On Thursday, 16 April 2015 at 08:12:59 UTC, Joakim wrote:
for a way to contribute to find it? I agree that it's unlikely that someone will saunter in and learn the codebase and provide good fixes in their spare time, which is why I remain skeptical of the open source approach taken by the D community.
Yet again, people do learn parts of the code base and create their own version of it... Like ketmar and I, and probably others too.
To some people the main road block is a total disregard for CS as a profession in the D community. The language design discussions that moves outside C++ are like watching people building their own house without reading up on the topic then telling the carpenter that they are completely clueless for pointing out some real issues that will actually make the house rot. Like putting the damp sealing on the outside of the wall rather than on the inside, clearly you should put it where it rains? (Nope, the humidity is coming from inside the house in winter).
Too much NiH and ignorance wears out people with a CS background and they leave, which incidentally are the people you need the most for designing novel language features! There's a big difference between implementing a spec and designing it. Stick to Simula/Java and you are safe. Stick to C++ and you get some of their problems. Invent your own without spending time on PLT and you'll never get done.
Still, D is better off than the BitC community, which have very educated discussions. So it is safe to say that to pull it off you also have to be stubborn even when you are wrong (otherwise you'll just redesign over and over and over). A hard balance to get right. C++ is getting there (after being wrong). I think D can too.
