Pitching an investment bank on using D for their bond analytics

[Rikki Cattermole via Digitalmars-d]

On 15/04/2015 1:44 a.m., bachmeier wrote:
> On Tuesday, 14 April 2015 at 12:16:40 UTC, Rikki Cattermole wrote:
>> On 15/04/2015 12:08 a.m., D Denizen since a year wrote:
>>> Hi.
>>>
>>> I have been here a year or so, and trust you will forgive my posting
>>> pseudonymously on this occasion.  If you guess who it is, please be kind
>>> enough not to say for now.
>>>
>>> A friend has been invited to be a consultant for an investment bank that
>>> would like to build a set of analytics for fixed income products.  The
>>> team is currently quite small - about 5 C++ developers - and the idea is
>>> to start with a proof of concept and then build on it as there is
>>> further buy-in from the business.
>>>
>>> Having been using D for a year or so, I am pretty comfortable that it
>>> can do the job, and likely much better than the C++ route for all the
>>> normal reasons.  I haven't experience of using D in a proper enterprise
>>> environment, but I think this group might be open to trying D and that I
>>> might be at least part-time involved.
>>>
>>> I also have little experience in getting across the merits of this
>>> technology to people very used to C++, and so I have not yet built up a
>>> standard set of answers to the normal objections to 'buying' that will
>>> crop up in any situation of this sort.
>>>
>>> So I am interested in:
>>>
>>> - what are the things to emphasize in building the case for trying D?
>>> the most effective factors that persuade people are not identical with
>>> the technically strongest reasons, because often one needs to see it
>>> before one gets it.
>>>
>>> - what are the likely pitfalls in the early days?
>>>
>>> - what are potential factors that might make D a bad choice in this
>>> scenario?  I would like to use D certainly - but it is of course much
>>> more important that the client gets the best result, however it is done.
>>>
>>> - am I right in thinking C++ integration more or less works, except
>>> instantiating C++ templates from D?  what are the gotchas?
>>>
>>> (I appreciate there is not so much to go on, and much depends on
>>> specific factors).  But any quick thoughts and experiences would be very
>>> welcome.
>>
>> Just a thought, try getting them to use D for prototyping. Worse case
>> they will play around with D before settling on e.g. c++. Best case
>> scenario they'll move it into production.
>
> Or maybe they can write some smaller pieces in D and call them from C++.

Yeah, that would be middle ground.