D needs a programming blog and some house keeping

[Chris via Digitalmars-d]

On Friday, 26 June 2015 at 08:47:05 UTC, biorelated wrote:
> I have only recently stated learning D,coming from 
> Ruby/Python/Perl dynamic languages.  I bought TDPL and I have 
> read Ali's book and I bought Adam Ruppe's D programming 
> language cookbook. These are amazing books and they have taught 
> me a lot. more than I ever knew and I  have to thank D and the 
> D community for developing the language.
>
> I have peeped through the fence to view the neighbour's (Rust) 
> lawn and it is well kept. How do I put this? D is a fantastic 
> house with a lot of amenities and fantastic family members. The 
> family keeps to itself and does not make effort to showcase how 
> awesome they are. Please write blog posts and reports a little 
> more.  It would be great if Walter kept a programming blog and 
> the same for Andre to shared personal thoughts on 
> thorny/fantastic issues on D. Rather than share them with 
> family only. Why? Because to grow the D family is more about 
> adopting grown up children than giving birth.
>
> Excite me the new comer, keep me busy learning. Don't let me 
> pee all over the house before I find the bathroom. I mean D's 
> documentation can be improved. It just takes a long time for a 
> new comer to figure things out from the current docs.
>
> I have learnt that a lot of fantastic discussion happens at the 
> forums. My problem with threaded posts is that there are often 
> more than 2 to 5 subtopics going on in a single thread.  I find 
> it difficult to follow threads and when I do it is painful to 
> sift through the discussion. I also find it difficult to watch 
> video. I love to read, underline, go back to the previous 
> paragraph, pause., pick from the last bookmark.  With video I 
> cannot do that without a lot of effort. Maybe it is just me.
>
> D's  mailman is often late.
> D's twitter account is rarely updated. I often rely on 
> programming language accounts  to learn the latest. But even a 
> new D release or a new beta is often not tweeted until days 
> later. Hot discussion and topics are not mentioned on the 
> twitter account not even  D weekly update by Adam are spared.
>
> Talking of 'This Week in D'(TWiD). What if TWiD became D's 
> programming blog? People other than Adam can make contributions
>  and when he is late or gone on holiday or got overwhelmed, 
> someone else can take over. Hot discussions can be summarised 
> on the blog as well. New releases and betas should be announced 
> on the programming blog.
>
> I think I am in love with the D language. I have only been here 
> for a short while and my views stand to be corrected.

We have discussed these issues. Russel is right, success is about 
marketing and hype, not about quality. Nobody will give a damn 
about D as long as it's community based and not committee/company 
based. D is fighting an uphill battle and the only way is to keep 
on keeping on, knowing it is the right thing to do.

The only way you can help D is:

1. use it (Yes! This is more important than anything else.)
2. contribute to it:
  - phobos
  - 3rd party libraries
  - ecosystem
  - tools
  - benchmarks
  - documentation
  - tutorials
  - programs
  - compilers
  - etc.

There is no other way. You want something, you do it, nobody else 
will. It's not so hard to get started:

http://wiki.dlang.org/Pull_Requests

A few commands and you're there. And don't forget: nobody here 
will bite you. Ask questions on "Learn", no matter how "stupid" 
or trivial. Read the discussions. Think and learn, which is what 
got you here in the first place.

Welcome to D! :-)