Why I'm hesitating to switch to D

[Walter Bright]

On 6/29/2011 1:38 AM, James Fisher wrote:
> However, the case for using
> it for the website
> <https://github.com/D-Programming-Language/d-programming-language.org/blob/master/index.dd>
> is nonexistent (anyone disagree?).

I do. Ddoc is:

1. Rather trivial to learn & use. A website/book/community devoted to how to use 
it is completely unnecessary. It's fairly obvious how to use it (for someone 
with a basic familiarity with HTML) by simply looking at a couple examples.

2. It automatically tracks the D language, so D code examples are always 
properly highlighted.

3. It is always available and installed for anyone who installs D.

4. The D compiler and Ddoc are always in sync. No begging for updates from 3rd 
parties, no lags even if they get right on incorporating necessary updates.

5. It is not necessary to direct anyone to install some third party system that 
may not even exist on all the platforms D does. In general, we try to minimize 
dependency on things that are not default installed across operating systems.

6. And lastly, it works, it delivers, and has for many years. It's proven its worth.


If a professional web designer uses famous system X to develop with, and if we 
used famous system Y, it's just as much a barrier for him to relearn how to do 
things with Y as it is to learn Ddoc.

Please don't be too dismissive of the productivity gains from using Ddoc. At the 
time we started using it, the website and the Phobos documentation improved by 
huge leaps and bounds, simply because it was so easy to generate decent 
documentation with Ddoc.