango support.)

On Sat, Oct 11, 2008 at 11:07 PM, Christopher Wright <dhasenan@gmail.com> wrote:
> bobef wrote:
>>
>> Walter Bright Wrote:
>>
>>> Bill Baxter wrote:
>>>>
>>>> I think there was some hope that making a really stable D1.0 would somehow make D1.0 an attractive choice for companies.  But come on. It was a stretch when D1 was just a niche language.  Now it's a niche language that's also obsolete.
>>>
>>> People made it clear they were not going to use a language for production if it got new features every month. D 1.0 is a complete and very usable language, with the goal of being stable and bug free.
>>>
>>
>> Are they going to use the language if it is practically dead? No new
>> features added, D2 too experimental and practically another language. D2
>> goes so far away from D1 that the task to port a big project seems very
>> unappealing. Plus it is a different language. I come from C++ and like D
>> because it fixes the stupidness of C++ while remaining fast and not too high
>> level. D2 becomes too high level for me... So what is the point to develop
>> for D1? To be honest what I read recently about D2 drives me off. I love D1
>> and I'd love to have some of the D2 features, but not D2. Now I hope for
>> something like LLVMDC that will keep D1 alive and maybe developing. I
>> brought this up before, but unfortunately Walter didn't respond
>> (http://www.digitalmars.com/webnews/newsgroups.php?art_group=digitalmars.D&article_id=76149).
>> I fully support Bill Baxter's post.
>
> The issue isn't the lack of new features, so much as bugs being labeled enhancements and not being fixed in D1.

Is there anything in that category other than the partial IFTI stuff? I was thinking there were very few such cases, actually.

> If you want the new features, you can switch to D2, so I don't see that as a problem. (I want the new features, but I'm waiting for Tango support.)

I see three potential categories of D users:
1) bleeding edgers who want the latest and greatest -- don't care if
it breaks everything
2) want the latest stuff  -- but don't want it to break my code
3) want only bug fixes -- also don't want it to break my code

Right now we have editions of D to satisfy groups 1 and 3.  But I really just can't understand the logic of someone who would be in group 3.  Let's face it: deciding to use D at all is a huge risk.  But it's worth the risk to some of us because of the *features* D offers over the alternatives.  If you were willing to take the big risk to use D, why then would you not want benefit fully from all the Goodness D has to offer, if it only costs you a negligible bit of additional risk?  I can totally understand not wanting to take the full risk of D2, having been through many rounds of breakages in D0 compilers myself, when that was the only game in town.  But features that have been tested in D2 and which are backwards compatible with D1?  Why would anyone be against those?  Sure some percentage of them are going to have gotchas.  But then again some percentage of current D1 compilers have gotchas.  When that happens you just wait out a release or two.  No major loss since D has new releases almost every month.


--bb

Bill Baxter Wrote:

> 
> I see three potential categories of D users:
> 1) bleeding edgers who want the latest and greatest -- don't care if
> it breaks everything
> 2) want the latest stuff  -- but don't want it to break my code
> 3) want only bug fixes -- also don't want it to break my code
> 

4) bleeding edgers who want to use Tango - sorry you lose
5) people who actually like D1 and don't want it to become new language - losers
2) and 3) actually lose too because D2 will break their code very hard
and category 3) will be forced to break their code because once D2 is declared stable D1 will probably be declared deprecated

bobef wrote:
> To be honest what I read
> recently about D2 drives me off. I love D1 and I'd love to have some
> of the D2 features, but not D2.

I don't get it.

Bill Baxter wrote:
> But features that have
> been tested in D2 and which are backwards compatible with D1?  Why
> would anyone be against those?

Because then you lose the definition of what is D 1.0. I believe there is considerable value not only in a stable compiler, but a stable language definition.

bobef wrote:
> category 3) will be forced to break their code because
> once D2 is declared stable D1 will probably be declared deprecated

No, I intend to support D1 as long as there is interest in it.

Walter Bright wrote:
> bobef wrote:
>> To be honest what I read
>> recently about D2 drives me off. I love D1 and I'd love to have some
>> of the D2 features, but not D2.
> 
> I don't get it.

"If I had asked my customers what they wanted, they would have asked for a faster horse." - Henry Ford

A...

On Sat, 11 Oct 2008 12:54:47 -0700, Walter Bright wrote:

> bobef wrote:
>> category 3) will be forced to break their code because
>> once D2 is declared stable D1 will probably be declared deprecated
> 
> No, I intend to support D1 as long as there is interest in it.

I'm no longer using D at all. I've lost interest in D1 as D2 looks to be much, much better. However D2 is a currently whirlwind of uncertainty. I'd love to use some parts of Tango but not D1. I like Phobos (but admit it still has too many warts and omissions) but D2 is just not worth my time yet. I tried coding in D2 but a lot of that code is going to need significant rework when the cabal have finalized their deliberations, which look like being at least 12 months away.

-- 
Derek Parnell
Melbourne, Australia
skype: derek.j.parnell