D needs to get its shit together!

[Laeeth Isharc via Digitalmars-d]

On Sunday, 18 June 2017 at 14:53:57 UTC, Wulfklaue wrote:
> I already concluded from this "discussion" that there is no 
> point trying to point out issues with D. Maybe too many people 
> in the past pointed out the same stuff and they are tired of it.

In an open-source community, the best way to change something is 
to make a start on it yourself and try to get others interested.  
Or if you can afford it you can see if Walter or Andrei might be 
interested in helping you under a consulting arrangement, or try 
to find someone else in the community that you could pay to 
change it for you.  If you don't want to do the work, and can't 
pay, then you can still try to persuade people - and often 
enough, if you are gently persistent and your point is good, 
you'll be able to influence things over time.  What doesn't work 
is complaining and expecting others to fix your stuff for you.

In theory, when you purchase products and services your supplier 
ought to be much more responsive than where you don't pay.  My 
experience has been that even when you pay quite a lot - millions 
of dollars - one can often be disappointed in just how responsive 
a commercial supplier will be.  So increasingly over time for me 
I have come to see the merits of open-source, because at least I 
can figure out how to change something and find someone who will 
help me do the work.

> There are good people in the D community but in some responses 
> you get the attitude like "how do you not know something so 
> simple". And i am not talking about this topic. There are 
> responses that borderline "how stupid are you". Maybe not in 
> those words but you can read it clearly.

I do not recognise this attitude at all - in fact it's remarkable 
how helpful people are, and how some of the best people in the 
community spend a great deal of time helping others for free.

>>Perhaps _this_ is the right packaging for D right now, to keep 
>>away the kinds of casual users who would not be suited for D.

Yes - it's an advantage for D in its present state of development 
that the frictions act as a shield and tend to mean the people 
who persist have a high level of technical ability and 
resourcefulness, and the people shape the culture.

If you go buy something precious, they don't give you the hard 
sell.  They say this X is not for everyone, but if you would like 
to understand it, here is what the thing is like.  And I think 
it's like that with D - it's not for everyone, but if it were I 
wouldn't be here.

> I am not targeting any person here but there are people here 
> with good intentions and people who to not realize how there 
> responses look down on people. Some do not understand that not 
> everybody has 10+ years in developing C/C++ programs and knows 
> every terminology and understands every aspect of the memory 
> management and the ins and out.

Personally I programmed intensely in C and assembler from 1983 - 
1988 at high school, a little from 1996-1998 and I picked up 
programming again in 2014.  So in the beginning I had no idea why 
people were so focused on memory because when I learnt to program 
memory was pretty fast vs CPU and that changed whilst I was doing 
other things.  But I learnt a lot just in a couple of years from 
being around here - and it wouldn't have been the case in a 
different community.  I don't think it's true that people here 
look down on you or that they expect you to understand every 
nuance of memory management.  One might feel initially 
inadequate, yes, but that's what it's like to learn something 
new.  And people may also be a bit short on time - but it's not 
their responsibility to spend their free time to teach you.  It's 
nice when they do, but it's up to us to teach ourselves using 
whatever resources we can find.

> Frankly, sometimes i wish i NEVER discovered the forums because 
> seeing some of the discussions and reading the past 
> discussions, it feels like a darn pool of evil. Good, bad and 
> just ugly. It frankly demotivates...

You must be reading different forums from me.

> And it has now **highly** opinionated my attitude about D, to 
> the point that makes me wonder. As a potential employer:
>
> If i hire people with no D knowledge and they need to learn D. 
> They go to these forums and get sucked into this.

I'm paying people to work in D, and have done since 2015.  I 
personally would never hire someone who would be put off by 
robust exchanges or who would lack the resourcefulness and 
ability to tolerate discomfort that everything not being 
completely shiny (documentation, installation on Windows) would 
deter them.

In fact, I would go further and say that D is a good hiring 
filter for the very reasons that you find offputting (though you 
interpret the meaning of things differently from me).

And I'm in a different business, most likely, and it may be that 
at this point the language is a good fit for me and not for some 
others - that's okay.  D isn't for everyone, and it doesn't need 
to appeal to most people to continue to grow at a stunning pace.  
It just needs to appeal a little more to those already on the 
fence or for whom D is a solution to their pain.


> What about easy of learning, issues they may run into. It means 
> time i need to spend teaching new employees to avoid some of 
> the issues mentioned here ( and a lot of past topics that i 
> found ). I do not understand because on other language forums 
> the discussions are more civilized, there seem to be less 
> looking down on people. Maybe i use the Rust argument a bit too 
> much but to be good at Rust a good background is extreme 
> helpful and yet, i do not notice the same attitude with people 
> ask stupid questions or are not happy about something.

Why can't the French be more like the English?  Well, because 
they are French.  And it's the same with computer language 
communities - they each have their own history and culture, and 
it isn't going to change much to wish things were different from 
how they are.

BTW where people have been harshest here, I see that much more 
amongst people who are natural technical leaders and have strong 
opinions on things - that are often thought through and 
insightful.  And I think it's mostly just what you expect to see 
in a community where people care about technical excellence - 
they want to do things right and can't stand to see it done 
wrong.  There's going to be a bit more discord if you have people 
like that, but it will be generative discord, and it's the only 
way you get to excellence.  (Try the kernel mailing list if you 
doubt me).  I don't see much harshness from experienced people 
towards newcomers, and Walter and Andrei and others are pretty 
quick to put a stop to that on very rare occasions when it 
happens.

> standard documentation disaster ( until you discover the 
> library doc )
?

> And please, do not quote my text piece by piece, ripping me a 
> new one for being inflammatory or whatever. Its how I from MY 
> perceptive see things. Just as you, the person reading this 
> will have there own opinion.

Sure, but you must expect people to have different perspectives 
from you and want to explain why they disagree.

> As for me, i will be looking a bit more into other languages 
> and there communities. For a hobby project D is perfectly fine 
> but as a future employer my standard is much more ridge.

I'd be interested to see what you find.  If gentleness is 
important to you, I do think you will find places that emphasize 
that more.  On the other hand if language quality, versatility, 
plasticity, readability, productivity are important and it needs 
to be native code then I am not so sure.  One only gets to 
quality via robust debate, and the nature of electronic 
communication means that it unavoidably doesn't always stay 
gentle - that's the price one pays for the benefits of this new 
form of social organisation.

> I want to hire people first with lower experience ( cheaper ) 
> and let them learn on the job

Fair enough.  There's a massive difference in productivity of 
people - if you can spot the best people then less experienced 
ones might not be so expensive and they can learn quickly.  But 
hiring people who aren't the best but are cheap is very expensive 
in the long run.  I very much doubt very good people will 
struggle to learn D, and the doc situation is way better than 
when I started myself.

> And well ... lets say that my impression has been a mixed 
> experience so far. Especially if this means exposing people 
> with maybe scripting language experience to a compile language 
> like D.

I think that if one only knows a scripting language and has never 
played with electronics and microprocessors then one has a basic 
hole in one's knowledge as a programmer.  Remedying that will 
take time (and it's harder for many adults than in childhood), no 
matter what language you learn next.  But that's a fault of the 
education system and the modern intolerance of discomfort, not D.

> Maybe its time to tidy the ship because first impression count 
> for a lot.
I think you get the fundamentals right first and worry about 
polishing it in time.  Lipstick on a pig - it is still a pig.  
And I don't think first impressions in the sense you mean count 
that much, particularly if you have relatively low market share.  
I mean if people think the language is pretty good but 
documentation isn't yet good enough they won't write it off 
forever and will be open to taking another look in two or three 
years.