Why we chose not to use D for our Linux project

[Daniel Giddings]

Clay Smith wrote:
> Chris R. Miller wrote:
>> Ty Tower Wrote:
>>
>>> Lars Ivar Igesund Wrote:
>>>
>>>> I suppose you already made your decision, but as mentioned, a 
>>>> question in
>>>> the forum would have given you more information on this. DDBI has moved
>>>> very slowly over the last 18 months, but is being picked up again 
>>>> now, and
>>>> will hopefully have a new release soonish. DDBI in trunk is now 
>>>> Tango only,
>>>> but should work with DMD 1.028/29.
>>>> I won't critize your company for making the choice it did, as it 
>>>> obviosly
>>>> will need to earn money, but I don't see how you can expect the 
>>>> community
>>>> to do what you want it to do with getting involved yourself. 
>>> He has just done so?
>>
>> He criticized the decision, but everyone's entitled to their own opinion.
>>
>> Ruby is probably a better choice for a product they need to make money 
>> off of.  Ruby has a bigger community, it's older, and more stable.  It 
>> has better, more mature libraries, and setting it up is far easier 
>> than it is with D. 
>> In addition, he said that database support was lacking in D.  I have 
>> to second that.  DDBI is really the only viable tool that I can find, 
>> and on its dsource page it says to not use it because it's "going to 
>> change."  I can totally understand the confusion on that point.  The 
>> Tango confusion, not so much.
>>
>> Ruby, on the other hand, is an SQL embedded language.  Doing things 
>> with databases is going to be trivially easy with Ruby.
>>
>> Furthermore, Ruby has some excellent web-facing support with Ruby on 
>> Rails.  If they wanted to add some web-facing support to their 
>> product, they could use the exact same source code and the exact same 
>> libraries for the web application that they use for the rest of the 
>> whole mess.  Ruby can also make use of C extensions, which will 
>> doubtlessly become useful for managing - or even mangling - videos 
>> (since Ruby itself isn't all that fast in comparison).  That will also 
>> allow them to tap into an existing, impressive set of C libraries for 
>> video stuff, which they won't have to code.
>>
>> It's probably a better choice to go with Ruby -- for **them**.
>>
>>>>> I think some serious attention needs to be focused on this, rather 
>>>>> than
>>>>> the minutiae of the latest cool language feature.  I have been 
>>>>> following D
>>>>> for some years now, hoping it would all come together --- and I 
>>>>> hope it
>>>>> does, soon --- as it feels D is being left in the dust.
>>>> Tools situation may have stagnated, but I'm not sure you have 
>>>> followed Tango
>>>> too closely :)
>>>>
> 
> <snip>
> 
>> A very good friend of mine and an absolutely fantastic programmer once 
>> told me some great advice: stop making stupid UML diagrams and write 
>> code!
>>
> 
> Sorry, but I have to say that you are not getting great advice. The 
> design stage is the most important stage in the life of a program. Get 
> that wrong and you can write all the code you want, and it will all be 
> wrong.

Your first design will either be wrong or take forever! (at least a lot 
longer than it need as you make decisions based on lack of experience 
with the problem)

Better to start with a minimal design and then prototype and iterate. 
Set up your development process to deal with design changes and code 
refactoring.