Right now, what's the most important for the success and adoption of D?

[Craig Black]

"Walter Bright" <newshound1 at digitalmars.com> wrote in message 
news:fdjjt6$1j4o$1 at digitalmars.com...
> I'll often get the comment from non-D programmers that the reason they 
> don't use D is because D lacks feature X, and X is a requirement for their 
> needs. I point out the fact that the programming language they do use also 
> lacks feature X. Obviously, X is not the real reason.
>
> The real reason is because D is new and different, and their peers aren't 
> using D. They worry about being the sucker that adopts the new technology 
> and winds up being embarrassed. They're not early adopters. Some have flat 
> out told me they won't consider adopting D until they see more projects 
> done by more people in D.
>
> More features won't help. More libraries and more tools help indirectly by 
> showing that more people are using D.

When you say "features" won't help I would have to partially disagree.  I 
believe the features that are in D now are what makes it so appealing and 
why it's as popular as it is.  I think more features will help, but features 
alone won't get us there.  It's a combination of things that facilitates 
language popularity including IDE's, libraries, compiler features and bug 
fixes, overall maturity, etc.  I say this specifically because I really like 
the progressive development of the D language and I don't want that to slow 
down.

> What will help a lot in making D seem "real" is to up our presence. This 
> means more web pages that mention D, more articles, that talk about doing 
> things in D. Magazine articles, like getting one in DDJ, are a BIG win 
> here. Getting stuff on Digg, Reddit, and Slashdot help a lot. When 
> programmers constantly are seeing "D" in the ordinary course of their 
> work, that comfort level will be there, and they'll get on the bandwagon.
>
> As an aside, at the Astoria Seminar http://www.astoriaseminar.com I 
> decided not to bring up D because it was a C++ conference and I didn't 
> want people to be annoyed thinking I was using it as a platform to sell D. 
> But a lot of the people had heard about D, were interested, and asked me a 
> lot of questions about it. They were genuinely interested. So I think the 
> pump is primed, we just have to always look for opportunities to mention 
> D.

Yes publicity and marketing is important to get more people interested.  But 
the technology needs to mature as well.

Another thing that should not be underestimated is interoperability with 
C++.  However, I think this can be achieved using a wrapper generator.  For 
example, a wrapper generator is used for MOGRE 
http://www.ogre3d.org/wiki/index.php/MOGRE which generates a C# interface 
for the OGRE C++ library.  This is much more practical than porting a huge 
C++ code base.  The same technology could be employed to provide C++ API's 
to the D community.