D Programmer Jobs at Sociomantic Labs

[Craig Dillabaugh]

On Monday, 4 November 2013 at 16:49:10 UTC, simendsjo wrote:
> On Monday, 4 November 2013 at 16:22:52 UTC, Gary Willoughby 
> wrote:
>> On Monday, 4 November 2013 at 15:58:48 UTC, Chris wrote:
>>> "Who D is Not For
>>> - As a first programming language - Basic or Java is more 
>>> suitable for beginners. D makes an excellent second language 
>>> for intermediate to advanced programmers."
>>> (http://dlang.org/overview.html)

I think this claim on the website is a hold over from the dark
days of D language evolution and lack of documentation.  It
should go!

>>
>> I'd argue against this. I think D would make a terrific first 
>> language.

I agree.

> (...)
>>
>> Something like C or D (i'd opt for D) should be any devs first 
>> language. Simply to educate them in the basics.
>
> I would say that it really depends on the age too. D as a first 
> language for an 18 year-old technically savvy person might 
> work, but for a 10 year-old?
>
> And for a non-english speaker? I remember having a very hard 
> time reading English books when I was younger (there might be 
> many programming books for languages with a lot of speakers, 
> but not for all languages), and had  difficulties grokking 
> pointers and bit operations. Of course, kids today is much 
> better at English at a young age due to the internet etc., but 
> it's still a lot of new terminology you aren't used to.

But if you are Turkish, you're set!

>
> Being in college now, I see a lot of grown-ups *really* 
> struggling to grasp *basic* programming concepts using Java 
> (even most of the teachers unfortunately). Starting with a 
> limited language like Java probably isn't that bad until you 
> are capable of both reading and writing non-trivial code.

While D code can quickly become complex relative to Java, at the
same time I think in a beginner course/book could easily be geared
to keep away from D's fancier features and just teach basics.
For example, code for reading a text file in in Java is (top
answer on SO):

static String readFile(String path, Charset encoding)
    throws IOException
{
    byte[] encoded = Files.readAllBytes(Paths.get(path));
    return encoding.decode(ByteBuffer.wrap(encoded)).toString();
}

vs.

readText(filename)

in D. Not really up on Java these days, so perhaps Java now
includes a readText() like method now.  Anyway, hard to beat the
D version for
easy!

> I doubt most people here are representative for the average 
> programmer. Many of the discussions here are way over my head, 
> but I still hope that I'm above average.

Hey, that is how I feel.  When I talk with other programmers at
work/school I feel pretty smart.  When I come on here, I feel
like a moron.