Feedback on Átila's Vision for D

Ola Fosheim Grøstad ola.fosheim.grostad at gmail.com
Thu Oct 17 15:19:32 UTC 2019


On Thursday, 17 October 2019 at 14:19:21 UTC, welkam wrote:
> Its important how new people coming to this community are being 
> welcomed/treated and their experiences.

That is exactly right. People look to forums when then wonder 
where things are going. So when people complain about the issues 
they are facing they should be met with understanding and the 
problems should be acknowledged. In the past that was not really 
the norm, in fact it was quite the opposite, what they complained 
about was outright dismissed and their opinions invalidated and 
ridiculed.

I haven't seen Chris doing any of that in this thread. Doesn't he 
acknowledge issues people feel strongly about?

If people look at a forum and see issues and opinions they share 
dismissed, then they will most likely loose hope of improvement 
and leave. If they see that others share their concerns then they 
gain hope that something can be done. If something is in the 
pipeline, even better!

For instance I lurked for a long time and the only reason I 
started writing in this forums because I felt that Manu was being 
dismissed while his arguments for where D should head were spot 
on. Only recently has D moved in this direction and I have to 
applaud his persistent stance on pushing D in that direction. I 
doubt that would have happend if he was alone... so for something 
to move you need many different voices pushing for that change. 
Then eventually, over time the arguments are picked up by those 
that resist change.

That said, I often look at github to see what a new tool/language 
turns out to be in practice. And quite frankly if you look at 
well-written fully typed generic D code on github, that code 
is... hard on the eyes.  That really matters. People should 
complain about it, because it actually matters. It isn't just 
syntax, this is how the language presents itself to the world.

> 2. Its needs to be personal insult.
> My post contained neither of them.

"against the person". Anyway, Chris can handle it... but going 
personal does not build a good culture and does not encourage 
lurkers to participate.


> Yes thats why I raised that issue. Some people have higher 
> tolerance to negative emotion and some dont.

Well, but there is company in misery, so actually I'd say the 
opposite. People might stay and deicide to advocate for change if 
they perceive that other have had the same problems as they have. 
If people want something to move then they have to build some 
kind of alliance or exert some force or educate others. That  
sometimes invoke emotions, but it does not have to be personal. 
With no emotions you will probably not get more than tiny 
modifications of status quo.


> I would argue that there were no marketing.

Oh, D1 was marketed quite heavily as an improvement on C++, hit 
Slashdot as a news story when Slashdot was big.


> I have noticed this thing too. There are ideas that are 
> widespread and they hurt D's adoption. There is idea that there 
> needs to be different tool for the job or false dichotomy of 
> low level and high level languages. Do I need to mention GC?

But the dichotomy isn't false... and heavily relying on the GC 
has probably held D back from taking the position Rust is getting 
now...

Both Rust and the C++ committee are addressing user concerns at a 
fast pace now. So it isn't realistic to think that D can keep up 
with those at this point in time.

So at this point D can only try to figure out where it fits in, 
rather than taking over the space of other languages. The time 
window for "taking over" ended a few years ago. I think.



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