Blocking points for further D adoption

[Laeeth Isharc via Digitalmars-d]

On Sunday, 5 June 2016 at 09:54:53 UTC, Artem Tarasov wrote:
> I've learned about the last one only from this thread, and the 
> first two are listed only on http://wiki.dlang.org/
> Scripting_Libraries, thus I draw the conclusion that's how they 
> are used most often.

One area where I do agree with you is that D hides it's light 
under a bushel.  Unless one is willing to look for them, there
are many hidden gems that aren't easy to learn about from the 
front page (or the obvious links off that).

So I do think the idea of creating some channels per typical use 
case would be a good one.  I would help with that, but I
simply have no time for now, though it might change in a few 
months.  Possibly it's something the D Foundation could look at
once it's fully up and running.

Wrt PyD usage, not every project happens on GitHub in public, and 
it may well be the case that commercial users don't open-source 
code that uses PyD.  I use it a little and haven't put stuff up 
on github for that for the time being.  But the functionality is
there - took a quick look just recently for another reason, and 
last commit was no more than 4 days ago.  Code base could
be cleaned up a little, as could the docs, but it works and I 
think the cleanup will happen at some point.  For OS X, not
sure if the shared library problem is relevant (I don't use a 
Mac), but I know that John uses a Mac, so I expect it works with 
dmd.

Have you seen any problems with multithreading in PyD?  Ie have 
you any reasons to be concerned?  Obviously on the python
side there is the GIL, but I don't understand well enough any 
complications posed by using shared libraries for threading -
I am not aware of any problems with PyD and threads though.

Re tiny druntime, that might suit you, but I think many people 
would prefer that it's one simple import and, after all, you are 
not actually using it.  Probably Benjamin Thaut or others will 
know the real resource cost of initializing D runtime on multiple 
occasions (I presume it won't crash, but haven't tried, and I 
imagine the cost is small if any).

Your point 1 sounds like a minor change rather than something 
existential.  I'll ask John Colvin.

> Well, it's not for me, I'm mostly out already, back to
> C++14/Python, after careful weighing of offerings w.r.t.
> infrastructure /pain of coding.

Well, fair enough.  Knuth welcomed the proliferation of languages 
because language reflects thought and people think differently.
A language like D at this stage shouldn't try to cater to 
everyone, because that's a recipe for spreading oneself too thin. 
  As Walter says, it is much better to cater to those who already 
love the language and use it, and want to do more with it.

> The ideal people for these kind of tasks are students, imho.

I think the whole point about D is that it is very helpful for 
many purposes, and these can't be usefully captured by a single
abstract domain description.

For what it's worth, I am using it at the other extreme, for the 
alternative investment management business.  And it's already 
used by a $20bn fund for absolutely critical functions, so I am 
not sure that one can describe D as a language suited mostly to 
the educational sphere, though I am sure it is useful there too.

It suits how I personally think, fits the problem domain well, 
and the main costs are wrapping/porting libraries, and that is
a one-off cost that can be amortised over a larger project (set 
off against quite substantial gains due to D's benefits).

> I've read on this forum about some magic place where D is being
>taught at a university, that's where I'd try to get an influx
> from.

Seems to me that looking at metrics of growth there is hardly a 
need to try to get an influx, and that also doesn't fit the
model of how D has developed - much more organically, where 
people address their own pain, and by doing so open up the 
language
for broader use (just like with bachmeier's work on D<->R.

dconf was 140+ people this year, and 40 in prior years.  daily 
downloads went from 200 odd in 2013 to 1300 odd
lately.  compound growth is quite powerful.

Sorry to hear it doesn't fit what you want to do right now.  
Maybe it just isn't for you.  Or maybe you need more things to be
developed first and you should check back in a year.

But if one isn't making some people unhappy one is trying to be 
all things to all people, and that's not a recipe for success
either.  Given finite resources and no ability to tell people 
what to do, I doubt the language would be in a better place if
people had worked on what you wished they had worked on rather 
than what they did work on.