Lost a new commercial user this week :(

[Dicebot via Digitalmars-d]

On Thursday, 18 December 2014 at 09:56:07 UTC, Manu via 
Digitalmars-d wrote:
>> Of course it is language for nerds. Do you see a paid 
>> developer team working
>> on D? At least ONE paid developer? Maybe someone of existing 
>> commercial
>> users pays for adding tools / features? It is not a product, 
>> it is not
>> funded and can't be anything but language for nerds unless YOU 
>> start paying
>> for the change.
>
> Me? Personally?
> Well Remedy kicked in quite substantially for dconf, but I 
> think my
> getting my company involved increases the chances for licensing 
> and
> monetisation than any amount I can donate from my own pocket...

And Remedy sponsorship was very helpful in allowing DConf to 
happen and greatly boosting communications as a result. Sadly we 
need much more than just one conference. When I am speaking about 
personal involvement I don't mean straightforward donation but 
efforts to convince companies in your industry to _invest_ into D 
ecosystem.

I keep repeating word "investment" and it is crucical. At this 
point we don't really need new users, those will come eventually 
if issues are fixed. We need more companies willing to dedicate 
time of its developers to work on compilers, tools and core 
projects of D ecosystem. That is the only way to get what you 
expect.

For example, consider your disappointment with Windows support. 
As far as I know, 3 largest commercial D users (EMSI, Facebook 
Sociomantic; in terms of D developer count) use Linux as 
foundation for their D projects. Not sure about EMSI but seems 
so. Why would any of those companies invest into making Windows 
support better?

You speak about increased chances for licensing and monetisation 
but there is not licensing in D world. And hardly any 
monetisation. Please take your time to actually understand it. 
The fact that your company would have started to use D didn't 
fucking matter to D development in general apart from some small 
marketing boost. No licenses they would buy to boost further 
development, no support contracts with similar benefit. You are 
asking for huge amount of combined effort from people that won't 
even slightly benefit from the success.

Sometimes I have a feeling that game developers consider 
open-source a magic box where you can just shout your complaints 
in and eventually put your hand inside and get something useful 
out of it. It doesn't work that way.

>> To start using D effectively in production one needs to stop 
>> considering
>> himself a customer. This is absolutely critical.
>
> I am obviously personally capable of working around D's 
> ecosystem
> issues; I'm still here after 6 years.
> What I am presenting here is an account on why my company 
> rejected D,
> despite a large number of staff being super excited and jazzed 
> to try
> it out.
> I'd like to think there's something to learn from that.

I have hardly learned anything new from this story, it is mostly 
known points and issues. Instead of telling what needs to be done 
please try telling WHO needs to do it and maybe then you will 
realize why knowing it is only so useful.

> I don't get it... I really can't understand this perspective at 
> all.
> We're not here to be a cool exclusive little club where 
> super-nerdy
> programmers can hang out and talk about advanced language 
> concepts.
> At least, that's absolutely not why I'm here.
> 
> A language end-user shouldn't require any personal involvement 
> in the
> development community. I don't hang out with stroustrup and 
> sutter and
> talk about C++.

Exactly what I have meant - we don't truly have END-users. There 
are more involved users and less involved users, each working on 
parts and tools he needs. Some of those users do it in spare time 
and for fun, few are paid programmers enhancing tools needed to 
use D in their company. But there is not a single person actually 
selling D or getting anything from its success, maybe apart from 
Walter himself. How can one have customers without having sellers?

We are all bunch of investors here.