VSCode plugins

[MakersF via Digitalmars-d]

On Wednesday, 5 July 2017 at 02:46:05 UTC, Manu wrote:
> On 5 July 2017 at 12:37, bitwise via Digitalmars-d < 
> digitalmars-d at puremagic.com> wrote:
>
>> On Tuesday, 4 July 2017 at 04:49:29 UTC, Manu wrote:
>>
>>> My feeling is, having 2 very similar plugins is confusing to 
>>> potential users, and it undermines user confidence. Ie, users 
>>> have the feeling that they're competing hacky things 
>>> maintained by some guy, rather than something that's more 
>>> 'official' with consolidated community support.
>>>
>>
>> I have to disagree with this. When I search for plugins and 
>> see a wide selection of completing products, it tells me that 
>> the language has a healthy ecosystem, with a lot of interested 
>> users. This in turn gives me faith in the language, and it's 
>> future, and makes me more comfortable investing time in it. 
>> I'm much more likely to forgive the bugs I find on the grounds 
>> that they will most likely be fixed.
>>
>> On the other hand, if there was only one plugin, and it was 
>> the "official" plugin, branded with "D Language Foundation" or 
>> "Digital Mars", this would paint a different, yet also 
>> positive picture for me.
>>
>
> I'm glad we can agree on that second point :)
> On the former point; I personally can sympathise with that 
> opinion only in
> the context of being a nerd. It is my experience that most 
> professional
> programmers I've ever worked with are NOT nerds, they are just 
> people who
> have a job. Most people aren't interested in 'ecosystem 
> health', they are
> interested in authority, and intend/prefer to conform with the 
> accepted
> standards. The worst thing they can see is a 'vibrant' 
> ecosystem. It looks
> like 'linux nonsense' to these people.

I have to agree with that.


As you can see both plugins are wrappers around other tools 
(good, no wheel reinvention), and they offer some functionality 
on top.
All that follows applies because of this: using the same tools 
underneath means that the same results are provided. There is no 
difference in functionality, only on how it is exposed to the 
user.

https://github.com/Pure-D/code-d/blob/master/README.md

https://github.com/dlang-vscode/dlang-vscode/blob/master/README.md

The main difference (and I'm fairly sure pain point as well for 
new users, at least for me) is how these tools are installed or 
expected on the system.

UX is something that takes a bit of time and it's not always fun 
(need to test many different configurations, support different 
systems which do things in different ways) and I really see no 
point in duplicating this tedious work.

And if you look at the contributors tab, you see that both 
projects are not in a healthy state: one is developed solely by 
WebFreak001 and the other is split 3/4 and 1/4 between the two 
authors.
Which means that if one of them leaves the project (because of 
work,family, persona issues, boredom, any situation which might 
happen in life) the project is likely going to stagnate and 
become dead.

Having instead 3 active people on a project means that a lot of 
improvement and consistent work can be put into it, also easing 
the work needed to accept PR from the community.

I understand and appreciate the amount of work the developers of 
the two extensions put into them, but I think it's fair to accept 
that the current situation is not the best one for the users and 
the community.