D needs to get its shit together!

[Wulfklaue via Digitalmars-d]

On Friday, 16 June 2017 at 10:38:44 UTC, Seb wrote:
> There is an official D installer for Posix systems that can 
> handle multiple compilers and all versions quite well.
> IIRC does dvm only support DMD?

Good for the poxis platform set ... but D is used on more then 
only linux and osx.

> I think you are just complaining about Windows. Everything is 
> nicely packaged under Linux, Posix and OSX.

And that makes the point wrong? No it does not ...

> The beauty of D is that you don't need a fancy editor.

That is a straw man argument...

Every language can be more productive with a editor, especially 
when people first learn the language. Lets not turn this into a 
editor/ide vs ... discussion. You got your preference, that is 
clear by now.

> Really?
>
> curl i.dlang.io | bash -s dmd
> curl i.dlang.io | bash -s dmd-2.072.2
> curl i.dlang.io | bash -s dmd-newCTFE
> curl i.dlang.io | bash -s dmd-nightly
> curl i.dlang.io | bash -s ldc
> curl i.dlang.io | bash -s ldc-beta
> curl i.dlang.io | bash -s ldc-1.1.0
> curl i.dlang.io | bash -s gdc

Thanks but again besides the point. The Original poster is 
referring to the experience for new users.

Do you expect every user to know Linux commands? Do you expect 
them to run Linux?

The fact that your over emphasizing on this, clearly shows that 
there is a gap in D there multi-platform support.

Thanks for the information. Its useful for me but that is NOT THE 
POINT!

> Are there any features between 2.073.2 (latest LDC beta) and 
> 2.074.1 that you actually miss?

Up to recently Dmd and Ldc used to be much more separated in 
there future set.

And please do tell ... having 2.073.2 vs 2.074.1 version 
difference may not be a lot but its still not a single platform 
support.

Bugs or issues solved in DMD 2.074.1 can hamper somebody who is 
cross compiling for production. And visa versa.

Is it that difficult to have both versions synchronized and 
released as one package? Why the push back to even mentioning 
this.

> --compiler=ldc2 works very well for me.

Nice to know, yet, that did not work in my case and it needed the 
path.

> Because the top contributors to DMD are unfamiliar with the LDC 
> codebase. However, there are ongoing efforts to make the 
> frontend accessible as a library.

Good to know...

> Because there is a very easy way to fetch & build them since 
> DUB is part of the release:
>
> dub fetch dscanner
> dub build dscanner

Again, this is straw man argumentation.

This assumes knowledge of dub, knowledge of the tools used, it 
assume the editor can interact and find the builds. And frankly, 
running it like that also pollutes a project ( seen it, done it, 
got the medal ).

Read the freaking original poster his text. He is frustrated that 
for new users, maybe people with little to no background D is 
simply a mess.

I pointed out that Rust and Go are WAY more easy to setup 
everything and interact with advanced features because they 
integrated a lot more.

And on a side note: There is nothing more fun as running into a 
bug with dfmt or some other third party plugin because a change 
that happened in dmd.

Example: latest DMD, a change happened, plugin does not compile. 
Now please do tell how a totally new user will find his way 
around? They will post here, get some crispy comment and maybe 
leave. Or hell, they may not even post here.

> Don't forget that D is an open source project driven by 
> volunteers.

So do you and every other person remind the people who point out 
issues. And the point is? Well, its all volunteer project so 
never expect a improvement until somebody wants to fix it. 
Strange because Rust is highly volunteer based and yet they have 
a more coherent structure. So why is that? Now that is a good 
question...

> Because there's​ only so much that can be in a standard 
> library. It's way to thick imho anyways. What's wrong with 
> using a DUB package?

What i am talking about is not part of the standard library, 
hell, it has nothing to do with the library at all. Its part of 
the standard tool set. Total different things...

> If it is that common to your work, you can add the project to 
> you D include directory.

Again ... very, VERY unclear how and what is possible in D. Sure, 
i can figure it things out but it takes time. And the next guy 
also needs to put time into this. And the next guy...

> Yes because tools come and go whereas a standard library or a 
> package manager stays. With the limited volunteers time there's 
> only so much that can be done.
> And in your free time, you usually work on problems that are 
> interesting to you?

Maybe that is the same reason why D has a issue drawing in new 
non-C/C++ developers? Maybe because too many people live in there 
high tower assuming its easy for everybody else.


And no offense but some responses here feel like: "Hey somebody 
pointed out a problem. Lets jump on this person for pointing it 
out".

I am already seeing the arguments that D is all about volunteers 
and the push back. "Hey, D is all volunteers. Why do you not do 
it. Well, if you do not do it, it will never happen". And round 
and round that discussion goes.


On Friday, 16 June 2017 at 10:55:04 UTC, Moritz Maxeiner wrote:
> Everything *I* need works well enough (and I'm fairly convinced 
> it is the same for the majority of D users, though that is 
> speculation). If you want something fixed, do it yourself or 
> pay someone to do it.

Well, i do not have the time. Want me to donate? Does that solve 
the issue. No ... because there is no clear infrastructure in 
place to actually hire people to work on the language and the 
environment.

Pointless to even mention this, it like all the other discussions 
like this. People mention issue. Blow back. Heated discussions. 
And the people who complain give up. Those that point fingers 
continue living in there bubble and ... nothing changes or 
improves.

I do not have a issue donating money. In the process of setting 
up a company and maybe can support D from that angle. But i do 
have a issue when people react like this whenever people with 
good intention get blow back. The original poster his topic title 
is a bad choice but his points are not. Just reading the history 
on the mail group and you see so many time the same issues. And 
the exact same responses. And the exact same nothing happening 
because people give up.

D for me works but i like to see D also grow. When D grows, it 
means the language will get longer support. A bigger community is 
more resources. Win win for everybody. But for some reason i can 
not help to feel that some people are almost against this, the 
attitude here simply STINKS when it comes down to issues. The 
whole "it works for me, so how dare you complain" is really 
demotivating and frankly scares people away.

Hey, it works for me "not dumb dumb" but its the wast of time 
figuring out things that are much more easy in other languages. 
But that also means anybody coming with limited programming 
knowledge or no linux knowledge and wants to do more then a 
"hello world", will run into the exact time wasting issues.

But please, do shoot the messengers. Like that will help.

I am already far into my project with D but at the same time i 
can not help getting this nagging feeling that D has major issues 
beyond its base language. Mostly its community and structure. I 
see less of this with for instance Rust despite being a WAY 
younger language and audience. Its almost like D is stuck in the 
past, in some kind of pre-2000 C++ attitude. Like i said, maybe 
its me. D as a base language works but for such a old language ( 
lets be honest about that ), its a real struggle on the other 
areas beyond the language.