Occasionally people ask what they can do to help promote D. All these are free and effective:

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Use it for your projects. At work, point out how much more productive it is.

Write articles/blogs about your experiences using D.

Submit patches for better D support for gnu tools like gdb.

Give a presentation on D at your local programmers' club meeting.

Give a presentation on D at your place of employment, or to your class at school.

Submit presentation abstracts on D to conferences. The nice thing is that if your abstract is accepted, you'll get a free ticket to the conference and maybe even get your travel expenses paid! Well worth while.

Read programming articles and if they don't mention D, but should, email the author and point it out.

Make relevant comments about D on programming threads on Reddit, Slashdot, Gamedev.net, stackoverflow, ycombinator, etc.

Promote open source D applications that you or others have written.

Email tool vendors and ask for D support.

Email web sites that have categories for programming languages that don't include D, and ask for a D category.

Improve Wikipedia pages that mention D. Add mention of D to Wiki pages that should mention it. If you know another language, translate the D Wiki pages to the Wiki for that language.

Email prolific programming book authors and suggest that they do a book on D programming.

Email programming book publishers and ask for books about D.

The problem I have explaining why somebody should take up D is that I know not enough about the languages they use to actually show them the things they are missing. Sometimes it is the, for me, obvious feature like functions within functions that tilts their heads a bit.

On Sun, 10 May 2009 09:27:49 +0200, Saaa wrote:

> The problem I have explaining why somebody should take up D is that I know not enough about the languages they use to actually show them the things they are missing. Sometimes it is the, for me, obvious feature like functions within functions that tilts their heads a bit.

It looks to me that Walter's points aren't about convincing people to use it, but to show that you are using it, that there are customers.

Convincing people to use your language rarely works. If they needed a different language they would have found one. Funny thing is I like looking at different languages and so does my friend, but neither of us actually tried the other's language.

Jesse Phillips wrote:
> It looks to me that Walter's points aren't about convincing people to use it, but to show that you are using it, that there are customers.

That's right. It's called "social proof". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Proof

Apple, for example, uses social proof as the central theme in its marketing campaigns.

Back in the 1970's, Dr. Pepper hilariously used social proof in their oxymoronic campaign "join the non-conformists!"

So, what language do you use?
> D
Ok.. why?
> (Runs away)


>> It looks to me that Walter's points aren't about convincing people to use it, but to show that you are using it, that there are customers.
>
> That's right. It's called "social proof". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Proof
>
> Apple, for example, uses social proof as the central theme in its marketing campaigns.
>
> Back in the 1970's, Dr. Pepper hilariously used social proof in their oxymoronic campaign "join the non-conformists!"

Walter Bright wrote:
> Jesse Phillips wrote:
>> It looks to me that Walter's points aren't about convincing people to use it, but to show that you are using it, that there are customers.
> 
> That's right. It's called "social proof". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Proof
> 
> Apple, for example, uses social proof as the central theme in its marketing campaigns.
> 
> Back in the 1970's, Dr. Pepper hilariously used social proof in their oxymoronic campaign "join the non-conformists!"

Social proof eh? hmm interesting. That's why I decided to learn vim, not because I felt or thought I needed to, but because it *seemed* that /real/ programmers use vim. You know what I mean?

hasen wrote:
> Walter Bright wrote:
>> Jesse Phillips wrote:
>>> It looks to me that Walter's points aren't about convincing people to use it, but to show that you are using it, that there are customers.
>>
>> That's right. It's called "social proof". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Proof
>>
>> Apple, for example, uses social proof as the central theme in its marketing campaigns.
>>
>> Back in the 1970's, Dr. Pepper hilariously used social proof in their oxymoronic campaign "join the non-conformists!"
> 
> Social proof eh? hmm interesting. That's why I decided to learn vim, not because I felt or thought I needed to, but because it *seemed* that /real/ programmers use vim. You know what I mean?

Absolutely. Some of the best dating advice I've ever got: just be yourself.

No, I was kidding :o). It was: be seen with women. It's social proof.


Andrei

On Mon, 11 May 2009 04:48:16 +0200, Saaa wrote:

> So, what language do you use?
>> D
> Ok.. why?

Just keep your answers simple...

"It compiles to machine code."

"Why not C++"

"It is safer, less complex"

Let the person interested probe for answers they want answers to.

"Andrei Alexandrescu" <SeeWebsiteForEmail@erdani.org> wrote in message news:gu89ev$jq8$1@digitalmars.com...
> hasen wrote:
>> Walter Bright wrote:
>>> Jesse Phillips wrote:
>>>> It looks to me that Walter's points aren't about convincing people to use it, but to show that you are using it, that there are customers.
>>>
>>> That's right. It's called "social proof". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Proof
>>>
>>> Apple, for example, uses social proof as the central theme in its marketing campaigns.
>>>
>>> Back in the 1970's, Dr. Pepper hilariously used social proof in their oxymoronic campaign "join the non-conformists!"
>>
>> Social proof eh? hmm interesting. That's why I decided to learn vim, not because I felt or thought I needed to, but because it *seemed* that /real/ programmers use vim. You know what I mean?
>
> Absolutely. Some of the best dating advice I've ever got: just be yourself.
>
> No, I was kidding :o). It was: be seen with women. It's social proof.
>

I think "The 'if-others-are-doing-it-then-it-*must*-be-right' Fallacy" is probably a much more accurate term for "social proof". I realize "social proof" is the typical term for it, but calling it that just seems like trying to call the ad hominem fallacy "associative proof".

Hello Nick,

> I think "The 'if-others-are-doing-it-then-it-*must*-be-right' Fallacy"
> is probably a much more accurate term for "social proof". I realize
> "social proof" is the typical term for it, but calling it that just
> seems like trying to call the ad hominem fallacy "associative proof".
> 

It marketing. Why do you expect them to lable it correctly? (Rule of Acquisition 239)