Biggest Issue with D - Definition and Versioning

[Manu]

On 16 January 2012 02:23, Andrei Alexandrescu <SeeWebsiteForEmail at erdani.org
> wrote:

> I do have ties with the gaming community; I taught a course at ENDI and I
> am well acquainted with a few game developers. Also, at conferences and
> events gaming programmers are represented. Finally, game developers who are
> reading TDPL are likely to send me book feedback and questions in
> proportion to their representation. From where I stand, I can say there is
> more interest in D in other communities than in gaming.
>

I'd just like to add one more point, that gamedev is, in general,
windows-centric. And D's support for windows is basically disgraceful.
I know numerous gamedevs who have grabbed it, tried it out, and immediately
dismissed it on account of immaturity.
I didn't find D on my own, I only EVENTUALLY looked into it because it kept
coming up in the office (ignored it for years actually).
What I *found* is a GCC toolchain (thank god, or... iain), and a reference
(windows) compiler that only supports x86, and no ability to link
against/with VisualStudio.
VisualStudio integration is still very raw, not supported by the community,
and I can imagine that had I looked a few months earlier and VisualD wasn't
there/usable, I wouldn't have humoured the language for more than 5 minutes
either myself, no matter its merits as a cool language.

You probably *won't* hear from the gamedevs either until they are able to
do anything more than dismiss it within 5 minutes.
VisualD and COFF, and to a slightly lesser extent x64, for me, are the
biggest tickets (bigger than SIMD, I don't need that until I'm working on
something)
As soon as those exist, I may consider introducing colleagues at work to
the language in some smaller tools/projects.

Funny aside: All I originally wanted from the SIMD threads was to be
assured it was on the map, and an acceptable design proposal
existed. Forunately for me, Walter was interested in implementing SIMD
himself, I had no part in that, and it appeared almost instantly! :) .. All
my early posts were LISTS of things that I felt were missing before I
confidently invest time in the language. It was certainly outside of my
control which of those things excited the most people, and started
conversations on the topic.

Clearly gamedev-specific issues do exist and are important. But that's not
> even remotely the point. Allow me to explain.
>
> Say we identified gaming programmers as an important community to address.
> If that happened, we would have done a /lot/ of things differently, and a
> ton of them before SIMD. That means focus on Windows64, graphic
> accelerators, and gaming CPUs. To claim that work on SIMD is good because
> it's good for gamers is to reverse engineer a rationalization after the
> fact. And the fact is - Walter has had the gusto to implement SIMD now.
> Technically, that's great. For gamers, that's an interesting development.
> Organizationally, that's a poor statement.
>
> Again: if D is a hobby we have, all's great. Otherwise, we must show
> people that we are serious about finishing the core language
> implementation, that we make promises that we are able to keep, and that we
> make plans that we follow even in the broadest strokes. If we want to play
> with the big boys, we need to change the way we approach planning and
> organization quite drastically.


I generally agree actually. For myself (and perhaps on behalf of my
industry), Win64, COFF, and assurance that some VisualStudio integration
team is getting proper support is far more important/should receive
priority.

You lead me to an interesting though though...
I have been realising one thing that is concerning me more and more though,
and that is that for some reason, it always comes back to Walter. This
seems absurd.
Why should any feature be contingent on Walters time/excitement for the
feature? He should be allowed to work on the SIMD if he wants, and it
shouldn't significantly affect anyone. Is he being paid? (I don't actually
know)
I was initially under the impression that D was an open source language,
and there were a significant number of contributors... if Walter were hit
by a bus, what would happen to D?

This point is highlighted by your anger/frustration that Walter worked on
the SIMD stuff out of step. If you're the second(?) most authoritive voice
around here, what does that say about the state of the language development
and the team responsible?
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