What are we going to do about mobile?

[Dmitry Olshansky via Digitalmars-d]

On 4/6/17 7:24 AM, Joakim wrote:
> I have been saying for some time now that mobile is going to go after
> the desktop next
> (http://forum.dlang.org/thread/rionbqmtrwyenmhmmggx@forum.dlang.org),
> Samsung just announced it, for a flagship device that will ship tens of
> millions:
>
[snip]
> The latter may seem far-fetched given D has not done that well in
> desktop GUI apps, but mobile is still a new market and D could do well.
> D is uniquely well-suited to mobile, because it's nicer than Java or
> Obj-C while more efficient than the former, and it could make it easier
> to go cross-platform.
>

Let's not forget Kotlin and Swift, things we'd really be competing 
against - that is the other NEW stuff.

Also let's not forget the _legion_ of tools that let you do 
cross-platform mobile app development in languages such as JavaScript, 
Lua and e.g. C#.

> Vadim has done some nice work building DLangUI on Android, including a
> Tetris app that I spent half an hour playing on my phone:
>
> http://forum.dlang.org/thread/cdekkumjynhqoxvmgjze@forum.dlang.org
>
> I realize D is never going to have a polished devkit for mobile unless a
> company steps up and charges for that work.  But we can do a lot better
> than the complacency from the community we have now.

Much as I like D I would admit that even Desktop/Server developer 
experience is far from stellar. Now switching to mobile the expectations 
of mobile developers are much higher - they want a ready made 
development environment, full support of platform APIs, thousands of 
examples, ready made GUI components, tons of documentation, perfect 
support for all manner of proprietary tools such as code signing, 
emulators, you name it. Anything short of completely polished devkit is 
not going to succeed.

Most importantly though we would need to change the perception: trying 
to be a D mobile app developer is doubly niche - first because of D, 
second being an alien in mobile development.

---
Dmitry Olshansky