On 19/03/2018 5:05 PM, Norm wrote:
> On Monday, 19 March 2018 at 03:53:07 UTC, rikki cattermole wrote:
>> On 19/03/2018 4:43 PM, Norm wrote:
>>> On Monday, 19 March 2018 at 03:14:51 UTC, rikki cattermole wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Did they at any point tell us that it was a blocker for your company who was trialing D?
>>>>
>>>> Because I do not remember once in that time period of any one saying this.
>>>>
>>>> Walter has gone out of his way in the past to help companies, even flying to them on his own dime.
>>>>
>>>> If you want to be treated special, we need to have a reason for you to be treated special, otherwise you're just like everybody else complaining without giving back.
>>>
>>> We don't want to be treated special. We don't want to give back. This is the *entire* point.
>>>
>>> D claims to be "Industry Proven and Ready" but we have to submit PRs or get special treatment from Walter to use it effectively? Sorry, but this is why many feel that D is still just a hobby project.
>>>
>>> We are an organisation trying to get work done. D was a potential replacement of our existing C++/Python tool chain. Unfortunately it *requires* us to give back, which as I stated is not our business. Our business is the development of medical devices and supporting application software, not compiler or language development.
>>
>> You just said the magic word, medical.
>>
>> D was never an appropriate fit here.
>>
>> dmd's backend has been for thirty years (or so) been up to recently licensed so that you may not use it for this purpose. Nothing has changed here.
> 
> I have no idea what you're talking about now.
> 
> What has the backend license got to do with medical?

The code generation capabilities of dmd has not been certified for medical usage.

In essence, if it generated bad code, kills somebody, your the one at fault, even if the source is fine. You would end up begging to settle out of court.

It is my understanding that medical software manufacturers pay for their compilers already certified. So that suggests to me that you're not exactly life threatening but I would still caution you away from D even if that bit is just my own opinion.

On Monday, March 19, 2018 17:15:26 rikki cattermole via Digitalmars-d wrote:
> On 19/03/2018 5:05 PM, Norm wrote:
> > On Monday, 19 March 2018 at 03:53:07 UTC, rikki cattermole wrote:
> >> You just said the magic word, medical.
> >>
> >> D was never an appropriate fit here.
> >>
> >> dmd's backend has been for thirty years (or so) been up to recently licensed so that you may not use it for this purpose. Nothing has changed here.
> >
> > I have no idea what you're talking about now.
> >
> > What has the backend license got to do with medical?
>
> The code generation capabilities of dmd has not been certified for medical usage.
>
> In essence, if it generated bad code, kills somebody, your the one at fault, even if the source is fine. You would end up begging to settle out of court.
>
> It is my understanding that medical software manufacturers pay for their compilers already certified. So that suggests to me that you're not exactly life threatening but I would still caution you away from D even if that bit is just my own opinion.

It may be there are compilers certified for that sort of thing (I'm certainly no expert on the subject), but AFAIK, basically every compiler ever says that it's not certified or guaranteed for anything, because the compiler writers don't want to get sued if something goes wrong regardless of what you're using it for.

- Jonathan M Davis

On Monday, 19 March 2018 at 02:56:32 UTC, Norm wrote:
> +1024 bytes
>
> I think D is a terrific language worthy of all the praise it gets and it is way way more stable than it was 3yrs ago. But the attitude of submit a PR if you want it fixed works very much against D. Like it or not these forums are a front page on the D marketing campaign.

But do you know that? Maybe without that attitude fewer PRs would have been submitted. Perhaps that attitude works, just doesn't work well enough for your purposes. But maybe without that attitude D would've been even less suitable for you?

> a) We're not in the business of developing and maintaining D, but it seems that is what we would need to do as a company. We are better off with C++ and Python.
>
> b) D feels like C++ did back in the mid 90's. A time when we avoided templates and often the STL because compiler implementations were too buggy. We are better off with C++ and Python.

So you rejected D because of compiler bugs, missing tools, etc., not because of nasty attitude of some people on the forums? Fair enough, and it's entirely possible that DMD (or whatever) is not good enough for you, but what makes you think that improving the attitude would do anything to fix bugs? Only PRs can do that.

Anyway, as far as I can tell, when people answer to complainers "send a PR or GTFO", they're just telling it like it is. Ignoring the reality won't make it stop being the objective state of affairs.

> D claims to be "Industry Proven and Ready" but we have to submit PRs
> or get special treatment from Walter to use it effectively? Sorry, but
> this is why many feel that D is still just a hobby project.

D doesn't "claim" anything, it's just a programming language. Some people claim some things, it's your job to determine how true their propaganda is.
Also, what is wrong or unworthy about hobby projects? Pretty sure my hobby (which is not hacking on DMD) is a lot more important (to me) than your medical company ;)

On 19/03/2018 5:23 PM, Jonathan M Davis wrote:
> On Monday, March 19, 2018 17:15:26 rikki cattermole via Digitalmars-d wrote:
>> On 19/03/2018 5:05 PM, Norm wrote:
>>> On Monday, 19 March 2018 at 03:53:07 UTC, rikki cattermole wrote:
>>>> You just said the magic word, medical.
>>>>
>>>> D was never an appropriate fit here.
>>>>
>>>> dmd's backend has been for thirty years (or so) been up to recently
>>>> licensed so that you may not use it for this purpose. Nothing has
>>>> changed here.
>>>
>>> I have no idea what you're talking about now.
>>>
>>> What has the backend license got to do with medical?
>>
>> The code generation capabilities of dmd has not been certified for
>> medical usage.
>>
>> In essence, if it generated bad code, kills somebody, your the one at
>> fault, even if the source is fine. You would end up begging to settle
>> out of court.
>>
>> It is my understanding that medical software manufacturers pay for their
>> compilers already certified. So that suggests to me that you're not
>> exactly life threatening but I would still caution you away from D even
>> if that bit is just my own opinion.
> 
> It may be there are compilers certified for that sort of thing (I'm
> certainly no expert on the subject), but AFAIK, basically every compiler
> ever says that it's not certified or guaranteed for anything, because the
> compiler writers don't want to get sued if something goes wrong regardless
> of what you're using it for.
> 
> - Jonathan M Davis
> 

Here is clang's[0], nothing about medical. Just you can't sue us when it goes wrong.

Compare against[1], clearly its a big deal safety wise. This is why I will say specifically even for D that I love, do not use it here.

[0] http://releases.llvm.org/2.8/LICENSE.TXT
[1] https://developer.arm.com/products/software-development-tools/compilers/arm-compiler/safety

On Monday, 19 March 2018 at 01:15:28 UTC, Manu wrote:

> Or hire staff who are paid to work on 'boring' issues. I would make regular donations if I could be satisfied that my decade old issues would be addressed. I wonder how many others would too?

That's actually possible now for corporate sponsors, though it takes a fair chunk of change, but you get 3 bug fixes a month: https://opencollective.com/dlang#budget

My understanding is that more options will be made available later.

On Monday, 19 March 2018 at 04:15:26 UTC, rikki cattermole wrote:
> On 19/03/2018 5:05 PM, Norm wrote:
>> On Monday, 19 March 2018 at 03:53:07 UTC, rikki cattermole wrote:
>>> On 19/03/2018 4:43 PM, Norm wrote:
>>>> On Monday, 19 March 2018 at 03:14:51 UTC, rikki cattermole wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> Did they at any point tell us that it was a blocker for your company who was trialing D?
>>>>>
>>>>> Because I do not remember once in that time period of any one saying this.
>>>>>
>>>>> Walter has gone out of his way in the past to help companies, even flying to them on his own dime.
>>>>>
>>>>> If you want to be treated special, we need to have a reason for you to be treated special, otherwise you're just like everybody else complaining without giving back.
>>>>
>>>> We don't want to be treated special. We don't want to give back. This is the *entire* point.
>>>>
>>>> D claims to be "Industry Proven and Ready" but we have to submit PRs or get special treatment from Walter to use it effectively? Sorry, but this is why many feel that D is still just a hobby project.
>>>>
>>>> We are an organisation trying to get work done. D was a potential replacement of our existing C++/Python tool chain. Unfortunately it *requires* us to give back, which as I stated is not our business. Our business is the development of medical devices and supporting application software, not compiler or language development.
>>>
>>> You just said the magic word, medical.
>>>
>>> D was never an appropriate fit here.
>>>
>>> dmd's backend has been for thirty years (or so) been up to recently licensed so that you may not use it for this purpose. Nothing has changed here.
>> 
>> I have no idea what you're talking about now.
>> 
>> What has the backend license got to do with medical?
>
> The code generation capabilities of dmd has not been certified for medical usage.
>
> In essence, if it generated bad code, kills somebody, your the one at fault, even if the source is fine. You would end up begging to settle out of court.
>
> It is my understanding that medical software manufacturers pay for their compilers already certified. So that suggests to me that you're not exactly life threatening but I would still caution you away from D even if that bit is just my own opinion.

No, compilers do not need to be certified for class B or class C software. These are the two highest safety classes for medical SW. Beyond class C SW is not allowed, e.g. safety critical interlocks such as the big red button to shut off a radiation dose or stop a robotic system.

Compilers are are treated as SOUP (Software of Unknown Provenance), i.e. a black box. Risk analysis leads to risk control measures that in turn ensure people don't die and this is done at the system and component level, not the codegen level. Verification is performed to ensure the system implements the requirements correctly, and subsequently the risk control measures. Not all requirements are risk control measures, but all requirements must be verified as correct.

Cheers,
Norm

On 18 March 2018 at 21:34, bachmeier via Digitalmars-d <digitalmars-d@puremagic.com> wrote:
> On Monday, 19 March 2018 at 01:15:28 UTC, Manu wrote:
>
>> Or hire staff who are paid to work on 'boring' issues. I would make
>> regular donations if I could be satisfied that my decade old issues would be
>> addressed. I wonder how many others would too?
>
>
> That's actually possible now for corporate sponsors, though it takes a fair chunk of change, but you get 3 bug fixes a month: https://opencollective.com/dlang#budget
>
> My understanding is that more options will be made available later.

I dun supported.

On Monday, 19 March 2018 at 05:27:20 UTC, Norm wrote:
> On Monday, 19 March 2018 at 04:15:26 UTC, rikki cattermole wrote:
>> On 19/03/2018 5:05 PM, Norm wrote:
>>> On Monday, 19 March 2018 at 03:53:07 UTC, rikki cattermole wrote:
>>>> On 19/03/2018 4:43 PM, Norm wrote:
>>>>> [...]
>>>>
>>>> You just said the magic word, medical.
>>>>
>>>> D was never an appropriate fit here.
>>>>
>>>> dmd's backend has been for thirty years (or so) been up to recently licensed so that you may not use it for this purpose. Nothing has changed here.
>>> 
>>> I have no idea what you're talking about now.
>>> 
>>> What has the backend license got to do with medical?
>>
>> The code generation capabilities of dmd has not been certified for medical usage.
>>
>> In essence, if it generated bad code, kills somebody, your the one at fault, even if the source is fine. You would end up begging to settle out of court.
>>
>> It is my understanding that medical software manufacturers pay for their compilers already certified. So that suggests to me that you're not exactly life threatening but I would still caution you away from D even if that bit is just my own opinion.
>
> No, compilers do not need to be certified for class B or class C software. These are the two highest safety classes for medical SW. Beyond class C SW is not allowed, e.g. safety critical interlocks such as the big red button to shut off a radiation dose or stop a robotic system.
>
> Compilers are are treated as SOUP (Software of Unknown Provenance), i.e. a black box. Risk analysis leads to risk control measures that in turn ensure people don't die and this is done at the system and component level, not the codegen level. Verification is performed to ensure the system implements the requirements correctly, and subsequently the risk control measures. Not all requirements are risk control measures, but all requirements must be verified as correct.
>
> Cheers,
> Norm

I was the CTO and partner of a company using D in medical devices since more than ten years ago... as Norm wrote, medical software is a strange beast...

Anyway, as someone else wrote, when I leaved the company, two years ago, the new CTO and my former colleague, decided not to invest anymore in D. After ten years of use.

Said that, I'm pretty happy about what's happening in D Land in the last 3/4 months, but clearly there's a lot to be done.

/Paolo

On 2018-03-19 01:00, Manu wrote:

> It's not aggression, it's a decade of compounded frustration.

Perhaps you can give this a try: https://forum.dlang.org/thread/ojxxjixcxnztmsskyuud@forum.dlang.org

-- 
/Jacob Carlborg

On 19 March 2018 at 13:00, Jacob Carlborg via Digitalmars-d <digitalmars-d@puremagic.com> wrote:
> On 2018-03-19 01:00, Manu wrote:
>
>> It's not aggression, it's a decade of compounded frustration.
>
>
> Perhaps you can give this a try: https://forum.dlang.org/thread/ojxxjixcxnztmsskyuud@forum.dlang.org

Haha. Yeah, mine was the very first response, linking to this exact issue! Just one of the many ways I've tried to resurrect interest in this issue :P