Dicebot on leaving D: It is anarchy driven development in all its glory.

[Alexander Nicholi]

On Thursday, 23 August 2018 at 09:16:23 UTC, Mihails wrote:
> Didn't intend to chime in, but no, that was not what I have 
> meant at all. My stance is that as long as current leadership 
> remains in charge and keep sames attitude, no amount of money 
> or developer time will fix D.
>
> What is the point in hiring someone to manage things if Walter 
> still can do stuff like -dip1000? For me moment of 
> understanding this was exact point of no return.

Just as power is not something to be grasped or abolished, 
leadership is not something you can consider as an attribute or 
property of the D endeavour or its community. You criticise the 
leadership as if them being leaders is part of the problem, 
leaving no event or cause to credit for why their stewardship is 
bad! You think -dip1000 is disadvisable? What grounds are those 
on? How does that tie into the leadership at hand here? When I 
ask about leadership I ask not about leaders, but rather the 
actions leaders take, since those count for everything in 
evaluating their skill.

On Thursday, 23 August 2018 at 14:29:23 UTC, bachmeier wrote:
> Weka is an awesome project, but I don't know that most people 
> considering D should use your experience as the basis of their 
> decision. At least in my areas, I expect considerable growth in 
> the usage of D over the next 10 years. Maybe it won't see much 
> traction as a C++ replacement for large projects like Weka.

It’s as much to consider as any other project, in that you 
shouldn’t base your opinions or decisions on it alone. There are 
other aspects of this I will comment on later.

On Thursday, 23 August 2018 at 13:22:45 UTC, Shachar Shemesh 
wrote:
> What I did mean by that is that the enthusiasm from D has 
> *greatly* diminished. Many (but not all) developer will 
> definitely not choose D for our next project, should the choice 
> be ours to make.
>
> Like I said in my original post, it is not even in consensus 
> whether picking D to begin with had been a mistake. Some think 
> it was, some think, even in hind sight and after being more or 
> less disillusioned, that it was still better than picking 
> another language. As such, it is not even universally true that 
> engineers at Weka regret going with D.

Perhaps your team’s mistake is deciding from their enthusiasm 
instead of a solid analysis of what the language will demand from 
your team. It is no secret that D is not as ready for production 
as C++, so why did they not evaluate the shortcomings of the 
ecosystem beforehand? Was the honest consensus that D would carry 
your project as well as Go, Rust, or C++? A cursory examination 
shows the former two languages have a corporate backbone absent 
from D, and C++ is self-explanatory with ISO and OS code.

On Thursday, 23 August 2018 at 13:22:45 UTC, Shachar Shemesh 
wrote:
> To summarize: Weka isn't ditching D, and people aren't even 
> particularly angry about it. It has problems, and we've learned 
> to live with them, and that's that. The general consensus, 
> however, is that these problems will not be resolved (we used 
> to file bugs in Bugzilla. We stopped doing that because we saw 
> nothing happens with them), and as far as the future of the 
> language goes, that's bad news.
>
> Shachar

Imagine you are on a state-of-the-art boat in the bronze age that 
needs many many people to move it by oar. You aren’t the crew of 
the ship, but you have cargo that needs pulled for trade. This 
boat is short-staffed, and by freemen to boot, and your 
merchantry has insisted on going with this boat over the bigger 
boats, because maybe they use slave drivers, or they’re really 
old and the sea won’t take them well, or whathaveyou. Can you, in 
reasonable conscience, expect this noble new boat to carry your 
load the same as older, rustier, or more backwards ships? It may 
be able to, but at a greatly reduced speed, or split into 
multiple trips or some other serious concession. But you are a 
merchant, you roll the nickels in the mediterranean and if you 
really wanted to you could push to hire more oarmen and have it 
both ways. In a way, this is the decision your team needed to 
make with a language like this, and it puzzles me why you haven’t 
mentioned a discussion of this sort yet. And it is even more 
bemusing that, somehow, you find the people running the boat to 
be at fault for not meeting your expectations. Were you hoping to 
find the holy grail aboard this ship?

On Thursday, 23 August 2018 at 17:19:41 UTC, Ali wrote:
> On Thursday, 23 August 2018 at 16:22:54 UTC, Shachar Shemesh 
> wrote:
>> On 23/08/18 17:01, Steven Schveighoffer wrote:
>> My main job is to develop for Weka, not develop D itself.
>
> Weka, at some point, made the strategic decision to use a non 
> mainstream language
>
> I dont think Weka, have a choice, they have to invest in the 
> development of D itself

Arguably, this should have been an expectation from the start. I 
have not spent a lot of time here, yet I am plenty prepared to 
fork over a lot of my own resources to make things happen in D 
for my company because of what I’ve seen of the ecosystem so far. 
I don’t know of Weka’s leadership at all, but since I lead my 
company I can say that it will almost certainly transition from 
my time as a developer into my money as I make more things and 
make more money. It’s no small favour to ask, but it’s the only 
realistic expectation to have besides the current state of 
affairs that result when you do nothing or sit idly hoping for 
things to come to you. They say Rome was not built in a day, but 
what they don’t tell you is Rome was not built from anything less 
than a global fortune either. It’s paramount to really know what 
you’re up to task for.

On Thursday, 23 August 2018 at 16:22:54 UTC, Shachar Shemesh 
wrote:
> I'm reminded of a friend of mine, who kept hoping to win the 
> lottery despite never buying a ticket. His reasoning was that 
> the chances of winning are not much changed by buying a ticket.
>
> Shachar

Is using D tantamount to a lottery for you? What did you expect 
in your original enthusiasm if not this?

On Thursday, 23 August 2018 at 18:27:27 UTC, Abdulhaq wrote:
> On Thursday, 23 August 2018 at 09:51:43 UTC, rikki cattermole 
> wrote:
>>> Good luck getting W&A to agree to it, especially when there 
>>> is yet another "critical D opportunity" on the table ;)
>>
>> No. They have power for as long as we the community say that 
>> they do.
>> We are at the point where they need a check and balance to 
>> keep everybody going smoothly. And I do hope that they listen 
>> to us before somebody decides its forkin' time.
>
> No fork of D can be successful, it won't have the manpower, 
> skills or willpower to draw on. Even with W and A it's already 
> short.
>
> 'Threatening' W and A with a fork is an empty threat that just 
> p***es them off. Bad move on your part.

The solution is obviously not hard power, then. Ever wonder why 
the US has unquestioned global military dominance? It’s all in 
soft power. Most of the military isn’t tasked with punching down 
everyone on earth, but rather protecting all of the trade routes 
on the planet with the concessions countries give in exchange for 
that. You have a much better time doing what you want if you 
convince people to go along with you instead of forcing them into 
your will, and it’s true at every scale from global geopolitics 
to programming language communities. Funding the D foundation 
with solid, clear expectations is an easy example of this, but 
there are lots of ways to go about it that makes everyone happy.

On Thursday, 23 August 2018 at 23:06:03 UTC, Everlast wrote:
> I agree with this. I no longer program in D, except for minor 
> things, because of this type of approach. D, as a language, is 
> the best. D as an actual practical tool is a deadly pit of 
> snakes... anyone of which can bite you, and that won't stop the 
> others. Of course, in the pit is where all the gold is at...

So then, you need a snake charmer to distract them all as you run 
the gold. See below for a more concise explanation of this.

On Thursday, 23 August 2018 at 23:06:03 UTC, Everlast wrote:
> My feeling is D is and will stay stagnate for the majority of 
> the world. It doesn't seem to have enough momentum to break out 
> and the "leaders" don't seem to know much about actually 
> leading... programming? Yes, but leading? No, not 
> really...(obviously they know something but I'm talking about 
> what is required... a bill gate like character, say, not that 
> we want another one of those!)

It’s interesting you mention Bill Gates! Like Steve Jobs, one 
thing he was notoriously brilliant for doing was in leadership. 
In the joint interview they did together (I believe it was some 
time in 2007), both of them mentioned how critical it was that 
they had so many people around them to make their companies 
happen, and how lucky they were for it. They kept it simple, but 
luck doesn’t earn you workmates - leadership does. It’s one of 
the most thankless jobs around and there are more people than 
many programmers can imagine who grossly overestimate their 
aptitude at it.

On Thursday, 23 August 2018 at 23:06:03 UTC, Everlast wrote:
> Since time is money, you know these types of issues will stop 
> businesses from adopting D. The typical answer from the D 
> community is "Implement it in a library!" or "It has bindings!" 
> as if these are the solutions someone trying to get shit done 
> wants to hear. Usually the libraries are defunct in some 
> way(bit rot, version issues, shitty design, some deal 
> breaker(e.g., uses gc), shitty documentation, etc).

The default modus operandum for businesses is total indifference. 
If they shy away from D for these issues it is almost always 
because they didn’t care much at all in the first place and were 
likely eyeing it to see what it even is because they haven’t 
heard of it before. “Time is money” is not wrong but there’s a 
much less confusing way to put it: priorities. They usually don’t 
care, and in that case, what did you expect them to do? I’d see 
them taking a vacation to Greenland before they adopt D in that 
case.

On Friday, 24 August 2018 at 21:53:18 UTC, H. S. Teoh wrote:
> I think it's clear by now that most of D's woes are not really 
> technical in nature, but managerial.  I'm not sure how to 
> improve this situation, since I'm no manager type either.  It's 
> a known problem among techies that we tend to see all problems 
> as technical in nature, or solvable via technical solutions, 
> when in reality what's actually needed is someone with real 
> management skills.  Hammer and nail, and all that, y'know.
>
> Unfortunately, we techies also tend to resist non-technical 
> "interference", especially from non-techies (like manager 
> types). I used to have that attitude too (and probably still do 
> to some extent), and only with age did I begin realizing this 
> about myself.  It's not an easy problem to fix in practice, 
> especially in a place like here, where we're driven primarily 
> by the technical aspects of D, and for the most part outside of 
> any financial or other motivations that might have served to 
> moderate things a little.

Yes, yes. As I said before, management is very valuable and the 
time is nigh for more of it because it is apparent D has plenty 
of technical rigour in its alumni. The most critical thing in 
management is that it needs to be from people who are technically 
rigourous, because an incompetent manager is, in D’s case at 
least, worse for everyone than a competent non-manager. It’s 
basically a matter of the folks who already kick ass + take names 
stepping up to bat together as a team, bringing more cohesion 
into things. This is anything but easy, but if accomplished it 
would make D shine a lot for enterprise onlookers, particularly 
the kinds of wealthy interests that do very much care about 
things even when it doesn’t really make them money (think Gabe 
Newell with his insistence on opening PC gaming up for linux).

On Monday, 27 August 2018 at 01:15:49 UTC, Laeeth Isharc wrote:
> I definitely think a stable version with backfixes ported would 
> be great if feasible.

Agreed as well. once I have the ability I will see to this myself 
with LDC if it hasn’t happened already.

On Monday, 27 August 2018 at 01:15:49 UTC, Laeeth Isharc wrote:
> I wonder if we are approaching the point where enterprise 
> crowd-funding of missing features or capabilities in the 
> ecosystem could make sense.  If you look at how Liran managed 
> to find David Nadlinger to help him, it could just be in part a 
> matter of lacking social organisation preventing the market 
> addressing unfulfilled mutual coincidences of wants.  Lots of 
> capable people would like to work full time programming in D.  
> Enough firms would like some improvements made.  If takes work 
> to organise these things.  If I were a student I might be 
> trying to see if there was an opportunity there.

We’re well into the timeframe where it makes sense, imo. the 
problem is actually getting that to happen, which the community 
does not have many cards to play to influence the outcome of, 
many of which can easily backfire anyways. the best strategy is 
to maintain cohesion and mend divides, avoiding sentiments that 
sow them in the first place. I’m sure pretty much no one here 
sees anything less than great potential if not an outright great 
language in front of us here, so it’s in everyone’s interest to 
keep one’s head straight and grounded in reality on things. 
there’s plenty of concrete problems to solve as it is ;)

-----

all things considered here, I see a lot of valid concerns from 
several angles here. the company aspect of the discussion seems 
misguided as to why expectations weren’t met, and as far as D 
itself is concerned stronger + smarter leadership is in the 
biggest demand from what I see.

another thing I want to mention about corporate involvement and 
sponsorship dynamics: as a company your involvement is totally 
elastic. Really you can dictate and harmoniously fulfill any 
level of involvement you desire, and the only question is if your 
negotiation skills are decent enough and whether your 
expectations from others are grounded in reality. You can fund 
the foundation, pay developers of your choosing who are already 
vets in the ecosystem, hire your own IOI-style squadron of FOSS 
mercenaries, or get down-and-dirty and literally do it yourself. 
they don’t call head honchos ‘executives’ for nothing! ;)