Spreading the word about D

[Chris R. Miller]

Yigal Chripun wrote:
> 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 outdated pages about the major projects and sites for D, and if they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?

Googlegroups would be a very powerful tool indeed.  I have some 
experience administering various Google Groups, and as such I have to 
warn that they are subject to a large amount of spam.  Perhaps a GNU 
Mailman list instead, or perhaps a phpBB3.0 forum?

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