Help here: How did you get started with D.

[aberba]

On Monday, 6 July 2020 at 12:19:12 UTC, BoraxMan wrote:
> On Saturday, 4 July 2020 at 10:32:12 UTC, aberba wrote:
>
>> The point of this post is to:
>> 1. Know what helped you get started with D
>
> For what it is worth, as a hobby programmer;
>
> Mostly the dlang.org site itself, including the tour and 
> perusing through the documentation.  Also I referred to Ali's 
> online D Programming Book as well.

Good to know. Ali's books is quite a gift to the community.

>
>> 2. What else you think its worth mentioning
>
> There seems to be some conflicting information online?  Perhaps 
> due to outdated information.

That's a know issue. I'm not sure what can be done about that 
considering someone needs to do it.

>
> But for tutorials, examples, I find it easier to understand 
> when a "real life" usage for that function or language feature 
> is used.  Take mixins for example, rather than mixin("int b = 
> 5;") as an example, which is pointless, it is better to use an 
> example where a mixin WOULD be required and useful.
>
> I think this helps with comprehension.  When you are trying to 
> grasp the concept, it just seems easier to understand it, when 
> you can see what problems that concept would be used to solve.  
> It might make the example longer, but it makes the concept 
> clearer and leads you faster to the "A-ha!" moment.

The Phobos docs is fairly good in comparison to what's available 
elsewhere. But sometimes I wished some of the could be more 
practical oriented like Ali's book style.

I guess you could say I could also do something about it, which 
is fair enough. Ha ha. I'm getting there.

For a long time I didn't know how the D ecosystem (development 
side) works.

>
>
>> 3. Things that weren't immediately obvious when you started 
>> using D and you probably found out the hard way.
>>
>
> How to properly use C++ classes in D,and what the rules and 
> techniques are for doing that.  In particular, what you can, 
> and can't do with a C++ class from D.  I was looking at using D 
> for a FLTK based GUI program, but found myself looking at the 
> few scant examples trying to figure out what I could do which 
> would work, and would not work.

I believe now you've figured something out. A brief write-up on 
some readme, even if not much, could be useful to others looking 
to figure things out.