Reddit: why aren't people using D?

[Adam D. Ruppe]

On Wed, Jul 22, 2009 at 06:27:50PM -0500, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
> I noticed some people complain about installation difficulties, is there 
> progress on the community project for writing installer for the three 
> major OSs?


I think the installation difficulties are the result of poor instructions
(especially on Linux), not anything technical.

The website talks about copying files places. This isn't necessary: the
way it works is to unzip it and go. It doesn't get any simpler, but the
instructions don't really reflect that.

I actually got a private email from a new D user over the weekend talking
about how hard it is on Linux. I replied with my method:

1) Make helper scripts in /usr/bin with this content:
       $ cat /usr/bin/dmd
       #!/bin/bash

       /lib/ld-linux.so.2 /home/me/d/dmd2/linux/bin/dmd $*

2) Download the DMD zip from the changelog page into the path your script
   references (/home/me/d in my example).

3) Unzip it.

4) Have fun coding!


(Note you can do something very similar on Windows with a helper .bat file.)


That's how easy installing DMD is, but this guy, and many others, don't
see it that way. I blame this page:
http://www.digitalmars.com/d/2.0/dmd-linux.html#installation

The Windows page isn't much better.

That is much harder and less clear than it needs to be. I really think 
fixing those pages to have simpler, clearer instructions will make the
requests for installers and packages go away.



> 
> Andrei

-- 
Adam D. Ruppe
http://arsdnet.net