If D becomes a failure, what's the key reason, do you think?

[Regan Heath]

On Fri, 07 Jul 2006 20:42:18 -0700, Walter Bright  
<newshound at digitalmars.com> wrote:
> Kyle Furlong wrote:
>> *Standing Ovation*
>
> Yeah, that's concerned me as well. But it isn't just me trying to make  
> it perfect, everyone's got their favorite bug/feature that must get in  
> before 1.0.
>
> So what do you say we just call D right now *1.0* and move on? It's not  
> like D will stop undergoing improvements.

One thing I think is important before 1.0 is explaining why certain  
features are implemented the way they are, why certain features are  
missing and when they're expected to arrive and so on. The current docs do  
include some of this information but it's buried a little and not  
targetted at someone who may not be taking a truly in depth look at D.

This will make it harder for people to dismiss D because their favourite  
feature X isn't there. Most people who dismiss D do so out of ignorance  
for the details involved in feature X, the options for implementing X and  
the faults of (their favourite) language Y's implementation of X.

In other words I want us to "lower the bar", making it easier for people  
to decide to give D a go.

Something else which might be good, although can be seen as something  
defensive, implying a need to be defensive.. is a rebuttal of the common  
arguments against D itself or certain features of D i.e. garbage  
collection.

Again, it's mostly in ignorance that people make broad sweeping statements  
like "garbage collection is slow" and in many cases providing a rebuttal  
(ideally with independant, 3rd party, links/evidence to support the  
rebuttal) is all you need to get these people thinking about it more  
critically and perhaps deciding to give it a go and see.

I'm positive once people give D a go they'll never leave.. so all we have  
to do is "lower the bar" and entice more people in the door.

:o)

Regan