D future ...

[aberba via Digitalmars-d]

On Monday, 19 December 2016 at 23:02:59 UTC, Benjiro wrote:
> I split this from the "Re: A betterC modular standard library?" 
> topic because my response is will be too much off-topic but the 
> whole thread is irking me the wrong way. I see some of the same 
> argument coming up all the time, with a level of frequency.
>
> D has not market:
> -----------------
It has market, a broad one. Just like C++, depends on your use 
case.
>
> Go: Its is a "simple" language.
People are swayed by popular stuff.

> D is C++ but improved/simplified. Its not to hard to get into, 
> its more easy for anybody from a C background.
True. Every guy I showed says that.

But setting up development environment for D is not a straight 
forward thing (Undocumented stuff, huge blocker for new users).

>
> Take it from a guy that spend a large part of his life in PHP. 
> I feel more at home with D, then with all the other languages. 
> The moment you get over a few hurdles, it becomes a very easy 
> language. My point is that D does fit in a specific market. It 
> fits in between C++ and scripting languages like PHP ( that has 
> a more C background ).
IMO Walter/Andrea cannot do much about these stuff. "Car 
engineers are not the best riders".
>

> Its not going to convert a lot of C++ people. Sorry but its 
> true. C++ has been evolving, the people who invested into C++ 
> have very little advantage of going to D. The whole focus on 
> C++ people marketing is simply wrong! Every time this gets 
> mentioned in external forums, the language gets a pounding by 
> people with the same argumentation. Why go for D when C++ 20xx 
> version does it also.
Because most people here are working on proprietary/production 
code that has something to do with C/C++ or they were much into 
them before D. Requests/complains here are *mostly* either 
selfish or are assumptions on what they think will make D shine 
(of course, from their own head).

> Community:
> ----------

> But it feels like everybody is doing there own thing.
IMO, they do what will help their own workflow (what they get 
paid for). It makes sense.

However, the number of potentially helpful Dub packages is 
growing. But the incomplete/I-came-with-this-during-a-project 
packages are problematic. They are usually not well documented 
and do not tackle more use cases. This is bad for the ecosystem.

They should be marked as incomplete/not-to-be-inproved
>

> I see a lot of people arguing a lot about D and sorry to say
I think people argue on things they care about, directly or 
indirectly. I do too ;) Its good, as long as it's not selfish.

> Documentation:
> --------------
Documentation is a really hard/time consuming task to do. Unless 
we have a lot of hands on deck.

> I do not use it. Its such a mess to read with long paragraphs 
> and a LOT of stuff not even documented. Like the whole C 
> wrappers etc. My personal bible is simple: Google search for 
> examples and Ali's book for some rare cases.
Yeah. Difficult to see this issue if you are too/very technical.
>

> Editor support:
> ---------------
>
Will help to specify what exactly is missing (linting?, easy 
debugging?).


> Future:
> --------
>
> You want D to have traction.
My little experience tells me the future is attributed to SO MANY 
factors.
>
> Walter / Andrei:
> ----------------
>
Hire Steve Jobs

> End Rant:
> ---------
>
GC is not a blocker for me. Most people complain about GC in D 
but thats for their use case. Don't speak for everyone or say D 
will NEVER gain traction (its only in your head).


Marketing Suggestion
----------------

Go for startups/students/newbies. So many startups are establish 
everyday. They don't have huge C/C++ code base.