is it possible to learn D(2)?

[lurker]

Andrei Alexandrescu Wrote:

> On 12/18/10 3:44 PM, Jeff Nowakowski wrote:
> > On 12/18/2010 03:16 PM, Don wrote:
> >> Jeff Nowakowski wrote:
> >>> D2 has *never* been officially released (like D1 was), though its
> >>> release was supposed to coincide with the release of Andrei's book.
> >>
> >> Where did you get that idea? I've never heard it before.
> >> (Genuine question, I'd like to know where that impression came from).
> >
> > Which idea are you questioning? That D2 hasn't been "released", or that
> > the two were supposed to come out together? The answer to both would be
> > the newsgroup.
> >
> > There was plenty of talk about them coming out together, and then time
> > went by, and Andrei's book was relatively quietly released (unless I
> > missed some big announcement; my memory was of posts trickling in of
> > people who had pre-ordered), and no mention was made of D2 being
> > released any more along with the book.
> >
> > I can dig up posts if you like, but I'd rather not unless any of this is
> > in dispute.
> 
> I don't think it's worth investigating this, but at any rate my thinking 
> has been that finalizing TDPL would finalize the specification of D2. Of 
> course, ideally the compiler would follow the specification as closely 
> as possible, but with the number of extant issues it has always been 
> pretty clear that conformance will be trailing.
> 
> The book hasn't been released quietly at all; I've sent numerous updates 
> to this group (just search for TDPL in the title) and my website has 
> made the event as prominent as it could. As it was clearly highly 
> anticipated in this group, laying it any thicker would have been 
> inappropriate.
> 
> >>> Walter and Andrei haven't been very honest in their presentations on
> >>> the state of the language.
> >>
> >> I think the initial estimate of how long things would take was wildly
> >> optimistic. I am certain that there's been no intention to be dishonest,
> >> at any stage.
> >
> > Andrei gives other people a lot of shit over only showing the positive
> > in their presentations. Both Andrei and Walter have misrepresented the
> > open source compiler issues on their slides (and Walter had no excuse
> > after Andrei was called for it on the newsgroup).
> >
> > I saw Andrei's Google presentation and he talked a lot about D2 features
> > and gave away a lot of books, but never once said that D2 was still
> > being implemented and that serious bugs remained.
> 
> A fair point. Well I didn't give away "a lot" of books, I gave three, 
> and specifically for the three most embarrassing questions. (My budget 
> of giveaway books is fairly limited.)

Does this mean that Facebook is not paying you that well, after all? I could donate like $82 to you to give away three more books. No need to mention my name, after all I'm just helping the poor.