I've been a programmer for 15 years. I program in several programming languages, only for Windows desktop with graphical interface. I have been programming in D for only 1 year and for me D is the best programming language. Why not invest more in Dlang? Better integration of D with Qt5 and Qt6 and the web would make Dlang rise in popularity.

On Friday, 8 January 2021 at 16:26:43 UTC, Marcone wrote:
> I've been a programmer for 15 years. I program in several programming languages, only for Windows desktop with graphical interface. I have been programming in D for only 1 year and for me D is the best programming language. Why not invest more in Dlang? Better integration of D with Qt5 and Qt6 and the web would make Dlang rise in popularity.

https://aberba.com/2020/why-i-still-use-d/

On Friday, 8 January 2021 at 16:26:43 UTC, Marcone wrote:
> I've been a programmer for 15 years. I program in several programming languages, only for Windows desktop with graphical interface. I have been programming in D for only 1 year and for me D is the best programming language. Why not invest more in Dlang? Better integration of D with Qt5 and Qt6 and the web would make Dlang rise in popularity.

I absolutely agree, that D should have better integration with the Qt library. I've used Qt together with Python (PySide) which works pretty well. There is nothing that stops D for being as usable with Qt as well. As D has very powerful metaprogramming, integrating the signals should be possible. C++ with Qt today requires a "pre-compiler" step as it has some additions. Question is how Qt can be integrated with D without this extra "pre-compiler".

On Friday, 8 January 2021 at 16:26:43 UTC, Marcone wrote:
>Why D is not a popular language?

- historical reasons D1 vs D2, paradigm shift from oop to parametricity and value types
- immature tooling
- no killer app
- no large company promoting D including offering jobs for
- the best parts about D: meta programming is at the same time the worst part, it works pretty good in simple cases, soon as you building something complex, it didn't work as you intuitively assumed.
Further, corner cases regarding feature compatibility and compiler bugs/limitations hinders productivity

Double-edged sword is the broad spectrum of paradigms, D's pragmatism. On the one hand side it widens the fields for applicability of D, on the other side it leads to a community with mixed or better contrary goals impeding commitment to convention.

However, all these things aren't either dramatic.


> Better integration of D with Qt5 and Qt6 and the web would make Dlang rise in popularity.

Yes, but also better Gtk support would be good? Or maybe something new completely in D?

The biggest part for me is more software ergonomic feeling when developing with D. We are not in the eighties anymore. I don't know surely if we can realize better tooling by utilizing and improving the DMD compiler, maybe we need, just as it is the case for Java, an D IDE compiler.

On Friday, 8 January 2021 at 16:31:34 UTC, IGotD- wrote:
> ...

Serious question: Is applications for desktop a thing?

I usually write (For Hobby/Work) batch programs which is executed directly from terminal or WEB applications.

In fact where I work most of the desktop applications were migrated to WEB.

Matheus.

On Friday, 8 January 2021 at 18:14:49 UTC, matheus wrote:
>
> Serious question: Is applications for desktop a thing?
>

It is a thing, for Anything that needs a GUI, and for some reason does not fit the web because it has some performance or data throughput requirement.
games
video apps
graphics apps
audio apps
...

though of course Web-based software will rightfully eat into those applications that were native without reason.

On Friday, 8 January 2021 at 18:13:52 UTC, sighoya wrote:
> On Friday, 8 January 2021 at 16:26:43 UTC, Marcone wrote:
>>Why D is not a popular language?
>
> -
>
>> Better integration of D with Qt5 and Qt6 and the web would make Dlang rise in popularity.
>
> Yes, but also better Gtk support would be good?

I'm not sure how gtkd can be made any better than it already is. I've got no complaints so far.

Qt isn't even cool. Use GTK-d.


Or maybe
> something new completely in D?
We have BeamU and DlangUI. They just don't have enough manpower to polish them up faster.

>
> The biggest part for me is more software ergonomic feeling when developing with D. We are not in the eighties anymore. I don't know surely if we can realize better tooling by utilizing and improving the DMD compiler, maybe we need, just as it is the case for Java, an D IDE compiler.

If you're on Windows, Visual Studio with Visual-d should be enough. There's also the popular VS code.

On Friday, 8 January 2021 at 20:23:18 UTC, aberba wrote:
> I'm not sure how gtkd can be made any better than it already is. I've got no complaints so far.

GTK 4 support?

> Qt isn't even cool. Use GTK-d.

Okay, I will remember.


> We have BeamU and DlangUI. They just don't have enough manpower to polish them up faster.

Interesting, thanks. Cross-platform and pure D-Code in beamUI seems promising...
But I've never really heard about people talking about here, why?

> If you're on Windows, Visual Studio with Visual-d should be enough. There's also the popular VS code.

Yes, syntax checking and code completion is already quite good (even in eclipse), however we have, afaict, no semantic checking yet.
We would either need to call DMD/LDC/GDC as compiler service (don't know to which extent this is possible, or we need a new compiler for the IDE).
But heck, writing a new compiler incurs a lot of work and time to get in sync with semantic D.

On Friday, 8 January 2021 at 20:23:18 UTC, aberba wrote:
> On Friday, 8 January 2021 at 18:13:52 UTC, sighoya wrote:
>> On Friday, 8 January 2021 at 16:26:43 UTC, Marcone wrote:
>>>Why D is not a popular language?
>>
>> -
>>
>>> Better integration of D with Qt5 and Qt6 and the web would make Dlang rise in popularity.
>>
>> Yes, but also better Gtk support would be good?
>
> I'm not sure how gtkd can be made any better than it already is. I've got no complaints so far.
>
> Qt isn't even cool. Use GTK-d.
>
>
> Or maybe
>> something new completely in D?
> We have BeamU and DlangUI. They just don't have enough manpower to polish them up faster.

Does DLangUI has a GUI designer? I've heard of this one before

On Saturday, 9 January 2021 at 02:07:49 UTC, Jack wrote:
> On Friday, 8 January 2021 at 20:23:18 UTC, aberba wrote:
>> On Friday, 8 January 2021 at 18:13:52 UTC, sighoya wrote:
>>> On Friday, 8 January 2021 at 16:26:43 UTC, Marcone wrote:
>>>>Why D is not a popular language?
>>>
>>> -
>>>
>>>> Better integration of D with Qt5 and Qt6 and the web would make Dlang rise in popularity.
>>>
>>> Yes, but also better Gtk support would be good?
>>
>> I'm not sure how gtkd can be made any better than it already is. I've got no complaints so far.
>>
>> Qt isn't even cool. Use GTK-d.
>>
>>
>> Or maybe
>>> something new completely in D?
>> We have BeamU and DlangUI. They just don't have enough manpower to polish them up faster.
>
> Does DLangUI has a GUI designer? I've heard of this one before

Short answer: NO

But look in examples, there is quick markup viewer in demo's which you can use to design your UI with markup on the fly

(I think it was this one)
https://github.com/buggins/dlangui/tree/master/examples/dmledit


P.S. unfortunately DlangUI is currently abandoned, the project author doesn't have time and AFAIK nobody else is volunteered to pick up the maintenance.