My first experience as a D Newbie

codephantom me at noyb.com
Thu Oct 19 23:15:01 UTC 2017


On Thursday, 19 October 2017 at 21:18:43 UTC, Rion wrote:
> But this is my last response on this. Moving on to a different 
> language because from my point of view, D will not be very open 
> / marketing focused to non C++ developers. And some people seem 
> very willing to push people there buttons when topics like this 
> come up. As we see in this topic. I regret that the actions of 
> few constantly ruin the work of others ( to bring people in ). 
> What seems to be a recurring theme.

Can I suggest, that you adjust your sails too ;-)

The only constant, is that people are always inclined to submit 
new ideas (especially true for newbies), good or bad, that sit in 
queues waiting for approval...and eventually lose their 
motivation and go elsewhere....

Sadly, this is the curse of volunteer based open source 
development.

That's why newbies (and not so newbies), coming in with new 
ideas, often get demotivated. It does *not* ever mean the idea is 
not good, or that people would not like to see it come about. It 
is usually because volunteers simply are *already* very focused 
on higher priorities that *already* exist, and almost certainly, 
there are *already* too many of those. Each new idea, or 
enhancement request, just adds to the existing list...making it 
grower longer and longer...and guess how people start to feel 
when that happens...and I don't just mean the people adding to 
that list, but the people working on that list. So think of them 
too.

That's why I really feel that newbies need to learn *first*, how 
to adjust their sails to the wind. That is the first lesson.

The wind does it's own thing...you need adjust to it, not it to 
you.

Have you looked at this lately? https://dlang.org/bugstats.html

Look at the number of open enhancement requests. Then look at the 
number of critical and major requests - priority matters!

So picking your battles, is really more about adjusting your 
focus to the stuff that needs to get done first. If you have a 
new idea, there's a good chance it won't get done unless you do 
it. And I've explained the reasons for that, already.

I'm sure everyone likes the idea of making D more welcoming to 
new users...especially those that expect an all encompassing 
solution, delivered to them on a silver platter. But current 
volunteers are just not focused on that..they are focused on 
something else. What is needed, is new volunteers, who *can* 
focus on just that - rather than telling others to focus on that.

So I say, don't submit a request...go do it. Then tell others 
about it. If your work has merit, and is important and useful to 
enough people, at the time, then it will be recognised. If not, 
tough.

Just look at all the stuff that 'volunteers' have done, are 
doing, and are still yet to get around to doing. It's pretty 
amazing! Nobody should be undermining their motivations, or 
suggest they aren't welcoming of new ideas.

Have a listen to Walter (a compiler programmer), explaining (just 
some of) the challenges of trying to run an open source project:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGcKojMF5ps

Does any one of us really think, that we can do it better ??

Motivation is really important in life. I get it. Motivation is 
key for me too.

But if your sails are not adjusted to the wind, then you're not 
going to get very far.

btw... before turning away from D, remember, that "Once a new 
technology starts rolling, if you're not part of the steamroller, 
..[you might end up being].. part of the road."

;-)



More information about the Digitalmars-d mailing list