Idea #1 on integrating RC with GC

[Andrei Alexandrescu]

On 2/10/14, 4:25 PM, "Ola Fosheim Grøstad" 
<ola.fosheim.grostad+dlang at gmail.com>" wrote:
> On Monday, 10 February 2014 at 23:15:35 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
>> This is a typical problem. Reviewing contributions is hard and
>> thankless work. I know how we solved it at Facebook for our many
>> open-sourced projects: we created a team for it, with a manager,
>> tracking progress, the works. This is _exactly_ the kind of thing that
>> can't be done in a volunteer community.
>
> Maybe you can make some parts modular after you refactor into D. Then
> people can take ownership of modules and social recognition will
> encourage more commitment.

I think at this stage we need more people to start with. Someone pointed 
out recently we have 77 lifetime contributors to github, as opposed to 
e.g. Rust which has 292.

>> I think D must not define itself in relation to any other language.
>
> I respect that position.
>
> Of course, it does not help if outsiders have been told that D is a
> better C++. It kinda sticks. Because people really want that.

I don't think so, at all. Anyone working on D must drop the moniker "D 
is a better C++" like a bad habit, no two ways about that. Most of it 
does it sets C++ as the benchmark. People who already like C++ would be 
like "you wish" and people who hate C++ would be like "better crap is 
not what I need anyway".

> I am very hard trying to convince myself that D is more like compiled
> C#, which lowers my expectations, because that original vision of a
> "better C++" is very firmly stuck.

For someone who hasn't been around for a while, maybe. I fail to see C++ 
or C# mentioned anywhere on our home page.

We want to make D a great language all around, with system-level access 
and also convenience features.

> But my point was more that you need to communicate a vision that is such
> that the people you want to attract don't sit on the fence. I am quite
> certain that more skilled C++ programmers would volunteer if they saw a
> vision they believed in.

It's there in <h2> at the top of our homepage: "Modern convenience. 
Modeling power. Native efficiency."

By the way, this whole "plop a vision page" thing doesn't seem to be 
quite popular:

https://www.google.com/search?q=rust%20language#q=vision+site:rust-lang.org&safe=off

https://www.google.com/search?q=vision%20site%3Apython.org

https://www.google.com/search?q=vision%20site%3Aisocpp.org

https://www.google.com/search?q=scala#q=vision+site:scala-lang.org&safe=off

https://www.google.com/search?q=vision%20site%3Agolang.org


Andrei