Learning D2 from nearly zero

Grzegorz Adam Hankiewicz gradha at titanium.sabren.com
Thu Apr 30 09:05:52 PDT 2009


After toying with D1 some years ago I've returned to see D2 and ported 
it a program I had written in D1. 99% of the time was figuring out why 
my chars[] suddenly didn't want to work/interface correctly with C 
library calls.

After going through some documentation on the web I managed to make it 
work, but still have the feeling my brain hasn't really reached the 
"aha!" point about all those freaking char/string/whatever aliases. And 
the mangling looks seriously ugly.

Also there are many other changes, like ranges mentioned in the 
Changelog. What the hell are ranges anyway? After browsing some more I 
get to 
http://www.digitalmars.com/d/2.0/statement.html#ForeachRangeStatement 
and simply think: what does this mean other than the word range is in 
there? I still don't get a clue.

My point is, the available documentation is scattered like a 
fragmentation grenade, and depending on your luck you get "hit" by it, 
or have to spend a lot of time seeking it.

I know that there is this "Learn to tango with D" book, but I'm not 
interested in Tango, plus I guess it applies to D1. Is there any other 
documentation source explaining D2 without necessary going through D1 
documentation first?

I'm thinking of something like Python's "holding hands" tutorial. After 
a few hours of reading that you basically know pretty much everything 
there is to it, except for the huge library. It would be great if there 
was something similar for D2 (so I don't have to go and write it myself!).


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