Could D have fit Microsoft's needs?

[Exil]

On Tuesday, 23 July 2019 at 00:47:09 UTC, Laeeth Isharc wrote:
> On Monday, 22 July 2019 at 23:16:26 UTC, Margo wrote:
>> On Sunday, 21 July 2019 at 00:22:11 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:
>>> On 7/18/2019 5:12 PM, Mike Franklin wrote:
>>>> ... and D could complete better with Rust if it had 
>>>> @safe-by-default and statically-check ownership/borrowing 
>>>> mechanism as Walter recently proposed.
>>>
>>> D has some huge advantages over Rust.
>>>
>>> For example, D has a familiar syntax and jargon. For another, 
>>> you'll be able to move to memory safety incrementally with D, 
>>> you won't have to rewrite your app from the start.
>>
>> If you can not convince a company like Jetbrain, to support a 
>> official D language plugin, then those few advantages do not 
>> rack up to much. Rust language plugins, be it vscode, jetbrain 
>> products or other ides are well developed allowing for more 
>> developers choice.
>
> Not everyone uses an IDE.  It's obviously an impediment to 
> adoption in the games industry judging by what Manu says, but 
> there are other industries besides games and in some places 
> people don't use IDEs much at all.

Autocomplete is a basic feature not limited to an IDE. VIM 
supports autocomplete, emacs, etc... It is an instrument that 
makes everything much easier to use when you can see all the 
functions you can call along with their respective documentation 
right as you are typing.

>> There is a reason why some major companies look at Rust for 
>> replacing C++ and not D. No matter how much advantages you 
>> think D has, it can be said, that without the actual support 
>> system to convince the companies and developers, D will simply 
>> keep trampling on the same spot.
>
> Why so concerned about major companies when small and medium 
> sized enterprises are in many places (the US being one) 
> responsible for the majority of job creation.
>
> The Mittelstand in Germany has a bunch of world leading 
> companies I have mostly never heard of.  I think it would be 
> much more interesting to know what the impediments are for them 
> to adopt D than large companies.  The moment you have a 
> committee involved formed of people who are not owners then the 
> facts become much less important than social perceptions.  So 
> why bother playing that game when you don't have to.

Having small/medium companies that are simply using the language 
and aren't that affiliated with the language is different than 
having a larger company driving the language. Those small medium 
companies don't work together for one. A large company can have 
numerous projects that out number those small medium companies. 
All the teams working together, in communication with each other 
and the development team working on the language.

This also doesn't help what you have observed:

      "Enterprise users in particular post very little in the 
forums, maybe because they have a lot of work to do. You can even 
see this happen as people move from having primarily a community 
involvement to actually using D at work.  Most obvious to me in 
people that I work with that came from the community."


>> Recently i needed some specific crates for a Rust project, i 
>> looked over at D. More then half the stuff simply did not even 
>> exist for D.
>>
>> D package growth is like 1 per day, with Rust growing by 25 
>> per day. Its easy to see not just momentum diference but also 
>> how easier it is to get going with a project in Rust ( and 
>> half a dozen other languages ) compared to D.
>>
>> https://www.youtube.com/embed/TkNep5zHWNw?start=1496
>>
>> Shows the exact reason why D has issues. Stand alone D is 
>> usable but the moment you need specific packages or tools, D 
>> can not be considered a main application language.
>
> Using DPP you have all of C libraries and progressively the C++ 
> capabilities are being extended although it's not there yet.
>
> D can easily call python and Lua libraries.  I'm working on C# 
> though it's not the number one priority for me right now.

Yes you can, but you won't have access to D's features when using 
a C library. You will have to do everything the way you do it in 
C. Including not having overloads. Unless you write a wrapper 
over it yourself, but then that kind of defeats the entire 
purpose. I use a C++ library and they have a new release almost 
every month or two. I've given up keeping my wrapper up to date 
even though there are features and improvements I want to use in 
the newer versions.

>> In other words: Stop being so darn proud of the language and 
>> realize that the language without the rest is simply not 
>> accepted for mainstream support. Its 2019 and beyond a few 
>> companies and some side project, nobody really gives a darn 
>> about D. Rust simply moves faster, has a better Eco system, 
>> better support, ... So unless you plan on trowing a truckload 
>> of money into hiring developers to speed up the development of 
>> those issues point, your simply no match for Rust.
>
> Why is mainstream adoption so important to you ?  And I wonder 
> if you have considered that the only way to change something 
> about the world that bugs you is to act.  Complaining by 
> itself, I wonder how you think that will change anything.

Assurance of survival. I can see D dying a slow death as it 
stands now, there isn't enough to keep it going on it's own like 
say C++.

> Have you ever started a company and sold it for a decent 
> result?  You might remember when speaking to Walter that he 
> has, competing for years as a one man band with Microsoft and 
> eventually being acquired.

First I've heard of it. Though companies like Microsoft swallow 
small companies whole all the time so not too strange to hear. 
The one's you hear about are those that don't concede and take a 
payout, though those are few and far between.

> I think myself that yes dub could be improved and the registry 
> also.  Maybe we can make it an SAOC project.   And that a start 
> has been made on getting the merits of the language across and 
> that from here what's necessary is just to build on that 
> beginning.
>
> Success stories are the best form of marketing really I think.  
> That and just educational posts and people quietly doing great 
> work.
>
> Seb Wilzbach has achieved by far more in that respect than the 
> total of all the naysayers and people complaining laid end to 
> end.
>
> If you want to change reality then unless you have a very 
> unusual mind with insights people are ready to hear,then 
> nothing is going to happen unless you take action.  And if one 
> isn't interested in doing so,I wonder why it is that there 
> would be an expectation that there will be a receptiveness to 
> words.

The problem is who has control of these things. I've made pull 
requests to dub, they just sit around and nothing gets done. Very 
few people have access to actually enact change. Don't say stuff 
like "you have to do action yourself" cause it's not on me or 
anyone else. There's hundreds of pull requests for DMD and DUB 
combined. There's only so much people can do when pull requests 
sit idle for months/years, especially worse when there's no 
responding. When something somewhat default appears, no one on 
the D team is willing to do anything about it. They all look to 
Walter, and Walter is usually to busy doing something else so he 
never gets around to it. But yah, a very naive thing to say 
considering the current state of how things are managed with the 
project. God bless Seb for having enhanced permission status ^TM.