D compilation is too slow and I am forking the compiler

[Joakim]

On Monday, 26 November 2018 at 16:42:40 UTC, bachmeier wrote:
> On Monday, 26 November 2018 at 16:21:39 UTC, Joakim wrote:
>
>> 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.
>
> I don't actually think it was risky. What are the odds that 
> someone was going to start using D for a major project but then 
> changed her mind upon seeing a title on HN or Reddit? Probably 
> very small that even one person did that.

Yes, but you're ignoring the much larger group I mentioned- those 
who only vaguely heard of D, if at all- and the negative title 
gives them a reason not to look into it further.

> And then there is always the fact that there was a story on 
> HN/Reddit about D. It's hard for publicity for a language like 
> D to be bad when so few people use it.

The quote that "there's no such thing as bad publicity" comes 
from art and show business though, don't think it's true for tech 
and other markets. When your audience is looking for a tool and 
not entertainment, there's lots of ways for bad publicity to sink 
it.

Anyway, I noted in this case that the provocative title may 
actually have gotten more people to read a positive post, so the 
pros likely outweighed the cons. We can just never know how large 
the unclicked-on downside was: you can never measure how many 
people heard of but _didn't_ buy your book, because they didn't 
like the title or something else about its exterior.

On Monday, 26 November 2018 at 16:53:59 UTC, Guillaume Piolat 
wrote:
> On Monday, 26 November 2018 at 16:21:39 UTC, Joakim wrote:
>>> 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.
>
> How many times have you been in this conversation:
>
> --------------------------
>
> - What language are you using?
> - D.
> - I know next to nothing about D.
> - Oh, it's very good, I even built a business on it! <laundry 
> list of arguments and features>.
> - Oh no thanks. I should try Rust, it's secure, fast, modern 
> blah blah; facts don't matter to me. But in reality I won't 
> even learn a new language, I'm happy with a language without 
> multi-threading.
>
> --------------------------
>
> It happens to me ALL THE TIME.
> This pattern is so predictable it's becoming boring so now I 
> just keep silent.

Never, I don't go around trying to convince people one-on-one to 
use D. I have given talks to groups introducing the language, 
that's how I go about it.

> What happens? Rust / Go have outmarketed us with words.
>
> The battle (of marketing) is on words not technical features, 
> Rust happen to own "programming language" + "safety", what do 
> we own? D is good in all kinds of directions and the marketing 
> message is less simple.
>
> The leaders choose to own the word "fast" (see our new motto 
> "fast code, fast" which is very accurate) and it's important to 
> get aligned.

I'll note that in your example they haven't actually learnt Rust 
either. I don't think marketing is that relevant for D at this 
stage, nor for Rust/Go either.

The way anything- tech, fashion, TV shows- becomes popular is 
that some early tastemaker decides that it's worth using or 
backing. Eventually, enough early adopters find value that it 
spreads out to the majority, who simply follow their lead.

Most people aren't early adopters of most things. They like to 
think they are, so they'll give you all kinds of 
rational-sounding reasons for why they don't like some new tech, 
but the real underlying thought process goes something like this, 
"I have no idea if this new tech will do well or not. I could 
take a risk on it but it's safer not to, so I will just wait and 
see if it gets popular, then follow the herd."

Very few will admit this though, hence the list of 
plausible-sounding reasons that don't actually make sense! ;)

As Laeeth always says, you're best off looking for people who're 
actually capable and empowered to make such risky decisions, 
rather than aiming for the majority too early, because they only 
jump on board once the bandwagon is stuffed and rolling downhill.

>> Also, regardless of how languages are chosen as they get into 
>> the majority, D is very much still in the 
>> innovators/early-adopters stage:
>
> But the current state of D would very much accomodate the 
> middle-of-the-curve adopters. The language rarely breaks stuff. 
> People making money with it, making long-term bets.
>
> Hell, I could make a laundry list of things that are better in 
> D versus any alternatives! That doesn't bring users.

I'm not talking about the quality of the product. I'm talking 
about the current size of the userbase, which is still in the 
early adopter stage.

>> 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.
>
> There is a gap where we are, but "People like that" are almost 
> everyone.

Yes, this is why you must ignore almost everyone. It is a waste 
of time, because they will not take a risk with new tech.

> Those people actually are middle-of-the-curve adopter, if you 
> see a true late adopter in the wild it takes 3 relatives 
> programming in D so that they start to be interested.

Heh, perhaps.

> Who doesn't want to be out of the early adopter stage, and get 
> into the "officially endorsed safe choice" cohort?

All of us, but you cannot skip steps, not how it works.

> D is remarkably ready as a safe choice for lots of software.
>
>
>> 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. ;)
>
> Alternative darker view: ever remarked how D articles often 
> goes downvoted on HN? The title who says something bad about D 
> is upvoted ; it's easy to see events as going our way. I, for 
> one, didn't really read the article. Who has time for that?

Maybe you should read it, some of the proggitors even created a 
new reddit sub based on this post, coining the term ClickGold, 
for when a clickbait article ends up being much _more_ 
interesting than its leading title: ;)

https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/9z36xg/comment/ea6afce