July 14, 2017
On Friday, 14 July 2017 at 09:02:58 UTC, Stefan Koch wrote:
> On Friday, 14 July 2017 at 08:57:17 UTC, Wulfklaue wrote:
>> https://blog.sourced.tech/post/language_migrations/
>>
>> A recent article where github programming languages popularity and migration got analysed was very interesting but it showed one noticeable thing:
>>
>> [...]
>
> The beauty of D lies in it's holistic approach.
>
> The one unique feature to point out would be CTFE which is not to be found in other compiled langauges.
>
> constexpr does not even come close since it cannot return literals :0

There's Red: http://red-lang.org (to my understanding, you can execute arbitrary Red (*) code in macro context; which is basically CTFE+macros).

(*) Right now it accepts Rebol code because of implementation limitations; the spec says Red code though and the developers says this is planned.
July 14, 2017
On Friday, 14 July 2017 at 08:57:17 UTC, Wulfklaue wrote:
> https://blog.sourced.tech/post/language_migrations/
>
> A recent article where github programming languages popularity

Are you aware this is a github infomercial ? That is how gamification works: make you compete  over who has the most github repos or more migration or whatevers, but the important part is making github keep the score :)

This is not about language popularity but about language popularity on github. Moreover while charts are nice we don't have a "other" category so we don't really see if the languages listed cover 90% of github repos or 50% of github repos. Even more, if you used github you know the language the project gets listed under by default is rather random: if you have js files it might get listed under js, if you have C files it might get listed under C: for example the rather large migration of Perl programmers to C is very probably just Perl modules adding XS components.


So don't stress and keep using D ;)
July 14, 2017
On Friday, 14 July 2017 at 09:02:58 UTC, Stefan Koch wrote:
> The beauty of D lies in it's holistic approach.
>
> The one unique feature to point out would be CTFE which is not to be found in other compiled langauges.

CTFE is found in Nim, as well as inline assembler. Relatively easy to use AST macros are also found in Nim.

I don't know another language with full D-like scope guards.

I agree that it's the combination of features that make D appealing. I generally think of D as "C++ done righter" and don't think about specific unique features.


July 14, 2017
On Friday, 14 July 2017 at 15:13:23 UTC, Andrew Chapman wrote:
>
> I agree with the others that having no major company behind DLang is not helping from a money/resource/exposure point of view.  That said, there must be things we can do as a community to help improve the situation.
>
> I can imagine for example that the community could focus on particular sectors where D excels, and [...]

The primary issue isn't what *can* be done, but what *is going* to be done:
People (including me) can be (reasonably) expected to spend their free time on things that interest them; those don't usually intersect with things that would make D more popular - not to mention that D has still too many internal rough edges for me to think making D significantly more popular at this point in time is going to help us in the long run. I personally much prefer a slow, steady growth until the internals (@nogc, shared, etc.) have been sorted out.
July 14, 2017
On Friday, 14 July 2017 at 08:57:17 UTC, Wulfklaue wrote:
> https://blog.sourced.tech/post/language_migrations/
>

> I know people will jump onboard and start yelling how D has very unique features but from the "outside world" its always the same response. While more people are downloading D and trying it out, i barely see any independent D language blogs.

Maybe you havent't looked enough. I blog about D (basic stuff) at http://aberba.com/#blog. I wrote one for Opensource.com at https://opensource.com/article/17/5/d-open-source-software-development which received some positive feedback. There are other blog posts about D too.

> Not to be a downer but D really in my eyes is missing that "unique" feature that people care about, that allows people to blog about the language...
We care about the existing features done right that D has. In my experience, people like D (syntax, features, CTFE, UFCS, modules, etc.)... the only thing missing is that "we have more language than [real world usage]" coined from what Andre said at DConf.

D is way better and addictive than how I found it in 2014. The language and ecosystem keeps getting richer. I can't enjoy coding in any other language than I do in D.
July 15, 2017
On Friday, 14 July 2017 at 08:57:17 UTC, Wulfklaue wrote:
> https://blog.sourced.tech/post/language_migrations/
>
> A recent article where github programming languages popularity and migration got analysed was very interesting but it showed one noticeable thing:
>
> A total lack of D even mentioned!!!
>
> When looking at other language ranking sites, D always scores better then Rust. Yet, Rust gets included in the ranking but D is ... nowhere to be seen. It gets even a bit annoying when its always Rust, Rust, Rust ... that keeps popping up. Seen it more and more how Rust is simply trampling over any D messaging.
>
> D... It really has no very unique feature that makes it noticeable.
>
> * No Galactic overlord ( C#, Go, ... )
> * no GC language that people can push until people there ears bleed ( Rust)
> * no really unique features that people care about to set it aside from C/C++, ...
> * It has the kitchen and sink but nobody talk about the kitchen and sink.
>
> I know people will jump onboard and start yelling how D has very unique features but from the "outside world" its always the same response. While more people are downloading D and trying it out, i barely see any independent D language blogs.
>
> Not to be a downer but D really in my eyes is missing that "unique" feature that people care about, that allows people to blog about the language...

Well, at one point Andrei said that what is missing to make D's growth explosive is a strong corporate sponser [1]. This seemed sensible to me at the time and still seems sensible today. But I don't know what (if anything) can be done to increase the corporate community's interest in D.

[1] CPPcast, Oct. 27, 2015: http://cppcast.com/2015/10/andrei-alexandrescu/ (at 25:30)
July 15, 2017
On Sat, 2017-07-15 at 11:22 +0000, Mark via Digitalmars-d wrote: […]
> 
> Well, at one point Andrei said that what is missing to make D's growth explosive is a strong corporate sponser [1]. This seemed sensible to me at the time and still seems sensible today. But I don't know what (if anything) can be done to increase the corporate community's interest in D.

Java has IBM, Oracle, Red Hat, many companies, and the JCP

C++ has Microsoft, Intel, many companies, and ISO/IEC JTC1/SC22/WG21

Rust has Mozilla, and lots of companies thinking it beats C++.

Go has Google, Cloudflare, and many companies, mostly Web focussed.

Swift has Apple, and the entire iOS community.

D has ???

-- 
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=============================================================================
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July 15, 2017
On Saturday, 15 July 2017 at 16:52:51 UTC, Russel Winder wrote:
> On Sat, 2017-07-15 at 11:22 +0000, Mark via Digitalmars-d wrote: […]
>> 
>> Well, at one point Andrei said that what is missing to make D's growth explosive is a strong corporate sponser [1]. This seemed sensible to me at the time and still seems sensible today. But I don't know what (if anything) can be done to increase the corporate community's interest in D.
>
> Java has IBM, Oracle, Red Hat, many companies, and the JCP
>
> C++ has Microsoft, Intel, many companies, and ISO/IEC JTC1/SC22/WG21
>
> Rust has Mozilla, and lots of companies thinking it beats C++.
>
> Go has Google, Cloudflare, and many companies, mostly Web focussed.
>
> Swift has Apple, and the entire iOS community.
>
> D has ???

Sociomantic, Weka, EMSI, and a handful of others.  None is as humongous as google or Apple, but then it's not like those companies write everything in Go and Swift.  Those languages are small parts of those giant corporations.

To answer Mark's original question, the corporates get interested when there are competitors eating their lunch with new tech.  They don't actively scout out all the new tech, they're far too lazy for that.  But when Sociomantic or Weka or some new company _you_ build with D starts putting them out of business, their ears perk up. ;)

The no. 1 thing that will help D is people writing great software with it and showing how wonderful D is.  More than docs, fixing bugs, marketing, anything.  It doesn't matter if the language still has flaws, the influx of use, attention, and money after that will help patch those holes up, look at Rails.  You don't have to have a huge budget to write that D software, the guy who wrote Tilix did it in his spare time and it's the top-starred D project on github after dmd:

https://github.com/search?l=D&q=stars%3A>1&s=stars&type=Repositories
July 15, 2017
On Saturday, 15 July 2017 at 16:52:51 UTC, Russel Winder wrote:
> D has ???

D has me.

Do not be too proud of the corporate terror the others have constructed. The power to wave around a million dollars is insignificant next to the power of the Nerdiness.
July 15, 2017
On Saturday, 15 July 2017 at 17:10:56 UTC, Joakim wrote:
> On Saturday, 15 July 2017 at 16:52:51 UTC, Russel Winder wrote:
>> [...]
>
> Sociomantic, Weka, EMSI, and a handful of others.  None is as humongous as google or Apple, but then it's not like those companies write everything in Go and Swift.  Those languages are small parts of those giant corporations.
>
> To answer Mark's original question, the corporates get interested when there are competitors eating their lunch with new tech.  They don't actively scout out all the new tech, they're far too lazy for that.  But when Sociomantic or Weka or some new company
...

> The no. 1 thing that will help D is people writing great software with it and showing how wonderful D is.

Who is building the killer app?