Making 2024 the Year of D

[Micah]

On Thursday, 4 January 2024 at 07:47:01 UTC, Waffle56 wrote:
> Hello everyone, I wish you all a happy 2024 with my warmest 
> regards.
>
> I am a software developer with a deep passion for the D 
> programming language, actively using it in my projects. In my 
> own software company, we prefer to use D to meet the needs of 
> our clients. However, I have some concerns about the future of 
> this language.
>
> What are your thoughts on the journey of the D language? 
> Although it hasn’t gained widespread popularity since its 
> launch, I see it as a hidden treasure waiting to be discovered. 
> First and foremost, I would like to express my gratitude to 
> everyone involved in developing this language, especially the 
> core team. However, I believe we need to resolve the 
> disagreements within our community and support this language 
> more robustly.
>
> From forum discussions, I understand that the D language is 
> undergoing a process of forking. Forking can be positive in 
> some instances, but how beneficial can such divisions be for a 
> programming language that already has a limited community? 
> Let's please come together to develop this language and advance 
> this wonderful project that has been shaped by years of hard 
> work, finding common ground without hurting anyone.
>
> Let’s declare 2024 as the "Year of D". Spend this year 
> spreading and using D more extensively. Together, let's take 
> this project to the place it deserves. With your support, we 
> have the opportunity to showcase the potential of the D 
> language to the entire world.

My general experience is;

I'm a senior dev who has worked professionally with C# for years, 
and I tinker with D from time to time. I would absolutely Love to 
adopt D more widely in my own projects and eventually propose D 
as a solution for writing tools in commercial environment

The language I feel is very good. Has a vast feature set, and is 
definitely a competitor to other mainstream languages, but the 
pushback I face isn't the language.

It's general things like infrastructure. Dub registry is basic, 
lacking some very important features. Even very basic stuff like 
downloading dmd using the install.sh script which is a 
recommended way to download the toolchain fails because of a lack 
of GPG public key.

My honest suggestion would be the community/organisation focus on 
improving the infrastructure before looking to add more to the 
language as people's first experience of a new language (i.e. 
website, documentation, the steps to get started) should be 
positive otherwise they wont stick around, and wont become 
contributors