Introducing Myself
Clay Smith
clay.smith.r at gmail.com
Wed Nov 4 16:20:54 PST 2009
Travis Boucher wrote:
> I guess I should introduce myself.
>
> Hi, I'm Travis, and I am a code-a-holic and general purpose unix geek.
>
> I heard about D a long time ago, but never took a good look at it. A
> few weeks ago a friend of mine suggested I look at D when I was brushing
> up on some more advanced uses of C++ (I was mostly brushing up on STL
> and template usage in general).
>
> I love studying different programming languages, semantics, syntax and
> implementation. I also love some of the different paradigms, and seeing
> how they work.
>
> Now I am not some coding expert, I wouldn't even call myself a good
> programmer. I can get stuff done when I need, but its usually messy,
> ugly, "works for me", "code is meant to be run, not read (ie. PERL)"
> sort of crap.
>
> The one thing that frustrates me about the direction of programming in
> general is how high level and bloated it is getting, and how alot of
> programmers I have come across are fine with that. Abstraction upon
> abstraction upon abstraction, turning something as simple as 1 + 1 into
> an operation that goes through layers upon layers of code until the
> machine finally says "2", then back up the abstraction chain until you
> get a value that may or may not be 2. Turning a 1 tick operation of 2-4
> bytes into a 100+ tick operation of 100+ bytes. (ok, I may be
> exaggerating a bit on the numbers but you get the point).
>
> Don't get me wrong, I love a language that allows me to make 1 + 1 = 3
> if I want it to, but I don't think it should require massive amounts of
> memory or CPU time to do it.
>
> In comes D.
>
> D lets me code like I am coding in a scripting language, but executes
> like I am coding in C/C++. It has taken the best parts of all languages
> and put them into one pretty package. Ok, the implementations are still
> less mature then I'd like, but they are getting better. The language
> lets me ignore issues I don't care about (like memory management), and
> moves out of the way on issues I do care about (like memory management).
>
> I could go on forever on what I love about D, conditional compiling,
> delegates, templates (especially the syntax), but most people on this
> newsgroup probably feel the same.
>
> Anyway, since I don't have that many geek friends capable of
> understanding the merits of D, or sharing my excitement of new features
> I learn to use, I turn to this newsgroup.
>
> A little about me (thats what an introduction is for anyway, isn't it?)
>
> I have mostly worked on systems administration tasks. Programming is
> more of a hobby that has applied uses in systems administration.
>
> The past few years I've focused mostly on large scale web clustering,
> both high transaction and high throughput.
>
> Recently I started teaching myself a bit about the 3d world world (no,
> that double world is not a typo). Learned Blender (and Python by
> association). Been poking around 3D engines for a few years including
> Ogre and Irrlicht.
>
> Have done a bit with embedded stuff, including micro controllers (just
> AMR, and mostly in emulators as my hands as not steady enough anymore to
> do much electronics, too much caffine) and nintendo DS (devkitpro).
>
> I use open source software almost exclusively. I have a couple windows
> boxes around just to keep myself up to date on the new stuff microsoft
> is doing. I don't do OSX, but I'd love to.
>
> I use Linux (mostly ubuntu these days, but started with Slackware back
> in the 2.0 kernel days), and BSDs (mostly FreeBSD, but OpenBSD and
> NetBSD a bit as well). I like different architectures, and trying to
> get a unix of some sort running on them (I have MIPS, ARM, Alpha, Sparc,
> x86, and x86_64 machines in one form or another).
>
> I love learning new things, and D is the most exciting thing I have
> gotten into the past 5 years. I hope to become part of the community in
> some way or another.
>
>
Hello Travis,
Welcome aboard the D train.
Let's see...
dsource.org
planet.dsource.org
dsource.org/projects/descent
dsource.org/projects/dsss
http://wiki.team0xf.com/index.php?n=Tools.XfBuild
http://dsource.org/projects/ldc
http://dsource.org/projects/tango
Hope these links can make you more productive with D.
Good luck, other D friends are sure to give you advice as well.
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