Pathing in the D ecosystem is generally broken (at least on windows)

[Manu via Digitalmars-d]

On 25 September 2015 at 22:17, Kagamin via Digitalmars-d
<digitalmars-d at puremagic.com> wrote:
> On Friday, 25 September 2015 at 09:03:35 UTC, John Colvin wrote:
>>
>> Realistically, no-one except an experienced full-time windows developer is
>> ever going to get this right.
>
>
> It's not a simple tradeoff: Manu's usual requirement is that dmd must work
> at the utmost ease of use even if heavens crash. Correct behavior is
> possible, but the question is how much user experience he would like to
> sacrifice for correctness.

This is because I am constantly introducing new users to D, and even
more important when those users are colleagues in my workplace.
If I talk about how cool D is, then point them at the website where
they proceed to download and install the compiler, and their
experience is immediately hindered by difficulty to configure within
seconds of exposure, this paints a bad first impression, and
frustratingly, it also reflects badly on *me* for recommending it;
they're mostly convinced I'm some ridiculous fanboy (they're probably
right). This is based exclusively on their experience and
first-impressions. These basic things really matter!

Understand; people with no vested interest in D, and likely some
long-term resistance to every new trend in the software world jumping
up and down fighting for their attention (which includes fanboys like
me!), will not be impressed unless the experience is efficient and
relatively seamless.
I'm talking about appealing to potential end-users, not enthusiasts.
My experience is, over and over again, for years now, that these tiny
little things **REALLY MATTER**, more than literally anything else. If
they're turned away by first impressions, then literally nothing else
matters, and you rarely get a second chance; people don't tend to
revisit something they've written off in the past.