Walter: > Here it is: > > http://codepad.org/ > > It's been around a while, and nobody cares. Such a capability is marketing > puffery, and not useful.
There are two sites that allow to compile D code online: codepad (D1) and ideone (D2). Even if ideone site is just "marketing puffery" for D, recent discussions on this newsgroup have shown that Andrei is willing to do something for marketing purposes. And this kind of ideone marketing is not going to worsen the API of Phobos, it's just a different way to use D compiler. So it doesn't harm. If you take a look at the Go site you see a way to try code: http://golang.org/ Or even LLVM compiler: http://llvm.org/demo/ I have recently discussed with ideone devs to suggest a new feature, and it seems their site is having enough visitors, so it seems some people care about the site. I have personally found ideone and codepad sites useful, because they allow you to try snippets of code in languages you don't know yet. So you can try a new language in a very fast and painless way, without committing to install a compiler/interpreter to your PC. Today web and being online are very important things, and ideone/codepad allow even compiled languages to be tried online by young people used to javascript and browsers. I have used ideone to try small programs in Scala, Haskell, and other languages. I have used ideone to compile small snippets of D2 code in places where I don't have a D2 compiler available. If you go take a visit to the IRC #D channel you see an tool based on codepad that allows to try snippets of code from the IRC channel itself. A tool often used by feep and others. So you are wrong, ideone/codepad are used by people, are good marketing, allow people to try D before installing the compiler and they don't harm D in any way. What I have suggested in another post is not to put a online demo window in the D site, but to just add a *link* to ideone and codepad in the D home page, so people may try D online. Bye, bearophile
