too early for D2 and too late for D1

Ulrik Mikaelsson ulrik.mikaelsson at gmail.com
Sun Apr 17 14:54:30 PDT 2011


2011/4/17 Gour-Gadadhara Dasa <gour at atmarama.net>
>
> On Sun, 17 Apr 2011 15:11:43 -0500
> Andrew Wiley <debio264 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Frankly, if your definition of "not ready" is that the compiler isn't
> > packaged for you, D isn't the right community to begin with.
>
> First of all, there is no 64bit compiler for FreeBSD. I was
> researching about gdc and Iain Buclaw told me (on IRC) that there
> might be problem with dmd runtime on FreeBSD.
>
> Moreover, "QtD requires a patched dmd compiler.", so I simply do not
> have time to fight such things.
>
I just want to add one thing. I am, too, trying to develop "real" open
source applications in my free time, as well as practical closed
source applications at work.

The problem I have been facing even since the start, and are still
facing, is that even if _I_ can be motivated to overcome these
hurdles, I cannot expect everyone else to feel the same motivation for
a new "obscure" C-like language.
 * At work, I have a hard time explaining to my co-workers why they
need 3 hand-rolled, "this particular version" of compilers and
libraries they've never heard of, just to compile my simple 200-line
Mpeg analyzer.
 * At my free time it's even worse. Finding people able and willing to
spend some time on MY pet project for free is hard enough in itself.
Explaining to them why they must first spend an afternoon dealing with
dependencies drive away the few that got past the first criteria.

My view, is the D community right now are thinking long and hard about
their own needs, and less of the needs of their users. (For a
language, the application programmer IS the user.) Maybe even rightly
so, getting things language-wise right from the start IS important!
However, if it is desirable to attract developers that want to use D
for productivity right now, there are a lot of practical issues that
needs addressing, rough edges to smoothen, and hardly any of them lie
in the language itself.


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