Spreading the word about D

[Yigal Chripun]

Robert Fraser wrote:
> Nick Sabalausky wrote:
>> "Clay Smith" <clayasaurus at gmail.com> wrote in message
>> news:g3jrs4$402$1 at digitalmars.com...
>>> Couldn't find a specific thread devoted to this topic, so started.
>>>
>>> What do you think is the best way to promote D?
>>>
>>> Here are some ideas I already know about and have seen used
>>> successfully.
>>>
>>> 1. Articles - Write D articles and post on digg/reddit
>>> 2. Tutorials - Teach D newcomers how to use D
>>> 3. Libraries - Write a library for D / help out an existing D library
>>>
>>> Here is a link that is also relevant to the subject:
>>> http://www.digitalmars.com/d/howto-promote.html
>>>
>>> I'm wondering, what are all the awesome, zany, weird, or unique ways
>>> you can think of to promote the D language? Did I cover everything?
>>> Are there more effective ways of promoting the language?
>>>
>>
>> I agree with all of the "libraries" stuff said before. But I'd also
>> add a couple other things:
>>
>> It's been brought up before, but the official webpage needs to be
>> maintained better, particularly from the perspective of a D newbie. 
>> Don't get me wrong, this isn't an attack on Walter's web work or
>> anything. It's just that D has all this good stuff, like Wiki4D,
>> Chris's snapshots, DFL, etc, but no ones going to be finding these
>> things unless they actually commit the time amd effort to really dig
>> around the scene and stumble upon them.
>>
>> Think about it this way: If a person hears about "this cool new D
>> language" and decides they want to know more about it, where are they
>> going to go? They're going to go find the official D site. (Maybe it's
>> just me, but if I want to learn about a language, finding the official
>> site would be my first step.) But then they get there and see these
>> outdated pages about the major projects and sites for D, and if they
>> stumble upon, for instance, Chris's D Snapshots and DSource instead of
>> Elephant and the crappy newsgroup web-interface, well then that's just
>> by pure luck rather than design.
>>
>> Which brings up another thing. Newsgroups aren't very inviting. If
>> Johnny Newbie goes to site "BB" and sees a well-designed web-based
>> message board, and goes to site "CC" and sees "here's the server and
>> group name for our newsgroup" (interestingly, I can't even seem to
>> find the page that says that right now - just direct links into the
>> not-very-good web-reader) or even worse: a mailing list, then he's
>> gonna be a lot more likely to join in on community "BB". I know I
>> would. So...I'm not saying we should switch from newsgoups to a
>> message board. I'm just saying, if we're going to stick with
>> newsgroups, then getting a better web-interface should be a priority. 
> 
> I think Walter needs to let someone in the community take over (at least
> partially) the main D page... someone with web design skills ;-P. And
> the backend for a newsreader would make an interesting D project, as well.

vote +100

Also, what about using Google groups?