Excellent post. This situation is very obvious to us at
Sociomantic, as we're at the forefront of a massive disruption
that is happening in the advertising industry. D has far better
prospects in disruptive technology, rather than trying to
compete with incumbents in the rapidly disappearing traditional
desktop market.
Thanks, Don. I am honoured that you took the time to read
through all of this, and appreciate the feedback. Every now and
then I question whether I am headed in the right direction to use
D (not because of anything lacking in D, but because it is less
conventional, and because I have been away from the pulse of
technology for a very long time). Your industry is a little
different, and my needs for the time being are not even soft
real-time (although that could easily change). But from
listening to your talk, I am pretty sure you know what you are
doing, and wanting high productivity when dealing with
potentially quite respectably sized data sets is one shared
aspect - so that is a source of comfort.
Could I ask you one thing, not directly relating to D? Why did
you pick Berlin to launch your startup? (You in the corporate
sense, I mean). My fiancee is German, and I have some inklings
as to why, but I would be curious to know if you have time to jot
down a few lines. Feel free to shoot an email if you don't wish
to post publicly. laeeth laeeth com. I heard from a chap who is
CTO for a German fund of funds that one can hire well at a good
price there, but I doubt that's the only reason, particularly for
your kind of business.
"First published in 1997, Christensen's book suggests that
successful companies can put too much emphasis on customers'
current needs, and fail to adopt new technology or business
models that will meet their customers' unstated or future
needs" -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Innovator%27s_Dilemma
I thought: "they put too much emphasis on backwards
compatibility" ...
Haha - I know you have been one of the proponents of breaking
changes. I think that is a distinct question from the other
stuff, and guess it is not easy for the language leaders to
balance the different demands - impossible not to make one group
unhappy. Someone cynical might say it is easier for you take
that position if you are still mostly on D1, and so don't pay the
same price others would. I doubt that's a fair comment because
you have a much larger vested interest in the survival of the
ecosystem. In any case, that's not an area where I have
expertise.
Breaking changes aside, one can't say there isn't a sustained
dynamism to the development of D.
Laeeth.
