DMD v2.066.0-rc1

Manu via Digitalmars-d-announce digitalmars-d-announce at puremagic.com
Thu Aug 7 08:34:54 PDT 2014


On 7 August 2014 21:30, Kagamin via Digitalmars-d-announce <
digitalmars-d-announce at puremagic.com> wrote:

> On Wednesday, 6 August 2014 at 16:19:39 UTC, Brad Anderson wrote:
>
>> I don't think it's difficult for them, I think they often just don't know
>> they can. Environment variables just aren't as well known on Windows these
>> days. If you are an 18 year old getting into programming you likely have
>> never even heard of environment variables or batch files and may not even
>> know how to use the command prompt (or open it for that matter). Windows
>> Vista came out when they were 10 years old and the days of having to know
>> and use the command prompt for typical users were long gone by this point.
>> I'm thirty so I knew and used MS-DOS as a kid (I had to) but if you've
>> never used these things how would you know you could?
>>
>
> There are OS courses at institutes, where you have linux, gcc and learn,
> how pipes, shared memory and synchronization mechanisms work.
>

It's not because it's hard, it's because it's perceived as totally
backwards, and it undermines the trust in the ecosystem. It's all about
perception.

The Windows/Visual Studio development culture is pretty immature, and
expects nothing less than the level of polish and presentation that
Microsoft put into Visual Studio.
I have direct experience with hundreds of these sorts of developers. The
prevailing opinion is that Linux is rubbish for nerds, and if the ecosystem
presents itself in that style, it won't be taken seriously. You can't gain
the confidence of this community of developers unless you appeal to them on
their terms. First impressions and basic presentation are extremely
important to perception.
I think configuration friction in particular is extremely important to
eliminate; you are dealing with someone whose investment in D can be
measured in seconds, probably knows absolutely nothing about the ecosystem
technically, and is not yet sure if they even want to. Any friction between
them and a helpful little wizard that generates a hello world project for
them so they can start hacking about and see how it feels may quite
possibly dismiss it on contact.
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