Install check?

[Georg Wrede]

It seems to be usual to "download D" and then not have the thing work 
off the bat. (d.D.learn has some excellent examples, and many of them by 
able people, some even with a long C++ background.)

With two compilers, all the platforms (Windows, Mac, various Linuxes) 
and at least two lucrative base libraries (Tango and Phobos) -- and 
especially since the newcomer can't simply choose like "compiler, OS, 
lib, root/luser" etc, and simply have a self-installing complete binary 
automatically sent to you (hint, hint), I suggest the following:

Just like hello.d we should have a checkinstall.d that you should try to 
build. It would have static asserts (or whatever it takes) that inform 
the user about what's wrong. Probably one should first run a 
checkinstall.{sh|bat} too to inform of the most basic problems.

Such should be standard issue with all distributions.

Today, many end up tweaking paths, library paths, choosing install 
directories, contents and placements of the "ini" file, and whatnot. Of 
course such could ultimately be avoided by adequate and prominent 
documentation and targeted binary installs. But the checkinstall stuff 
is more robust and could in principle be bullet proof. As in, either it 
passes, or it discovers what's wrong. Oh, and how to remedy that.

After all, there are only so many places where the train can derail, but 
figuring out these is unnecessary hard for precisely the people who do 
stumble on them.