Frustratingly D

[Jesse Phillips]

Things are moving in the direction you want, but it is slow. Wiki4D is a good place to put tutorials and read them.

http://www.prowiki.org/wiki4d/wiki.cgi?FrontPage

Here are some quick comments:

Nicholas Wrote:

> Here are some particular annoyances that need further
> clarification/examples/comparisons to their siblings:
> std.concurrency vs std.thread

MPI vs Threads

> std.date vs. std.datetime

std.date is deprecated.

> std.regex vs. std.regexp (scheduled for)

std.regexp is deprecated. (scheduled for)

> std.file vs. std.cstream and there's quite a bit of crossover with std.stream
> std.xml: unfortunately one of the few modules that doesn't have a sibling.

std.jason? Actually std.xml is probably gone in the next release, too many bugs.

> And Andrei, you're a great programmer but your example-giving skills could be
> strengthened.  From std.array to std.range to std.random, all your examples
> are equivalent to this:
> auto a = [ 1, 2, 3 ];
> assert( ... );

I think this is a good way to show the input and output. Unlike other examples where the program must be run because it uses print statements.

> auto a = obj.method( "guess what i'm returning" );

That is what the documentation is for. Since the example is in the documentation that shouldn't be hard to find.

I don't know about other people but documentation for the library is one of the things I keep open/available when I'm using the library. I just hope that the return type for an 'auto function' is printed in the documentation instead of just 'auto'

> I like auto.  I use it sometimes.  But it's not always clear what's taking
> place in the examples.  I believe you should exclude auto from all examples
> except when explaining auto.

A lot of Phobos returns templated structs, these things can get quite scary to a new user. There is also an aspect where being concerned about the type is unimportant. And good documentation will make it easier to find the information you are really after.


> I see great potential in D and enjoy it.  I would like to see the
> documentation improve and the standard library cleaned up.  I'm sure there are
> a million reasons why it evolved into what it has so far but for a new user
> those reasons are unimportant.  Put them in the "History of D".

It is much better than it used to be. More work is being done on these issues though. Now we just need them finished a little more.