I have a plan.. I really DO

[H. S. Teoh]

On Tue, Jul 10, 2018 at 05:25:11PM +0000, Yuxuan Shui via Digitalmars-d-announce wrote:
> On Friday, 6 July 2018 at 21:15:46 UTC, H. S. Teoh wrote:
[...]
> > Of course, for someone looking for an excuse not to use D, they will
> > always find another reason why this is not sufficient. But that only
> > strengthens the point that the GC is just a convenient excuse not to
> > use D.
> 
> Not a good excuse to not fix GC, though.

Of course.  The current GC, while decent, does leave lots of room for
improvement.  Unfortunately, while much talked about, not many people
are willing to actually put in the work to improve it.  So I'm not
really interested in generating more talk, as opposed to action.


> > Solve that problem, and they will just move on to the next excuse,
> > because the GC is not the real reason; the real reason is probably
> > non-technical. Like good ole inertia: people are lazy and set in
> > their ways, and resist changing what they've grown comfortable with.
> > But actually admitting this would make them look bad, so it is
> > easier to find a convenient excuse like the GC (or whatever else is
> > different from the status quo).
> 
> If that's the case, then we are doom. We might just as well forget
> about getting popular, and instead spend time making the language
> better.

I have always been skeptical of popularity.  It is neither a necessary
nor sufficient condition for improved language quality.  That's not to
say we should not invest effort in marketing D... but popularity does
not imply technical superiority, and the only reason I'm here is because
of D's technical superiority.


> Like fixing the GC.

Nobody argues *against* fixing the GC.  But, who will actually do it? As
opposed to the crowds who are very willing to only talk about it.


> (Although I don't quite agree with you. Some people DO resist change,
> that's why some decades old languages are still popular. But look at
> the popularity of new languages like Go, and Rust, and the ever-change
> landscape of front-end development. There're tons of people who adapt
> certain technology just because it is new, why can't that happen to
> D?)
[...]

Those who adapt technology merely because it's new, are what I call the
bandwagon jumpers. They will flock to the next brand new thing, and then
just as readily leave in droves once the novelty has worn off. They are
unreliable customers, and I wouldn't build a business based on their
continuing support.  Again, popularity is orthogonal to technical
excellence.


T

-- 
"I'm not childish; I'm just in touch with the child within!" - RL