Rebuild - an annoying feature

[Ty Tower]

Neil Vice Wrote:

> "Ty Tower" <tytower at hotmail.com.au> wrote:
> > Thats a fair question
> > I'm not using it . I hav'nt been able to use it as I have not been 
> > satisfied with the stability of what I have downloaded.
> > I hav'nt used 2.xx yet I'm still on 1.XX
> > So I am experimenting with "D" . In fact I am now looking and learning 
> > because I have wasted so much time trying to get it to a useable state I 
> > will now become an ardent critic of "D" in "C" forums-good critics know 
> > thei subject matter
> 
> I don't recall you having any gripes with D as a programming language. Your 
> issues seem to be with 3rd-party open-source libraries and tools contributed 
> by the D community. Allow me to attempt to address them individually.
> 
> Firstly, I also dislike DSSS and rebuild. I don't recall particular 
> criticisms with them and I certainly feel no ill will towards the developers 
> =) However, particularly the fact that rebuild is/was slow to support 
> significant front-end changes in D2 I couldn't wait for it to catch up. What 
> do you use to build C code? Make? Make will work just fine with D as well... 
> my preference happens to be 'cook' but either way - a criticism of rebuild 
> is not a criticism of D any more than a criticism of Make is a criticism of 
> C.
> 
> As for DWT, a quick visit to the DSource DWT site would indicate that the 
> project is still under development. Given this, should you not expect some 
> issues? Having said that, as an experiment I am very tempted to install 
> linux (Debian being my distribution of choice) and attempt to get the DWT 
> examples working to see whether your outrage is justified.
> 
> > Note that the support for Windows users is probably a lot better as the 
> > distributed .exe files have to be right . I suspect the problem is with 
> > Linux/Unix where the download must be compiled and there are so few user 
> > in this category that no one has looked at this fully yet .
> 
> It would greatly surprise me if there were not many linux D users. I would 
> have expected linux users to be more willing to "experiment" with a new 
> language like D as a rule... In my experience, doing the same thing under 
> Windows and linux, where a tool is available under Windows to perform the 
> task, usually requires a bit more effort/patience under linux. That's not to 
> say that the result isn't worth the wait, but the very fact that compilation 
> is often required means that there is more room for error. How long have you 
> been a linux user? I'd be surprised if you hadn't experienced similar 
> difficulties using applications other than DMD.
> 
> > I originally looked at "D" and thought it was worth knowing about . 
> > Getting into it I intended to write a program which needed SWT or 
> > something like it . If you look there is nothing stable for Unix so I went 
> > to dwt which is "alpha".
> 
> And what windowing toolkit comes out-of-the-box with C exactly? I'm not 
> saying that they don't exist... but were they written in the 70s by Ritchie 
> et. al.? These things take time and are not part of the core language by any 
> means. Certainly if you require RAD GUI tools D may not be the language for 
> you... at least perhaps not yet. Having said that I would also have thought 
> that C would have been a poor choice, prefering C# or Java perhaps.
> 
> I am personally using D to write a game engine (in theory =P) and short of 
> the sort of bugs and const design issues discussed in this NG I have been 
> very happy with the language. I am a C++ fan and have been impressed that D 
> has provided the power of C++ without the redundancy of syntax (header 
> files) and added many useful modern programming tools. I happen to dislike 
> both standard libraries and personally think it was a poor choice on the 
> part of the Tango developers to break compatibility with Phobos (though this 
> may have been resolved recently?) but I'm a reinvent-the-wheel kind of a guy 
> anyway and D has allowed me to do so in very elegant ways IMHO.
> 
> > Well since then - what a mess. Thats why I am critical and the Tango 
> > /Phobos calamity is simply stupid in its present form for Linux
> >
> > Honestly wherever I go in "D" I find problems . That means it comes from 
> > the heads of the organisation. They are not going to be Google type 
> > millionaires I can tell you.
> 
> Perhaps your Google comment was simply sarcasm and nothing more, however as 
> BCS says, profit is not the motivation behind D. The very fact that such an 
> excellent tool has been developed non-commercially by what I understand to 
> be a rather small group of people is a testament to the Walter's (and 
> others') skill and dedication and I am personally very grateful.
> 
> Yes there is much room for improvement, but show me another language with 
> the first compiler released last year which meets your criterea? You are 
> clearly expecting D to be something it's not, however that's not to say that 
> the problems you have encountered are insurmountable. Each tool is not 
> suited to every task, but that doesn't make them lesser tools.
> 
> As far as your comments regarding "good critics" go, I'm not sure that you 
> can be in a position to be critical until you have at least got something 
> working. When I first used D I was critical of some of the design decisions 
> in the language to the point that I would rant at coworkers in frustration 
> =) Since then however, I have read excellent explanations behind these 
> decisions on this very NG and have learned the error of my ways. The very 
> fact that some clearly intelligent, experienced developers frequent this 
> forum and have positive things to say about D suggests to me that something 
> must be being done right - and I for one am keen to learn more.
> 
> I hope you can find D more useful on another project. Having said that, if 
> you are still interested in working with DWT under linux, I could be 
> convinced to attempt it myself and detail my results.
> 
> Neil
> 


Interesting read Neil and nothing there I could not agree with -Thanks 
I have dwt working and am experimenting -Its worth the look and I do like the "D"  language itself. I'm not knowledgeable enough to say but isn't dmd just a wrapped up gcc?
Anyway no matter , its rebuild wrapped as dsss thats giving me problems and getting good installation notes from digitalmars and tango. All of D Tango Phobos dwt was new for me a month ago and the old configure ,make ,make install always worked for me . I must have had failures but only back at least 5 years ago  
Cheers