Open source dmd on Reddit!

[Andrei Alexandrescu]

Walter Bright wrote:
> Sean Kelly wrote:
>> Seems kind of silly to me.  The big deal with the full source for DMD 
>> being available is that if DigitalMars disappears in a puff of smoke 
>> tomorrow, customers have a means of preserving their investment in the 
>> language.  This can be a big deal for corporate users.
> 
> Back in the 80's when I started out in the compiler business, we'd often 
> get companies calling us up with:
> 
> "we really like your compiler, but there's one little issue, it needs to 
> be modified to do X. If it does X, we'd buy 1000/5000/10000 copies!"
> 
> So I'd modify it to do X, and breathlessly contact them:
> 
> "it does X now! where's the P.O? We're ready to ship!"
> 
> Then they'd hem and haw a bit, and say:
> 
> "X is cool, great, yeah, but we really also need Y!"
> 
> It became clear after a while that they never had any intention of 
> buying any copies. There are a lot of possible reasons why they were 
> jerking our chain, but the strategy we came up with was:
> 
> "sure, we'd love to do X for you, our consulting rates are $$$ and we 
> estimate xxx hours to do the job. We need a down payment to start work."
> 
> If they were serious, no problem, we did good business with them. The 
> ones who were jerking us around for whatever reason went away.
> 
> There are people who won't use D, ever, no matter what we do, even if it 
> spit out gold bars and ended world hunger. But they won't say that, 
> they'll just sit on the sidelines and throw potshots. It comes with the 
> territory of building a disruptive technology.
> 
> The ones I listen to are the ones who *are* using D and have some sweat 
> equity in it.

"Can't live without bitfields! Give me bitfields and I'll lift the Earth!"

"Here they are, std.bitmanip. Well-defined and more portable and 
flexible than C's."

"Meh, don't like the definition syntax."


Andrei