Website message overhaul

[Timon Gehr]

On 11/19/2011 08:33 PM, Bane wrote:
> Peter Alexander Wrote:
>
>> On 19/11/11 2:02 PM, Bane wrote:
>>> I paused with D last year after (yet another) unsuccessful attempt to port my code from D1 to D2. reason: shared stuff. More specific reason - is it a bug with my code or docs ain't exact or that feature isn't working yet (even docs claim it works?)?
>>>
>>> So, I guess problem is correctness of manual for D2.  Digging trough this newsletter to find is some feature working and how is terrible way for learning.
>>
>> I agree with this 100%. It is true that a lot of advertised features in
>> D simply do not work at all, and the fact that they don't work isn't
>> documented anywhere except in the newsgroups.
>>
>> In addition to making it incredibly difficult to learn the language, it
>> also dissuades people from writing tutorials. A couple of times I have
>> started to write tutorials and stopped simply because the stuff I wrote
>> didn't actually work (e.g. I'd write about selective imports, but then
>> figure out that they don't work as advertised). I don't want to write
>> tutorials that are filled with "D is awesome, you can do this... except
>> you can't."
>>
>> Things that don't work simply shouldn't be mentioned in the docs. Put
>> them on a "Work in progress" page or something so that people know what
>> should be working, but don't advertise them as working features until at
>> least one compiler supports them.
>
> Yup. Learning D is just too difficult comparing to most other popular languages. My general feeling is that it is sloppy and too great investment for one to get to know its powers mixed with pain-in-the-ass quirks.
>

There is 'D' the language and 'DMD' the implementation. You confuse the 
two. The quirks you are talking about are DMD's, but the specification 
is that of D. DMD needs to be fixed, and that is what the 'core people' 
are working on.

BTW, I have never felt much PITA when working with DMD even though I 
have hit a few bugs. What are the specific quirks you are referring to?

> Delete docs, start from scratch, this time documenting only what is and not what it might become one day. Unfortunately, this can be done only by core people who really know how D ticks, and they are probably occupied with other stuff.
>

I agree that the specification should be reworked and made thorough and 
unambiguous. I completely disagree that DMD bugs should be incorporated 
into the D language specification.