dmd platform support - poll

[Nick Sabalausky]

"John Reimer" <terminal.node at gmail.com> wrote in message 
news:28b70f8c104198cb3624a1d43670 at news.digitalmars.com...
> Hello Nick,
>
>> "Walter Bright" <newshound1 at digitalmars.com> wrote in message
>> news:gj519n$1ckg$1 at digitalmars.com...
>>
>>> I've run into a lot of programmers lately who, if a language isn't on
>>> .NET, will not look at it.
>>>
>> This right here is absolute proof of how appallingly pathetic the
>> average quality of programmers is, and just how firmly up their asses
>> their heads are planted. As much of a need as we have for better
>> languages, I'm convinced that need is completely dwarfed by the need
>> for better programmers.
>>
>> And frankly, I'm not so sure that such clearly incompetent fools
>> should be encouraged in such tenancies. I say, if someone is so
>> bone-headed as to refuse to look at a language for such a stupid
>> reason, they *should* be forced to stick with increasingly subpar
>> languages. They's the only thing that will lead to their demise. We
>> need to save our field from these f****** morons, not encourage them.
>>
>> (And no, I'm not complaining about .NET itself, or .NET languages.)
>>
>
>
> Hey, Nick, you just snubbed a whole bunch of people and severed all hope 
> of demonstrating D's usefulness to anyone. ;)  I'm guessing a lot of us 
> here have acted the "morons" in various similar ways when we make a weak 
> attempt at argument when things are pushed at us.
>
>
> Putting it bluntly, that's also the exact attitude that will distance 
> people from the language.  Show disdain for them, and you are guaranteed 
> to alienate people no matter how strong your argument is.  That, and such 
> disdain is usually not warranted because it is reactive to a shallow 
> response and fails to recognize the deeper social issues hinted by such a 
> response.
>
>
> Incidentally, labelling them "incompetant fools" isn't a very strong 
> argument anyway, but you know that. ;D
>
>
>> I say, if someone is so
>> bone-headed as to refuse to look at a language for such a stupid
>> reason, they *should* be forced to stick with increasingly subpar
>> languages.
>
>
> You probably realize this, but it's rarely so simple as that.  Sometimes 
> people make weak silly arguments in response to people pushing things on 
> them.  Their reasons for holding onto a technology rather than exploring 
> other possibilities may be more related to survival and livelihood than 
> sound reason (well, then again, survival and livelihood may be very good 
> "reason" :-) ).  Their argument for rejection may be just a weak form of 
> saying "go away... life is hard... don't bother me with this stuff."  Even 
> so, there is a sort of logic contained in their response:  make D viable 
> on the platform they know brings in the money, and you may just get their 
> attention.
>
> There are a whole lot of people that aren't risk-takers for very good 
> reason; the D community just seems to have attracted the more maverick 
> adventurous personalities: we probably look like a bunch of extreme sports 
> fanatics from their perspective  :).  Just because others give lame 
> responses to why they won't explore a new language, doesn't mean they are 
> all losers.  I expect that others might consider us to be morons for 
> wasting so much time on D.
>

 I was a bit unclear. Walter's observation just triggered a certain nerve. 
I'll attempt to clarify:

I've personally come across a lot of truly terrible "programmers". Refusing 
to touch a language because it isn't .NET, or because it *is* .NET and thus 
related to MS, or because it isn't Java (and no I don't mean JVM), etc. is 
just one of many classes of fallacies I've seen over and over and over among 
these people. No, that in and of itself doesn't make them "incompetant 
fools" (go figure, the one time I decide to skip the spell check ;)), and 
there may very well be a few people who actually do have a rare good reason 
to stick with .NET. But, such "fanboyism" is often fairly indicative of a 
"fool".

And yes, I really do think it would be best for everyone, developers, 
consumers, and even the fools themselves, if these people were weeded out of 
the field. Thus, the idea of bowing to a fallacy merely because it's a 
popular one truly disgusts me. It should be classified as a "reason not to", 
not a "reason to". (But overall, I would count adding .NET as a target for D 
as a "good thing" (although not a personal priority) because one of the "pie 
in the sky" things I've been dreaming to see in the programming world 
(besides overall better programmers) is a complete divorce of language and 
platform.)