On 8/7/2014 11:34 AM, Manu via Digitalmars-d-announce wrote:
It's not because it's hard, it's because it's perceived as totally backwards, and it undermines the trust in the ecosystem. It's all about perception. The Windows/Visual Studio development culture is pretty immature, and expects nothing less than the level of polish and presentation that Microsoft put into Visual Studio. I have direct experience with hundreds of these sorts of developers. The prevailing opinion is that Linux is rubbish for nerds, and if the ecosystem presents itself in that style, it won't be taken seriously. You can't gain the confidence of this community of developers unless you appeal to them on their terms. First impressions and basic presentation are extremely important to perception. I think configuration friction in particular is extremely important to eliminate; you are dealing with someone whose investment in D can be measured in seconds, probably knows absolutely nothing about the ecosystem technically, and is not yet sure if they even want to. Any friction between them and a helpful little wizard that generates a hello world project for them so they can start hacking about and see how it feels may quite possibly dismiss it on contact.
While I (unfortunately) agree with everything you've said here, I can't help chiming in with one thing: Speaking as a programmer who's primarily used Windows ever since 3.1, anyone who earns a paycheck writing code *and* believes "Linux is rubbish for nerds"[1], needs to grow the fuck up, both professionally and intellectually. It's absolutely no different from a grown adult being a console fanboy. It's just pathetic and completely inexcusable for any so-called "professional".
[1] And you're right, such people *do* (inexplicably) exist. I've known some.
