D: A language without focus

[Dave]

In article <e2p5g7$2mnk$1 at digitaldaemon.com>, clayasaurus says...
>
>Disclaimer: 21 year old student who just uses D for a hobby.
>

I'm twice your age, and think you show wisdom beyond your years <g>

>gabe wrote:
>> 
>
>It has gone through a lot of stress testing, just look at Dstress or the 
>bugs list and change log. D is fairly stable.
>

Yes - I can't believe the amount of exemplary work Thomas Kuehn has done in
order to provide this. I've never been involved in commercial language
development, but I'd have to guess that D probably has better QC through DStress
than any other language in a similiar stage of development, ever. The guy even
provides a regression report after every release. Amazing.

To a casual observer, D may look unstable, but much of that is because of the
extraordinary quality of the regulars in this 'DUG' who push the compiler to
it's limits (and because D is pushing the envelope in some areas). All that ever
gets reported are the bugs, not the successes which looks a lot worse than it
really is if one is paying attention.

There are really no show-stoppers to the current tools. There is nothing in the
compiler that will not allow an end-result comparable to what you could do with,
say, GCC.

>>Second, you have poor documentation, and
>> what documentation you do have is either written tersely, poorly, or scattered
>> to hell-and-gone. 
>
>I've never had a problem with it, but maybe I'm just a newbie. Care to 
>give specifics?
>

That says it all - you're a 'newbie' (your words) yet you find the docs. usable.
There really isn't all that much missing from the docs. if you take the time to
RTFM. I don't get the scattered part either:

http://digitalmars.com/d/index.html

You can get to everything off of that page.

I think one suggestion would take care of a lot of the perception of "2nd class
citizen" status for D along with the idea that things are scattered: For Walter
to get a new domain soley for D and then redesign the site along the lines of,
say, ActiveState.

>> Third, you have absolutely no focus: there are dozens of
>> projects out there planning to build the 'next big utility/tool/ide/whatever',
>> but hardly any of them seem to be terribly concerned with the fact that D's
>> libraries rest on pretty shakey ground. 
>
>Except Ares and Mango perhaps that realize D's libraries are on shaky 
>ground?
>
>I myself I am not trying to write the next big 'thing,' I simply use it 
>and open my source, but the libraries have been good to me, at least.
>

Me too - there is a good, basic library provided by phobos. In fact, I'd rather
work with phobos than the std. C library because I think it's layed out better.
I even find it more intuitive, yet I've done a lot more with the C lib.

>> In short, the D library is a joke. 
>
>#1) Have you used it?
>#2) How could it be made better?
>
>I wouldn't consider Phobos a joke, but maybe I'm not knowledgeable 
>enough on the subject.
>

Good points - why is it considered a 'joke'. I think you are correct in asking
if the OP's ever really used it.