DCompute is now in the master branch of LDC

Wulfklaue via Digitalmars-d-announce digitalmars-d-announce at puremagic.com
Wed May 31 15:15:33 PDT 2017


On Wednesday, 31 May 2017 at 12:28:47 UTC, Nicholas Wilson wrote:
> Perhaps there will be scope for renaming if/when this also 
> includes graphics when either OpenCL is merged into the Vulkan 
> API or Petar Kirov gets Vulkan SPIRV generation going on LLVM, 
> but for now the name stays.

People who GPU program are indeed a small group. But you do NOT 
entice other people to try it, when they do not even know a 
language has this feature set. And this comes down to marketing.

Lets post "D has DCompute" or "D has D-GPU"... on Reddit, 
ycombinator and other forum or news site.

What do you think people will more likely click on?

The people who are used to Compute, will still click on the GPU 
link.

The people who are unfamiliar with Compute will still click on 
the GPU link, because its such a familiar term to them.

And so what if people start a big discussion about the name. If 
only 10% of those people come to the D site from a either 
language, its a instant success. Positive or negative marketing 
is a win-win in this case.

And GPU does not mean directly DirectX, OpenGL in people there 
minds. GPU people think about there graphical card because that 
is exactly what the term means.

I have no dog in this discussion but as somebody just learning D 
it seems like a total wasted opportunity.

Reading past topics D on those sites, it seems D has been 
fighting the whole GC stigma for years. D its GC marketing is 
bad. While other languages ( some even with GC like Go ) simply 
sail past, thanks to people pushing its virtues, when in reality 
D its GC actually performs better in specific tests. Marketing... 
 From my view D has been mostly sitting on its behind for years, 
hoping for word-to-mouth to do the trick. While other languages 
used there big parents name as a cheap talking point memo ( 
Apple, Google, Mozilla ... ).

And this is exactly why D has such difficulty being accepted 
outside its own community. People being too stubborn to recognize 
a marketing opportunity. My apologies for that comment but its 
true. D does not have the big name recognition and has a even 
"old" stigma these days.

My advice to Walter is to hire a actual marketing person that can 
help focus resources and ideas. Hell, even a name change, a new 
look, ... who knows.


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