D Learning Resources

[Mike Parker]

Wolven wrote:
> 
> As Morgan said, much of the information available seems to assume that the reader
> is already familiar with C++ concepts AND IS a long time C\C++ programmer that can
> readily recognize the shorthand C like syntax...  which I don't.  Obviously that
> assumption perfectly fits many of the people posting on here, but it doesn't do
> much for winning converts from other programming backgrounds.  Then again, maybe
> the D developers aren't interested in attracting newbie or non C programmers.  But
> I suspect it's more a matter of time and priorities.  That, and the simple fact
> that most programmers are the worlds WORST teachers.  They simply don't know how
> to communicate with\translate for mere mortals...   :)

D has been in 'development mode' for a few years now. Of course D 
developers are interested in *one day* attracting newbies and non-C 
programmers, but I think there hasn't been a focus on that yet because D 
hasn't really been newbie-friendly. By that I mean that the spec has 
been in fluctuation, plus it requires use of command line tools and 
debugging techniques that might not be immediately obvious to newbies. I 
don't think it's reasonable to expect someone with little or no 
experience to be able to come in and learn a developing language like D, 
nor do I think it's reasonable to expect early adopters to invest the 
time and effort to create the amount of documentation that would be 
required to teach such users. Early adopters of any tech are nearly 
always those who have related experience, otherwise the learning curve 
is too steep.

That said, there have been people with little experience who were able 
to pick up D quite readily through perseverence and sheer force of will. 
And if you look at the documentation for the projects at DSource, you 
will find that some of it was written with the newbie in mind. Still, 
the focus of most of the existing D tutorials and documentation has 
assumed readers have some experience because their target audience is 
early adopters. The goal has been to help other early adopters get up to 
speed quickly and focus on building the tools and libraries the 
community needs to move forward. The DMD 1.0 release will shift that 
focus from the early adopters to the world-at-large.

So you can't really fault the community for not being newbie-friendly 
yet or for making certain assumptions about current D users. Now that 
1.0 has a definite release date, there will certainly be more effort to 
  target less experienced users, even non-programmers. I have plans 
toward that end myself on my DBlog. I'm involved in two other library 
projects that take priority, though, with little enough time to work on 
those as it is. I'm sure most of the active D community is in a similar 
boat.