Frustratingly D

[Nicholas]

Jesse,

Thanks for clarifying some of those.  Something like that, but with more detail,
should go right on the front page.


That's a shame about std.xml being lost completely.  I thought maybe someone was
working on it and might have an updated version.  std.json would probably work
okay for small files.  Unfortunately, neither std.xml or std.json is geared for
handling time/memory tradeoffs where file IO is concerned.  They just assume
everything is fully loaded into memory.


I keep the library open for the most part but find that grep is a more effective
tool for examples, especially since other Phobos developers build off the tools
that are already in the library (as well as seeing the unit tests).  I didn't mean
to pick on just Andrei either, the examples in his book are better.


It would be nice to have a single location for documentation rather than the
scattered sources.  The reply I got from Adam Ruppe shows a foot in the right
direction.  I understand it's a work in progress but D isn't necessarily new and I
think there's a sense of what's expected from the official documentation for new
users.


On top of that the D community seems active and exciting but also scattered and
unorganized.  There are many open projects that compete instead of complement each
other.  For example, there's Visual D, Entice (I find myself using both), D-IDE,
and Poseidon to name a few.  Each project with limited functionality but each one
has parts that would benefit the other.  This, of course, in addition to the old
Tango/Phobos situation.  A lot of great energy thinly spread across the D domain.


I'm not saying these things just to nitpick either.  I'd like to get involved.  My
D skills aren't up to snuff yet but even with organization, I'd be glad to help
out.  I just don't know where to start and find myself getting tripped up along
the way.


Nicholas