Feedback on Átila's Vision for D

[Gregor Mückl]

On Thursday, 17 October 2019 at 07:25:43 UTC, Russel Winder wrote:
> I am not convinced the position "If you want an IDE for D 
> programming you must use VSCode" is a tenable position in the 
> long run.
>
> I set up the Micrsoft Debian repository for VSCode and 
> installed it and you get then to have to decide which of three 
> or four different D extensions to install. Which is the 
> officially supported one or is it a question of "there are 
> multiple extensions to choose from which you choose is your 
> problem".
>

The plugin ecosystem for VSCode is a mess of competing plugins 
left and right. Everything in the editor (I don't want to call it 
an IDE) is a plugin and there are at least two or three competing 
plugins for every used case. This includes language support for a 
lot of programming languages. The UI for installing plugins does 
its best to confuse and makes search results look quite 
non-distinguishable. It's very much like the plugin trap that 
Eclipse fell into, only worse.

> Then there is trying to find out out how to use VSCode.
>
> Given I know how to use CLion, [...]

There is your problem ;). VSCode reuses a lot of conventions from 
Visual Studio. If you are familiar with VS, VSCode will feel very 
similar. However, the JetBrains family of IDEs have a completely 
different set of conventions, that you seem to be used to. So it 
seems only natural that you're strugging to get into VSCode.

>
> Supporting multiple IDEs is, like supporting multiple editors 
> (Emacs, Vi, VIM), a good idea. Having multiple 
> extensions/plugins per IDE/editor is not a good position for a 
> programming language to be in.

At least with VSCode, this is the default and not something to be 
especially alarmed by. Other IDEs have less of a wild west 
mentality when it comes to plugins. I'd be more worried if we get 
competing free plugins for Visual Studio, Eclipse or 
IntelliJ/Clion. But I don't see any sign of that yet.

Would there be a market for a commercial IDE/plugin for D? I'm 
not sure that the community is large enough yet.