A few notes on choosing between Go and D for a quick project

Chris via Digitalmars-d digitalmars-d at puremagic.com
Sun Mar 15 07:56:22 PDT 2015


On Sunday, 15 March 2015 at 14:15:18 UTC, disme wrote:
> do you people really want to see this language be more popular? 
> do you? doesnt look like it at all to me, the only few people 
> in those 18+ pages that are actually telling you the real 
> problems are mostly being ignored for futile python, go and 
> rust talk, seriously?
>
> let me go ahead and say that no i dont use D, ive found it 
> awhile ago and came back to look at it from time to time which 
> puts me in a perfect spot to tell you that the fundamental 
> problems for new comers are right here, in those posts:
>
> page 7 - Leandro Motta Barros' post
> page 10 - Almighty Bob's first post
> page 11 - Almighty Bob's post (again)
> page 14 - rumbu's first post
> page 17 - Xavier Bigand's post
> page XX - many of Chris' posts
> (may have missed a few but those are the ones that jumped out 
> at me where i really went "THIS MAN GETS IT!")
>
> yes, those are fundamental problems FOR A NEW COMER! 90% of the 
> posts i see in this thread are a bunch of... i dont even know? 
> advanced "problems" that new comers would have no clue what 
> they are about, only those few posts i mentioned are seeing the 
> real problems.
>
> this community seems to be filled with really intelligent, 
> dedicated people capable of solving some of the hardest 
> challenges but you fail to see the tiny little bitty small 
> things that are stopping the new comers and instead you worry 
> about things that are far beyond their scope people...
>
> i guess ill find out in a few months when i visit the language 
> again if those posts have been paid attention to, with that 
> said i wonder how many people will reply to this because they 
> havent read until the end (tiny little bitty detail slipping by 
> again?)

We invariably end up talking about language features and syntax, 
as if D lost out against Go, because of feature X being (or not 
being) there. We lose, because we fail to give people that warm 
glow in their chests. The feeling of "now I have something", 
which is basically what makes people go for something. I felt 
like this about D when I first got to know it, after a long 
period of being frustrated with every other language. Although 
irrational, my intuition was that D would offer me a lot, and it 
hasn't failed to do so. But this is, because I was willing to 
make an effort. Many potential users are either not willing to 
make an effort or they don't have enough time. So we should make 
it as easy as possible for them. As was said in a post earlier, 
the decision to go for language X is often not 100% rational, but 
also based on subjective positive feelings. To ignore this basic 
human fact, doesn't help us. Having a great language with 
advanced features and doing some "feel good" marketing are not 
mutually exclusive.


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