On Sunday, 18 June 2017 at 11:59:34 UTC, bachmeier wrote:
As D continues to grow, there will be messages like this posted
more frequently. Imagine that you work at a large company and
are considering adopting D so you decide to check out the forum.
Posts like this have to be deleted from the website and users
that post such things need to be banned. Like it or not, this
is marketing.
I strongly disagree about deletion and banning. The moment you
start removing dissenting opinions, you move towards a bubble
where you get isolated from the world. These people are
detailing real frustrations that they had, albeit in a shrill
manner, feedback that doesn't hurt.
As for their posts affecting corporate perception, better they
see the truth now and know what they're getting into, rather than
the companies coming in here and ranting later, only to get their
posts deleted too! :D
On Sunday, 18 June 2017 at 14:53:57 UTC, Wulfklaue wrote:
Perhaps _this_ is the right packaging for D right now, to keep
away the kinds of casual users who would not be suited for D.
It angers the hell out of me when people look down on other
developers because they do not have the right background or are
somehow considered less trying to deal with inadequacies in the
D ecosystem.
You left out the bit after that where I noted that D is a
sprawling, lower-level language, and that I had no strong opinion
on that guess about this being the right packaging for D right
now. The fact is that people who deal with languages like D are
usually fine with more complex setups and require less
hand-holding. New languages like Rust, Go, and Swift are upping
the AoT-compiled language game and making things better, but all
are still prone to the issues you raise.
What I was saying is that if you made D _really easy_ to install,
as easy as installing a scripting language in a linux distro
except on every OS, it would be really easy for them to get
going, but not easier to actually grasp a much more complex
language. It is a basic concept of distribution that you put
your product where and how you can get the types of users you
want, ie you would not try and sell a buzzsaw or backhoe in the
corner grocery store. You can call that "looking down," I call
it a fact.
Also, a lot of this polish is missing because D is an OSS project
that doesn't have corporate involvement driving it. No pure OSS
project without heavy corporate involvement has ever gotten
everywhere, you will find corporate hands all over everything
from the linux kernel to gcc to Python. D has some, but not that
much yet. It is amazing how far it has gotten without it.
Finally, my point was that since D is not at the stage where it
has corporate support to polish it up to the sheen you want,
perhaps it's better to keep away the kind of users who want that
level of integration. That's not to say they're "less," but that
D is not ready for them yet.
We all hope D gets there someday, but maybe it's not yet ready to
make that leap.
