D compilation is too slow and I am forking the compiler

[Joakim]

On Monday, 26 November 2018 at 16:00:36 UTC, Guillaume Piolat 
wrote:
> On Thursday, 22 November 2018 at 04:48:09 UTC, Vladimir 
> Panteleev wrote:
>> On Wednesday, 21 November 2018 at 20:51:17 UTC, Walter Bright 
>> wrote:
>>> Unfortunately, you're right. The title will leave the 
>>> impression "D is slow at compiling". You have to carefully 
>>> read the article to see otherwise, and few will do that.
>>
>> Sorry about that. I'll have to think of two titles next time, 
>> one for the D community and one for everyone else.
>>
>> If it's of any consolation, the top comments in both 
>> discussion threads point out that the title is inaccurate on 
>> purpose.
>
> Please don't get me wrong, it's an excellent article, a 
> provocative title, and fantastic work going on. I didn't meant 
> to hurt!
>
> In my opinion language adoption is a seduction/sales process 
> very much like business-to-consumer is, the way I see it it's 
> strikingly similar to marketing B2C apps, unless there will be 
> no "impulse buy".

I find that hard to believe: we are talking about a technical 
tool here.

Also, regardless of how languages are chosen as they get into the 
majority, D is very much still in the innovators/early-adopters 
stage:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technology_adoption_life_cycle

That is a very different type of sales process, much more geared 
towards what the new tech can actually do.

> Actually no less than 3 programmer friends came to (I'm the 
> weirdo-using-D and people are _always_ in disbelief and invent 
> all sorts of reasons not to try) saying they saw an article on 
> D on HN, with "D compilation is slow", and on further 
> examination they didn't read or at best the first paragraph. 
> But they did remember the title. They may rationally think 
> their opinion of D hasn't changed: aren't we highly capable 
> people?

With people like that, it's almost impossible to get them in the 
early adopter stage. They will only jump on the bandwagon once 
it's full, ie as part of the late majority.

> I'm not making that up! So why is it a problem ?
>
> HN may be the only time they hear about D. The words of the 
> title may be their only contact with it. The first 3 words of 
> the title may be the only thing associated with the "D 
> language" chunk in their brain.
>
> The associative mind doesn't know _negation_ so even a title 
> like "D compilation wasn't fast so I forked the compiler" is 
> better from a marketing point of view since it contains the 
> word "fast" in it! That's why marketing people have the 
> annoying habit of using positive words, you may think this 
> stuff is unimportant but this is actually the important meat.
>
> Reasonable people may think marketing and biases don't apply to 
> them but they do, it works without your consent.

I agree that it was a risky title, as many who don't know D will 
simply see it and go, "Yet another slow compiler, eh, I'll pass" 
and not click on the link. Whereas others who have heard 
something of D will be intrigued, as they know it's already 
supposed to compile fast. And yet more others will click on it 
purely for the controversy, just to gawk at some technical 
bickering.

Given how well it did on HN/reddit/lobste.rs, I think Vlad's 
gamble probably paid off. We can't run the counterfactual of 
choosing a safer title to see if it would have done even better, 
let's just say it did well enough. ;)