On Monday, 13 January 2020 at 11:57:26 UTC, Chris Katko wrote:
>  - Fix bugs (and improve documentation) that pushes away newcomers

I'd like to add "finish half-baked features" and "improve tooling" to that point, as well. In the long run, the last few years' work to make the GC precise (that is, not leak memory) and truly optional (via making betterC usable for mere mortals), nail down the semantics of shared, implement scope, improve @safe, etc. will help D's reputation far more than changing the color of the website ever could.

I think people on the D forums are always trying to blame D's lack of success on "marketing problems", but reading outside discussion it's clear to me that most people who have tried and rejected D did so because of bugs, unfinished features, and/or poor tooling. The ones who've heard of D and rejected it without trying it have done so because someone else told them about these problems, or because they're opposed to D's perceived dependence on a GC.

If D has a marketing problem, I think it's mainly that a lot (but far from all) of the issues that have frustrated people who tried it out in the past have actually been fixed, but the world has moved on and many don't realize how massively better D is today compared to 5 or 10 years ago in practice, even though it hasn't changed that much in concept.

TLDR; I like the classic red branding. ;-)

On Monday, 13 January 2020 at 13:33:49 UTC, tsbockman wrote:
> On Monday, 13 January 2020 at 11:57:26 UTC, Chris Katko wrote:
>>  - Fix bugs (and improve documentation) that pushes away
>
> TLDR; I like the classic red branding. ;-)

Nah it's the classic bikesheding.

On Monday, 13 January 2020 at 13:33:49 UTC, tsbockman wrote:
> On Monday, 13 January 2020 at 11:57:26 UTC, Chris Katko wrote:
>>  - Fix bugs (and improve documentation) that pushes away newcomers
>
> I'd like to add "finish half-baked features" and "improve tooling" to that point, as well. In the long run, the last few years' work to make the GC precise (that is, not leak memory) and truly optional (via making betterC usable for mere mortals), nail down the semantics of shared, implement scope, improve @safe, etc. will help D's reputation far more than changing the color of the website ever could.
>
> I think people on the D forums are always trying to blame D's lack of success on "marketing problems", but reading outside discussion it's clear to me that most people who have tried and rejected D did so because of bugs, unfinished features, and/or poor tooling. The ones who've heard of D and rejected it without trying it have done so because someone else told them about these problems, or because they're opposed to D's perceived dependence on a GC.
>
> If D has a marketing problem, I think it's mainly that a lot (but far from all) of the issues that have frustrated people who tried it out in the past have actually been fixed, but the world has moved on and many don't realize how massively better D is today compared to 5 or 10 years ago in practice, even though it hasn't changed that much in concept.
>
> TLDR; I like the classic red branding. ;-)

I totally agree. The D community should focus first on bugfixing and developing the agreed upon improvements/features. To be honest, I never reflected on the color of this site and it doesn't bother me at all. What bothers me more is when the documentation is out of date or insufficient.

Also, if there were any change to site I would first try to create a real forum with modern features rather than the old archaic news group interface like it was the 1990s.

On Monday, 13 January 2020 at 04:21:54 UTC, James Lu wrote:
> As we know, D has a branding problem. I suggest a small step towards fixing that branding problem, namely changing D's brand color to a shade of blue.
>
> Red is associated with excitement, danger, anger, and action. Danger and anger and excitement are not positive qualities of a systems programming language.

Red is the colour of Coca Cola and Ferrari. You could say: "D is fast and has a refreshing taste".

A bigger issue in my opinion is, that the name itself is not very creative.
It makes sense because it tells something like: "You like C and don't like C++ as sucessor. The real sucessor of C is D!"

But whenever I try to convince someone to try out D i have to say either.
"Have you heard of D?" "Yeah, it's this letter which comes after C in the ABC"
or
"Have you heard of the programming language D?", which sounds worse than something like: "Have you heard of rust?"

Desipte this I wouldn't change any branding, because most important thing of branding is that you stick with it. When was the last time Coca Cola changed their logo?

On Monday, 13 January 2020 at 15:06:15 UTC, René Heldmaier wrote:
> Desipte this I wouldn't change any branding, because most important thing of branding is that you stick with it. When was the last time Coca Cola changed their logo?

A lot: https://www.coca-colacompany.com/au/news/trace-the-130-year-evolution-of-the-coca-cola-logo

Matheus.

On Monday, 13 January 2020 at 15:11:08 UTC, matheus wrote:
> On Monday, 13 January 2020 at 15:06:15 UTC, René Heldmaier wrote:
>> Desipte this I wouldn't change any branding, because most important thing of branding is that you stick with it. When was the last time Coca Cola changed their logo?
>
> A lot: https://www.coca-colacompany.com/au/news/trace-the-130-year-evolution-of-the-coca-cola-logo
>
> Matheus.

Nah, they tried a new font a century ago, then restored the original a year after. It basically hasn’t changed since. Once they started using colour, they stuck to the same one ever since.

Bastiaan.

On Monday, 13 January 2020 at 11:54:21 UTC, Chris Katko wrote:
> On Monday, 13 January 2020 at 04:21:54 UTC, James Lu wrote:
>> As we know, D has a branding problem. I suggest a small step towards fixing that branding problem, namely changing D's brand color to a shade of blue.
>
> Oh. My. God.
>
> The over 1 billion Chinese people on the planet see red as luck, joy, and happiness. Color meanings are NOT consistent across cultures. Blue for example, is often associated with depression, loneliness and saddness... "feeling blue". So you're suggesting we make D feel like a dead language? :P
>
> Changing the color of a language to increase popularity is the beyond absurd, as is comparing the color of a website to warning colors in nature. People aren't that stupid--nobody is choosing a language because of the _color_ of the website.

Thanks for pointing that out.

Besides, I like my dlang panes to stand out a little, imagine all websites looked the same!

Bastiaan.

On Mon, Jan 13, 2020 at 03:06:15PM +0000, René Heldmaier via Digitalmars-d wrote: [...]
> A bigger issue in my opinion is, that the name itself is not very creative.  It makes sense because it tells something like: "You like C and don't like C++ as sucessor. The real sucessor of C is D!"
[...]

Actually, the original name of the language is Mars.  It only became D after users persistently referred to it as such (I wasn't here at the time so I don't know the whole story behind it, it may have started out as a joke of being a successor to C/C++, but eventually the name stuck).


T

-- 
Windows 95 was a joke, and Windows 98 was the punchline.

On Monday, 13 January 2020 at 04:21:54 UTC, James Lu wrote:
> As we know, D has a branding problem. I suggest a small step towards fixing that branding problem, namely changing D's brand color to a shade of blue.
>
> Red is associated with excitement, danger, anger, and action. Danger and anger and excitement are not positive qualities of a systems programming language. They amplify the primal fear some people have of GC. In contrast, blue reflects stability, harmony, and trust. These are all qualities we like in a systems programming language. In other words, blue triggers emotions that should be associated with systems programming language, which is what D desires to be.
>
> Go, C, and C++ all use blue. Rust's logo is black, and the rest of its website is an even mix of the rainbow.

Let the "bikeshedding" begin.

On Monday, 13 January 2020 at 17:48:34 UTC, Jonathan Marler wrote:
> Let the "bikeshedding" begin.

Honestly, the whole discussion is making me see red :-)