D is crap

Bauss via Digitalmars-d digitalmars-d at puremagic.com
Sun Jul 3 00:16:17 PDT 2016


On Sunday, 3 July 2016 at 04:37:02 UTC, D is crap wrote:
> Sorry, I've spend the last month trying my best to get simple 
> shit done. At every turn there is some problem that has to be 
> dealt with that is unrelated to my actual work.  Be it the IDE, 
> debugging, the library, or user shared code, it is just crap. D 
> cannot be used successfully for semi-large projects without 
> significant man hours invested in getting everything to work.

Say what? I have used it for multiple big projects of my own 
ranging from 40000-100000 lines of code?

Neither have I ever had issues with IDE's or debugging.
I rarely uses other people's code, so can't comment on the 
quality of that.

However with your biased points I'm sure it's just empty rants 
anyway.

>
> I'm sorry but it seems too much focus on enhancements while 
> there are too many bugs and lack of tools to actually do 
> anything useful.
>

What bugs? What lack of tools?

"Oh look there is a bug, help" Well report the bug so it can be 
fixed moron.

"There is no tools" Tell what tools you need or start making them 
yourself.


> I'm sorry if this hurts some of you guys feelings but it is 
> fact that D sucks as a whole. A modern programming language 
> should be modern, and D is not one of those languages. It is 
> built as from cobbling together disparate parts that don't work 
> together. The more it is used and added on to the worse it gets.
>

You clearly don't follow the forum posts, D's future visions or 
any sort of discussions regard D's state and Phobos.


> I'm sorry many of you have spent your lives working on 
> something that won't amount to much in the real world. It was a 
> valiant effort. Maybe it will seed new languages that will 
> actually work and have the tooling to be useful. D itself is 
> not a practical tool for general real world software 
> development. I suppose it is obvious considering there is no 
> significant use of it except by the diehards.
>

I use it in the real world. I don't know what real world you live 
in, but okay?

If you're too incomprehent to use it, then so be it.

> I hope I am wrong, but facts are facts. I would like to list 
> these facts so potential users can be informed before the 
> embark on a likely dead end.
>

Biased opinions are not facts.

>
> 1. The language is not completely well defined. While the 
> language itself contains many nice features and what makes D 
> appealing, too many features are cobbled together and don't 
> completely work 100% properly. This creates very subtle bugs or 
> problem areas that can stop one in their tracks. One can see 
> how these things are cobbled together by observing the forms 
> and the discussions about how to proceed in certain areas.
>

I agree with some of this, but it's slowly becoming better.
It's a damage that takes a while to repair, but it's happening.
That's something that may come with open-source projects like 
this where different people, with different intentions and 
vissions starts working on it, without some specific guide-line 
(That however has been made by this point, hence why it isn't so 
much related anymore.)

> 2. The compilation process is riddled with meaningless error 
> messages and a simple missing ';' can launch one off to the 
> moon to figure out it is missing. The error messages can 
> cascade. Fix the ';' and 20 messages disappear. Usually each 
> message is 100 characters+ when it involves templates.
>
> Rather than just telling you what is grammatically missing, 
> like any normal modern compiler does, you have to hunt and peck 
> and fill your head with meaningless information.
>

Any of such examples? Otherwise this doesn't help anything.

> 3. The compilers are designed as if they come straight out of 
> the 70's.  The setup is obscure, relies on assumptions that are 
> not true, and just like the compilation process, if your 
> unlucky you could be working for a few days just to try to get 
> dmd to compile.
>

How is the setup obscure? It's a single installation, what?

I believe the issue is on your end if you spend a long time to 
get DMD working.

That MUST be your configurations. I have installed it on multiple 
machines and it has worked in first go.

> 4. Object code issues, again, stuff from the 70's are still 
> present.  Rather than fix the shit outright, knowing they are 
> problematic, the can is kicked down the road to the 
> unsuspecting users. The users, who generally know less about 
> what is going on than the people who design the software. Those 
> people who can fix the problem directly and save a lot of grief 
> for people don't because they feel it isn't a big deal and they 
> have more important things to do.
>

Any examples? Else this one can be blown away too.

> 5. The documentation is somewhat crappy. While it is extensive 
> and auto generated it generally is only a "template" of what a 
> real user needs. Rather than just the function declaration, 
> usually with nondescript template names like R, S, U, etc about 
> half the functions are missing use cases. I realize this takes 
> work but it could be done by the people writing the code, 
> again, they know best, right?
>

Well if the documentation is crappy, go ahead and document it 
yourself.
It's open-source and usually documentation happens voluntary and 
not because someone is paid to write some formal description of 
the entire library.

> 6. The library is meandering in its design. Feels very 
> convoluted at times, cobbled together rather than designed 
> properly from the get go. Updated language features creates a 
> cascade of library modifications. "Lets move this to this and 
> remove that and then add this... oh, but we gotta update the 
> docs, we'll do that tomorrow...".
>

I believe the documentations are now updated according to the 
source?
I could be wrong.

> 7. The library uses shit for names. Ok, so strip isn't too bad 
> but why not trim? That's what every one else uses. Ok, what 
> about chomp? munch? squeeze? What the fuck is going on? Did the 
> perverted Cookie Monster write this shit?
> What about the infamous tr? Yeah, just cause posix said it was 
> ok then it must
> be so. I'd say we call it t instead.
>

Again a biased opinion. Strip sounds better in my opnion.

> I could go on and on about stuff like this but I have more 
> important things to do, like
>

Okay, but nobody cares.

> 8. Lets use vim or emacs. I liked the 70's it was great. So 
> great that I want to continue using the same editors because we 
> know them well and they work... and their free!  I like coding 
> at the pace of a turtle with minimal information because that's 
> hard core leet style and makes my balls bigger, which my wife 
> likes.
>

I use Atom, what's your point with old editors?

> Oh, what about visual studio? Don't get me started! Maybe if 
> Visual D/Mago actually worked half the time and didn't slow me 
> down I'd use that. Xmarian? Worse!
>

I have had zero problems with Visual D and if you have one, why 
not report it instead of crying like a little girl?

> Maybe it's time to get out of the dark ages and actually design 
> a program that is designed for creating programs? Not just a 
> fucking text editor that has a few helpful things that programs 
> might use. Do we still have to code in text files? How about we 
> just write everything in binary? Ok, sorry... getting OT.
>

Go buy a crying cookie.

> Basically there is no great IDE for D, in fact, there is none. 
> They are all general purpose IDE's that have been configured to 
> compile D code. Great! Except they don't work well because they 
> wern't designed for D. (e.g., template debugging? mixins? Error 
> messages? Code maps? refactoring? All the stuff that more 
> modern languages and IDE's are using is lacking for D.
>

What? https://wiki.dlang.org/IDEs

> 9. What I do like about D is that it can compile for various 
> platforms rather easy. Usually I do something like -m64 and run 
> the app then it crashes. I don't know why because their was no 
> error message. The point is that while D can "compile" for 
> various platforms it is always an "on going process".
>

You can specify compiler flags to get debug informtion, you can 
attempt to catch the error or you can attach a debugger.

How hard can it be?

> Because 9/10 D programmers program in linux, windows support is 
> minimal and buggy. Since I don't use linux, because windows has 
> a much larger market share, maybe D is great on linux. On 
> windows though, it's a literal pain in the ass. All the time I 
> spend trying to figure out how to get things to work properly 
> has given me hemorrhoids. God did not design Man's ass to sit 
> in front of a computer all day. BTW, a program can't just 
> "work", I have clients that have a certain level of 
> expectation, like no seg faults. Just because it works for me, 
> or for you is not good enough. It has to work for everyone.
>

I program on Windows and Windows only. I have never had a single 
issue because of that and I have been programming D for roughly 4 
years now, pretty much every day.

> 10. Most user contributed D packages are outdated. They simply 
> don't work anymore due to all the language changes. Instead of 
> culling the crap, it persists and the user has to wade through 
> it all. It's every man for himself when it comes to D.
>

Well, instead of crying. Fix them and make them work again. 
Nobody is obligated to keep their projects up to date.

> 11. D has no proper Gui. WTF?  This isn't the 70's no matter 
> how much you to relive peace and sex. Oh, did I hear someone 
> say bindings? WTF?
>

Uhmm Dlang UI?

> 12. D has no proper logging system. I just don't want to log a 
> message, I want a well designed and easily manageable way to 
> understand problems my program is experiencing. Given that D 
> has so many latent issues, it's nice to have some way to deal 
> with the "Big foot"(But bug that you only see when when your 
> driving down a windy dark road in Nebraska).
>

Say what? https://dlang.org/phobos/std_experimental_logger.html

There's also profiling logs, code coverage logs etc. that can be 
specified with compiler flags.

> 13. Windows interfacing. Thanks for the bindings! The most used 
> OS in the would with the largest commercial share only gets 
> bindings that is actually like programming in win32. Rather 
> than at least wrap them in a working oop design that hides away 
> the abacus feel, we are stuck with bindings. The D community 
> loves bindings, I have no fucking clue why. It just means more 
> work. At least if I didn't have the bindings I wouldn't have to 
> implement anything.
>

If you're missing win api calls simply add them yourself and do a 
pull request or stop crying.

I believe there was an open-source project that had bindings to 
most win api calls though.

But again D is open-source and mostly worked on voluntary, so if 
something is missing add it.

Most people don't go adding a billion features that may or may 
not be used. They usually add something because they need it.

> 14. Gaming? It can be done, not by me or you but by geniuses 
> who live in their basement and no one to support or nothing 
> else to do but hash out how to get it done. But while they 
> might share their results, don't get your hopes up and expect 
> it to work for you.
>

What are you talking about?

> 15. Cross platform design? Maybe, Supposedly it works but I 
> have too much trouble with windows to care about adding another 
> layer of crap on top.
>

You have too much trouble with yourself. Go cry me a river, 
because you sound too incompetent to achieve anything even if it 
worked for you.

> 16. The community. While not worse than most others, doesn't 
> really give a shit about the real world programmer. The elite 
> are too busy thinking of ways to add the latest and greatest 
> feature, thinking it will attract more buyers. The rabble 
> rousers like myself don't actually do much. Ultimately things 
> get done but nothing useful happens. Kinda like those jackasses 
> that floor it with their foot on the break. A lot of smoke but 
> pointless. D's been going how long? 10+ years?
>

Such a biased opinion, but how do you expect people to treat you 
when you're just acting like an ass?

I have never had any issues with people in the D community, in 
fact I have felt pretty welcomed and generally most people around 
here are nice.

> The majority of you guys here don't realize that the average 
> programming can't waste time creating a gui, implementing a 
> design for the bindings you created, patching together 
> different packages that don't work together, etc.
>

I work 8+ hours every day, not working with D. I believe that I 
understand.

D is open-source and people work on it when they have time.

If you have a problem with that, then D is not the language for 
you.

> While there are, I'm sure, a lot of good intentions, they are 
> meaningless when it comes to putting food on the table.  If you 
> are going to do something, do it with gusto, not half ass. If 
> you are going to design a package, do it right! Not something 
> that continually requires fixing and effects every person that 
> uses it exponentially. Every minute I spend fixing someone 
> else's shit takes a minute away from my life. For N-1 other 
> users that's N minutes wasted because the original creator 
> didn't take the extra minute. Thanks for wasting all of our 
> time. That's a factor of N. Now when we have to do that for M 
> packages, that's M*N's people shit we have to fix. All because 
> one person didn't want to spend one extra minute fixing their 
> own shit. Ok, so, it might not be exponentially but it's still 
> time that could be better spent on more important things.
>
>
>
> 17 ...
>

Blah...

>
> 18. As you can see, I've ran out of steam. My butt hurts and I 
> have better things to do... like delete dmd from my computer. 
> At least that's simple and works! (I hope, maybe it will seg 
> fault on me or I have to run some special command line switch).
>

Well please don't come again.

>
> 19. PS. Ok, so, D isn't as terrible as I'm making it out. It's 
> free. And as they say, you get what you pay for ;)
>

Most programming languages are free, the hell how does that make 
any sense?

D's quality is pretty good. Just because you're too idiotic to 
understand its semantics, doesn't mean its quality is bad.

> 20. I hope the D community can come together at some point and 
> work towards a common goal that will benefit humanity. It's a 
> mini-cosmos of what is going on in the world today. Everyone is 
> in it for themselves and they don't realize the big picture and 
> how every little thing they do has an enormous impact on the 
> human species.  We aren't doing this stuff for fun, we do it to 
> make a better life for ourselves, which means we also have to 
> do it for everyone else(because we are all in it together).
>
> Their is so much wasted time and life by so many people for so 
> many useless reasons that we could have built a bridge, brick 
> by brick, to moon and back, a dozen fold.  Humanity is an 
> amazing species capable of unimaginable things. By extension, 
> so is the D community. I just hope D doesn't end up like the 
> Kardashians as it has so much more use for humanity.
>
> 00. Please get your shit together! I mean that in the best 
> possible way!

The Kardashians? Really...



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