Re: Vision document for H2 2016

[tsbockman via Digitalmars-d-announce]

On Friday, 8 July 2016 at 18:04:16 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
"Oops, can't let checkedint happen but I can't criticize 
without proposing an alternative so forget RCStr and let me 
work on that"

...
On 07/08/2016 05:17 AM, Robert burner Schadek wrote:

People would have a go to place
looking for pre-approved work. Leading to no more gatekeeper 
rejection frustration.


I don't think preapproved work would lead to less rejection. 
Rejection is of work of insufficient quality, not of work that 
has not been preapproved. Conversely, preapproval does not 
guarantee any work will be actually approaved.


My bid for inclusion of `checkedint` in Phobos fizzled because I 
want to solve a different (though overlapping) set of problems 
than you do.


No matter how much I iterate and improve my work you still won't 
be satisfied, because our goals are incompatible and I'm not 
interested in discarding mine in favor of yours. This is clear 
from the response you gave when I explained in some detail the 
reasons for my design:


https://forum.dlang.org/post/njss1a$2ig5$1...@digitalmars.com
Even if it were the case that there's no smaller design that 
conforms with the requirements, that means requirements have a 
problem.


You neither gave any *specific* suggestions as to how I could 
better meet my requirements, not did you state which of my 
numbered requirements, *specifically* was unreasonable or 
unnecessary. All of the major suggestions that you did give 
revolved around adding new requirements (like support for 
arbitrary bound ranges and user-defined error handling), while 
somehow shrinking the code base. Something had to give.


Repeatedly dismissing this obvious goals mismatch as 
"insufficient quality" on my part is abrasive and unhelpful.


Communicating clear requirements for projects ahead of time via 
pre-approval could help ensure that people who volunteer are 
actually working on something you want. Obviously I'm not the 
volunteer you're looking for, but maybe if we'd all known that I 
wouldn't have taken ownership of the project, and someone else 
would already have made what you want, instead.

Re: Vision document for H2 2016

[Javier via Digitalmars-d-announce]

On Thursday, 7 July 2016 at 19:55:51 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu 
wrote:

https://wiki.dlang.org/Vision/2016H2 -- Andrei


Folks,

One of the main obstacles I see to the adoption of a language is 
its ecosystem. Perhaps the vision should include a structure of 
frameworks we would like to see being developed, with a community 
process similar to what we follow for the language.


vibe.d is already a tremendous asset, but we are lacking the 
equivalent of DBI, slf4j, JMS, etc.


Does this sound like a good idea, and if so, does anybody want to 
help put something together like that?


j.

Re: Vision document for H2 2016

[Jacob Carlborg via Digitalmars-d-announce]

On 2016-07-10 19:09, Robert burner Schadek wrote:


Yes if anybody had access to the trello and would want to use yet
another tool. I think that is unrealistic.


Trello is already used: https://trello.com/dlang

--
/Jacob Carlborg

Re: Vision document for H2 2016

[Robert burner Schadek via Digitalmars-d-announce]

On Friday, 8 July 2016 at 18:04:16 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
It seems to me six months is a sweet spot. Large companies such 
as Google and Facebook also use a six-months horizon because 
it's long enough to avoid micromanagement hysteria and short 
enough to be verifiable and accountable. Yes, I do have a 
vision for a longer horizon, but it's too vague to be useful - 
"D will be a major programming language by 2020".


But we are not Facebook or Google. And I bet even they have some 
mid/long-term visions.


I consider it competition with other things that Walter and I 
need to worry about. Walter put it cleverly: you can't add more 
administration without administrators.


IMO that is wrong, well not so much wrong as misleading. We don't 
just need more administration because we need more 
administration. We need more administration or lets say more 
management and delegation to get things done.




A semestrial vision document summarizing our outlook and 
intentions is about as much as we can bear. 


Well, you and Walter graduated from engineering to management. 
That, reviewing other peoples work and delegating is your job 
now. Like it or not.



Would trello help with that kind of stuff?


Yes if anybody had access to the trello and would want to use yet 
another tool. I think that is unrealistic. But we already have 
the wiki and github. So extending the VD to rolling VD in the 
wiki is the way to go IMO. Or move everything to github including 
bugtracker and start using milestones etc.
Again, IMO in the long run a long term VD, updated on a need to 
basis with subtasks will save you work.


I don't think preapproved work would lead to less rejection. 
Rejection is of work of insufficient quality, not of work that 
has not been preapproved. Conversely, preapproval does not 
guarantee any work will be actually approaved.


Considering the current event is disagree. Maybe preapproved work 
is not the right wording. Maybe preapproved designs.

Re: Vision document for H2 2016

[Chris Wright via Digitalmars-d-announce]

On Sat, 09 Jul 2016 19:17:31 +, Eugene wrote:

> On Thursday, 7 July 2016 at 19:55:51 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
>> https://wiki.dlang.org/Vision/2016H2 -- Andrei
> 
> is it possible to make a modular D language(and a compiler), so one just
> could release new features of the language without releasing a new
> version of a compiler(ldc, etc.), and these features would be just
> extensions of the compilers?

That would be kind of terrible by default.

What ensures that two different modules are compatible? Nothing, by 
default. What happens if you try including two incompatible compiler 
modules in one project? Presumably an error. What if I try to depend on 
two libraries that have incompatible compiler modules? I can't.

So it's a lot of work and would just fragment the language.

Re: Vision document for H2 2016

[Eugene via Digitalmars-d-announce]

On Thursday, 7 July 2016 at 19:55:51 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu 
wrote:

https://wiki.dlang.org/Vision/2016H2 -- Andrei


is it possible to make a modular D language(and a compiler), so 
one just could release new features of the language without 
releasing a new version of a compiler(ldc, etc.), and these 
features would be just extensions of the compilers?

Re: Vision document for H2 2016

[Robert M. Münch via Digitalmars-d-announce]

On 2016-07-08 20:46:21 +, Walter Bright said:


On 7/8/2016 6:51 AM, Robert M. Münch wrote:

1. Fixing (all) bugs before doing new things: If I look as a CTO, CIO or CEO on
...


I have yet to find any engineering product in any field that doesn't 
have open issues. A more practical question is does the product deliver 
enough value to make up for its deficiencies.


I totally agree. But often it takes quite some time & experience to 
understand how the open deficiencies impact my context. I have seen to 
many tools where you can reach 80% and than things get hard / 
impossible. IMO a good or bad products is decided on the last 20%...




3. How about a "D Master" online certificate? scrum.org is doing that. You have
...


It's a great idea, do you want to work on it?


I would love to but it's unrealistic within the next 6 months... sorry.

I brought it up as an idea that can be put on the mid / long term 
roadmap, to shape the picture of D in the long run. I think these 
things are important for companies to see / know about before they will 
make a decision. It's a long, very long journey to establish a language 
in the "mainstream"...


--
Robert M. Münch
http://www.saphirion.com
smarter | better | faster

Re: Vision document for H2 2016

[Robert M. Münch via Digitalmars-d-announce]

On 2016-07-08 18:07:39 +, Andrei Alexandrescu said:


On 07/08/2016 09:51 AM, Robert M. Münch wrote:

1. Fixing (all) bugs before doing new things: If I look as a CTO, CIO or
CEO on D I the first thing I ask is: "Are they doing a lot of new stuff?
And if, is this thing / last releasae that bullet proof stable that
there are not annoying open issued?" Any other answer then "yes" would
get my "no" to use D.


This needs to be balanced with the zeroth thing you ask, which is: "how 
does it help us with our work better than the competition?" We're not 
working on many new things, but we do work on things that impact that 
question.


IMO D has a lot to put on the table, and that should work seemlessly. 
So, the elevator-pitch for D is possible. However, it's a personal 
taste what is "better than..." and if helps or not.


My rule of thumb, after many years of experience is, that I'm very 
conservative when it comes to base technology stuff. Less is more, slow 
moving & high quality is better than fast & fancy.




2. Case-Studies: ...


There are some. I'd love to see such.


Are these listed somewhere?



3. How about a "D Master" online certificate? scrum.org is doing that.
... 

Will keep that in mind, although there's some stigma associated with this.


Which? That these things are of low quality?

--
Robert M. Münch
http://www.saphirion.com
smarter | better | faster

Re: Vision document for H2 2016

[rikki cattermole via Digitalmars-d-announce]

On 09/07/2016 5:08 AM, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:

On 07/08/2016 12:00 AM, rikki cattermole wrote:

On 08/07/2016 7:55 AM, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:

https://wiki.dlang.org/Vision/2016H2 -- Andrei


We really need opRef* implemented in dmd.


What is that? -- Andrei


As in your solution to ref counting.
We have already discussed this :)

Re: Vision document for H2 2016

[Andrei Alexandrescu via Digitalmars-d-announce]

On 7/8/16 6:36 PM, Carl Vogel wrote:

On Thursday, 7 July 2016 at 19:56:29 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:

On 07/07/2016 03:55 PM, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:

https://wiki.dlang.org/Vision/2016H2 -- Andrei


Please provide feedback. We'll make a couple more passes before this
is complete. Thanks! -- Andrei


This list is full of good and worthy stuff, but is very long.


It's the right length. It includes things we actively work on along with 
a few items we keep an eye on and others we believe are important and 
count on other folks to be on. -- Andrei

Re: Vision document for H2 2016

[Carl Vogel via Digitalmars-d-announce]

On Thursday, 7 July 2016 at 19:56:29 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu 
wrote:

On 07/07/2016 03:55 PM, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:

https://wiki.dlang.org/Vision/2016H2 -- Andrei


Please provide feedback. We'll make a couple more passes before 
this is complete. Thanks! -- Andrei


This list is full of good and worthy stuff, but is very long. 
Most of this won't be done in 2H16, so calling these "2H16 
priorities" is misleading, and doesn't give a good impression. 
For someone who really know where the language is headed, there's 
no sense of what will really be done in the next six months, what 
is in progress and might be done, and what stuff is just wishful 
thinking. The fact that so much is just copied over from last 
half says it all.


Some of these, especially the marketing, are evergreen tasks. 
("Promote books and articles"). If there's something concrete you 
have in mind for 2H16 say it, otherwise, it belongs somewhere 
else.


This is a really good long-term vision list, and it might be 
better labeled that, with different items slated for expected 
realization (2H16, 1H17, "Who knows?"), etc. (Links to associated 
bug reports would be useful too, so we know what's being worked 
on.)


In general, I feel like a list like this should actually be 
achievable. There's a silly, but still useful, business thing 
called "S.M.A.R.T." goals: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, 
Realistic, and Timely. This ain't that.

Re: Vision document for H2 2016

[Karabuta via Digitalmars-d-announce]

On Thursday, 7 July 2016 at 19:55:51 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu 
wrote:

https://wiki.dlang.org/Vision/2016H2 -- Andrei


Promote video tutorials? :)

Re: Vision document for H2 2016

[Walter Bright via Digitalmars-d-announce]

On 7/8/2016 7:01 AM, Eugene wrote:

please add some features from Rust: primitive type aliases, like i8, u8, u32,
and so on


http://dlang.org/phobos/core_stdc_stdint.html

Re: Vision document for H2 2016

[Walter Bright via Digitalmars-d-announce]

On 7/8/2016 6:51 AM, Robert M. Münch wrote:

1. Fixing (all) bugs before doing new things: If I look as a CTO, CIO or CEO on
D I the first thing I ask is: "Are they doing a lot of new stuff? And if, is
this thing / last releasae that bullet proof stable that there are not annoying
open issued?" Any other answer then "yes" would get my "no" to use D.


I have yet to find any engineering product in any field that doesn't have open 
issues. A more practical question is does the product deliver enough value to 
make up for its deficiencies.




3. How about a "D Master" online certificate? scrum.org is doing that. You have
to go through a pretty hard online exam and reach a certain point level to
become a "Certified Scrum Master". Yes, it might be a bit early to think about
his line, but IMO better early then late. It just shows, that D is taking care
about all the non-technical stuff as well, which is a decision point for 
companies.


It's a great idea, do you want to work on it?

Re: Vision document for H2 2016

[Andrei Alexandrescu via Digitalmars-d-announce]

On 07/07/2016 03:55 PM, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:

https://wiki.dlang.org/Vision/2016H2 -- Andrei


I have integrated 
https://wiki.dlang.org/Walter_Andrei_Action_List#Walter_and_Andrei.27s_Action_List 
within https://wiki.dlang.org/Vision/2016H2.



Andrei

Re: Vision document for H2 2016

[Andrei Alexandrescu via Digitalmars-d-announce]

On 07/08/2016 01:04 PM, Jack Stouffer wrote:

On Friday, 8 July 2016 at 16:55:54 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:

I think the most important concrete step is to find more reviewers,
which is already in the document. As to how to do that, I'm not sure.
-- Andrei


To be blunt, the vision (and goals in general) are kind of useless
without a plan to achieve them.


They are useful in the sense that people may see the goal and come up 
with their own ideas on how to achieve it. -- Andrei

Re: Vision document for H2 2016

[Andrei Alexandrescu via Digitalmars-d-announce]

On 07/08/2016 12:04 PM, Andrew Godfrey wrote:

1) A link to that action list, placing it in context relative to this
doc, and encouraging people to add their ideas like "rust aliases" there
instead of here. (Or maybe you have a better place for this, like a
forum where such requests are discussed first).


I'm all for a community-maintained wishlist linked from the vision 
document. Please initiate one.



2) A link to a longer-term vision doc. The question I posted recently in
"general", about the evolution of the language, is the kind of thing I
would want to see answered there. Another kind of thing is anything
"long term strategic" that isn't a priority right now - e.g. pain points
for new adopters that "we can't work on yet" (e.g. "there are 3
compilers, and many practitioners end up installing at least 2 of
them"). And generally, I'd like a place that sets long term
expectations, e.g. the rate of future deprecation of existing features
in the language and in Phobos.


I'm not sure what a longer term vision document would be. For me that's 
by definition http://dlang.org :o). -- Andrei

Re: Vision document for H2 2016

[Andrei Alexandrescu via Digitalmars-d-announce]

On 07/08/2016 09:51 AM, Robert M. Münch wrote:

1. Fixing (all) bugs before doing new things: If I look as a CTO, CIO or
CEO on D I the first thing I ask is: "Are they doing a lot of new stuff?
And if, is this thing / last releasae that bullet proof stable that
there are not annoying open issued?" Any other answer then "yes" would
get my "no" to use D.


This needs to be balanced with the zeroth thing you ask, which is: "how 
does it help us with our work better than the competition?" We're not 
working on many new things, but we do work on things that impact that 
question.



2. Case-Studies: Yes, we have a lot of projects and things going on etc.
However, beside the "audio plug-in" I'm not so much aware of any D
products. This even becomes harder to market if there are backend
use-case / success stories. I thin it makes sense to show, what D has
been used for, what the advantages are (faster, less cost, better
maintainability) and how to adopt it.


There are some. I'd love to see such.


3. How about a "D Master" online certificate? scrum.org is doing that.
You have to go through a pretty hard online exam and reach a certain
point level to become a "Certified Scrum Master". Yes, it might be a bit
early to think about his line, but IMO better early then late. It just
shows, that D is taking care about all the non-technical stuff as well,
which is a decision point for companies.


Will keep that in mind, although there's some stigma associated with this.


Andrei

Re: Vision document for H2 2016

[Andrei Alexandrescu via Digitalmars-d-announce]

On 07/08/2016 10:01 AM, Eugene wrote:

On Thursday, 7 July 2016 at 19:55:51 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:

https://wiki.dlang.org/Vision/2016H2 -- Andrei


please add some features from Rust: primitive type aliases, like i8, u8,
u32, and so on


No need. -- Andrei

Re: Vision document for H2 2016

[Andrei Alexandrescu via Digitalmars-d-announce]

On 07/08/2016 05:17 AM, Robert burner Schadek wrote:

On Thursday, 7 July 2016 at 20:44:05 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:

On 7/7/16 3:55 PM, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:

https://wiki.dlang.org/Vision/2016H2 -- Andrei


In the next pass I will integrate Walter_Andrei_Action_List


I'm quite underwhelmed by the Vision Document (VD). I think that is
because it is a biyearly VD, and IMO in half a year nothing really
visionary can be done for D (because D is already pretty awesome and
pushing the envelope takes a lot of time).


It seems to me six months is a sweet spot. Large companies such as 
Google and Facebook also use a six-months horizon because it's long 
enough to avoid micromanagement hysteria and short enough to be 
verifiable and accountable. Yes, I do have a vision for a longer 
horizon, but it's too vague to be useful - "D will be a major 
programming language by 2020".



Also I think, that you treat the Action_List as competition to the VD.


I consider it competition with other things that Walter and I need to 
worry about. Walter put it cleverly: you can't add more administration 
without administrators.


A semestrial vision document summarizing our outlook and intentions is 
about as much as we can bear. A very nice collaborator offered to help 
with the vision doc but got busy with other things. He had a good quip 
about us being always late with the vision updates: "If we worked at a 
company we'd be all fired."


My days in the past few months were as follows:

"I think I can do containers as well as I can do ranges, let me work on 
that."


"Container nomenclature is exploding! Cool, there's this great Big-O 
attributes idea on the forum, let me write a library for it"


"Crap, DConf stuff DConf stuff DConf stuff"

"Hey, let's start with a simple container so how about RCStr"

"Urgh, more conferences and gigs but hey it's for the sake of D and the 
Foundation coffers"


"Argh, Foundation taxes are due"

"Oops, can't let checkedint happen but I can't criticize without 
proposing an alternative so forget RCStr and let me work on that"


"Argh, I need to work on the nonprofit application"

"Uhm, here's the lawyer review with questions about the nonprofit 
application"


"Ehm, here's the accountant review with more questions about the 
nonprofit application"


"Yowzers, it's July 5th and we're late with the vision document"

And so it goes. (Don't even get me started about email.) There are days 
at the end of which I realize I've been spinning my wheels but got not 
one line of code written. I'm not complaining, it comes with the 
territory! Administering one more document? I'd rather avoid it.



If you don't, even better but consider this:

You create a VD roughly twice a year. You have to compare it with the
last VD and see what was done. That is a lot of overhead IMO.


Tracking of past performance in comparison with the plan is probably the 
best and single most important thing about the Vision documents. If we 
just issued some thoughts every six months and then let them flap in the 
wind, no tracking no care no nothing - how would that be any better?



Why not create "THE VISION DOCUMENT" and update it when needed.


It seems the kind of document you're thinking of is a webpage.


You
would be able to add long term visions like "Awesome Container Library
using Allocators", then add subpoints to it like "Create
Allocator library" (strikethrough because it is already
done). We could then link the relevant forum threads to the points and
subpoints, discussing the work item.


Would trello help with that kind of stuff?


People would have a go to place
looking for pre-approved work. Leading to no more gatekeeper rejection
frustration.


I don't think preapproved work would lead to less rejection. Rejection 
is of work of insufficient quality, not of work that has not been 
preapproved. Conversely, preapproval does not guarantee any work will be 
actually approaved.



Additionally, I think that the vision for phobos is really weak, no
mentions of containers, xml, (si)-units, unit-testing (framework),
benchmarking, blas, json ... .


Added.


I'm not the much in the DMD process, but what about making the frontend
a library and being able to select the backend at the time of
compilation, as shortly mentioned at DConf. I bet there are a lot of
subpoints to that as well.


Added.


Thanks!

Andrei

Re: Vision document for H2 2016

[Andrei Alexandrescu via Digitalmars-d-announce]

On 07/08/2016 12:00 AM, rikki cattermole wrote:

On 08/07/2016 7:55 AM, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:

https://wiki.dlang.org/Vision/2016H2 -- Andrei


We really need opRef* implemented in dmd.


What is that? -- Andrei

Re: Vision document for H2 2016

[Andrei Alexandrescu via Digitalmars-d-announce]

On 07/08/2016 02:54 AM, Johannes Pfau wrote:

Am Thu, 7 Jul 2016 15:55:51 -0400
schrieb Andrei Alexandrescu :


https://wiki.dlang.org/Vision/2016H2 -- Andrei




Safety and Memory Management


Btw: You said #15951 (Inefficiencies in struct initialization) is a
blocker for RCStr. I've started some basic optimizations in GDC, but we
can't merge this code as long as the spec doesn't even mention = void
initialized fields.

Would be great if you and or Walter could take the time to add 3-4
sentences to the spec answering these questions
https://issues.dlang.org/show_bug.cgi?id=15951#c4


We can address that but probably not part of the vision. -- Andrei

Re: Vision document for H2 2016

[Andrei Alexandrescu via Digitalmars-d-announce]

On 07/07/2016 06:06 PM, qznc wrote:

On Thursday, 7 July 2016 at 19:56:29 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:

On 07/07/2016 03:55 PM, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:

https://wiki.dlang.org/Vision/2016H2 -- Andrei


Please provide feedback. We'll make a couple more passes before this
is complete. Thanks! -- Andrei


Wrt "Improve organization": I see a lot of potential in automating more
stuff.

* Have a bot for pinging reviewers like Facebook's mention-bot or Rust's
highfive

* Check various Phobos guidelines like "every function must have an
example"

* Use dfmt on Phobos (I know this is much bigger than it sounds)

* Compile all dub packages for testing

* Track performance and memory use

* Have a blog post about the automation we already have (autotester
deserves some applause once in while)

The nice thing about automating stuff is that it usually pays off the
investment in the long run. ;)


Done. Thanks! -- Andrei

Re: Vision document for H2 2016

[Andrei Alexandrescu via Digitalmars-d-announce]

On 07/07/2016 05:48 PM, Seb wrote:

On Thursday, 7 July 2016 at 19:56:29 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:

On 07/07/2016 03:55 PM, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:

https://wiki.dlang.org/Vision/2016H2 -- Andrei


Please provide feedback. We'll make a couple more passes before this
is complete. Thanks! -- Andrei


I agree that you should explain how it is planned to achieve "Raising
participation". Here's an idea:

[snip]

Added. Thanks! -- Andrei

Re: Vision document for H2 2016

[Jack Stouffer via Digitalmars-d-announce]

On Friday, 8 July 2016 at 16:55:54 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
I think the most important concrete step is to find more 
reviewers, which is already in the document. As to how to do 
that, I'm not sure. -- Andrei


To be blunt, the vision (and goals in general) are kind of 
useless without a plan to achieve them.

Re: Vision document for H2 2016

[Andrei Alexandrescu via Digitalmars-d-announce]

On 07/07/2016 04:39 PM, H. S. Teoh via Digitalmars-d-announce wrote:

On Thu, Jul 07, 2016 at 03:55:51PM -0400, Andrei Alexandrescu via 
Digitalmars-d-announce wrote:

https://wiki.dlang.org/Vision/2016H2 -- Andrei


Under "raising participation", are there any concrete steps that can be
taken to realize this goal? Given that last quarter we failed to achieve
the target number of PRs, it seems that specifying more concrete steps
would be a first step to actually reaching the goal, instead of merely
hoping things would somehow just come together.


I think the most important concrete step is to find more reviewers, 
which is already in the document. As to how to do that, I'm not sure. -- 
Andrei

Re: Vision document for H2 2016

[H. S. Teoh via Digitalmars-d-announce]

On Fri, Jul 08, 2016 at 09:17:14AM +, Robert burner Schadek via 
Digitalmars-d-announce wrote:
[...]
> I'm not the much in the DMD process, but what about making the
> frontend a library and being able to select the backend at the time of
> compilation, as shortly mentioned at DConf. I bet there are a lot of
> subpoints to that as well.

AFAICT this one is going to take a long time. The current DMD code is
quite volatile and internal APIs do change over time. Making it a
library would be great but if internals are exposed, it would become a
barrier to further development. I don't think we're at the point where
we're ready to actually work on this just yet.


T

-- 
Those who don't understand Unix are condemned to reinvent it, poorly.

Re: Vision document for H2 2016

[Andrew Godfrey via Digitalmars-d-announce]

On Thursday, 7 July 2016 at 19:55:51 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu 
wrote:

https://wiki.dlang.org/Vision/2016H2 -- Andrei


I see that this thread has sparked a lot of "ideas for the 
future". That's a great outcome but many of them don't belong in 
this vision document, and in fact some probably deserve mention 
in the vision doc as "great ideas the leadership won't be funding 
yet - but feel free to drive it yourself if you feel passionate 
about it".


I think this is important because it would greatly raise 
satisfaction with the vision doc, if it was more clear "what it 
is not".


So I'm wondering if there are ways to improve the structure.

1) A link to that action list, placing it in context relative to 
this doc, and encouraging people to add their ideas like "rust 
aliases" there instead of here. (Or maybe you have a better place 
for this, like a forum where such requests are discussed first).


2) A link to a longer-term vision doc. The question I posted 
recently in "general", about the evolution of the language, is 
the kind of thing I would want to see answered there. Another 
kind of thing is anything "long term strategic" that isn't a 
priority right now - e.g. pain points for new adopters that "we 
can't work on yet" (e.g. "there are 3 compilers, and many 
practitioners end up installing at least 2 of them"). And 
generally, I'd like a place that sets long term expectations, 
e.g. the rate of future deprecation of existing features in the 
language and in Phobos.

Re: Vision document for H2 2016

[jmh530 via Digitalmars-d-announce]

On Friday, 8 July 2016 at 14:01:14 UTC, Eugene wrote:
On Thursday, 7 July 2016 at 19:55:51 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu 
wrote:

https://wiki.dlang.org/Vision/2016H2 -- Andrei


please add some features from Rust: primitive type aliases, 
like i8, u8, u32, and so on


Not hard:

module stdrust;

alias i8 = byte;
alias u8 = ubyte;
alias i16 = short;
alias u16 = ushort;
alias i32 = int;
alias u32 = uint;
alias i64 = long;
alias u64 = ulong;
alias i128 = cent;
alias u128 = ucent;
alias f32 = float;
alias f64 = double;

Re: Vision document for H2 2016

[Eugene via Digitalmars-d-announce]

On Thursday, 7 July 2016 at 19:55:51 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu 
wrote:

https://wiki.dlang.org/Vision/2016H2 -- Andrei


please add some features from Rust: primitive type aliases, like 
i8, u8, u32, and so on

Re: Vision document for H2 2016

[Robert M. Münch via Digitalmars-d-announce]

On 2016-07-07 19:55:51 +, Andrei Alexandrescu said:


https://wiki.dlang.org/Vision/2016H2 -- Andrei



A more "business / managment" view:

If we want to achieve hihger adoption rate of D, which IMO should be 
the first priority as it's an enabler for a lot of the other things 
posted, the non-technical aspects are much more important.



1. Fixing (all) bugs before doing new things: If I look as a CTO, CIO 
or CEO on D I the first thing I ask is: "Are they doing a lot of new 
stuff? And if, is this thing / last releasae that bullet proof stable 
that there are not annoying open issued?" Any other answer then "yes" 
would get my "no" to use D.



2. Case-Studies: Yes, we have a lot of projects and things going on 
etc. However, beside the "audio plug-in" I'm not so much aware of any D 
products. This even becomes harder to market if there are backend 
use-case / success stories. I thin it makes sense to show, what D has 
been used for, what the advantages are (faster, less cost, better 
maintainability) and how to adopt it.



3. How about a "D Master" online certificate? scrum.org is doing that. 
You have to go through a pretty hard online exam and reach a certain 
point level to become a "Certified Scrum Master". Yes, it might be a 
bit early to think about his line, but IMO better early then late. It 
just shows, that D is taking care about all the non-technical stuff as 
well, which is a decision point for companies.



Just my 2c here...

--
Robert M. Münch
http://www.saphirion.com
smarter | better | faster

Re: Vision document for H2 2016

[jmh530 via Digitalmars-d-announce]

On Friday, 8 July 2016 at 09:17:14 UTC, Robert burner Schadek 
wrote:


You create a VD roughly twice a year. You have to compare it 
with the last VD and see what was done. That is a lot of 
overhead IMO.

Why not create "THE VISION DOCUMENT" and update it when needed.


I like to think about it as a process. Even if it's not perfect, 
it forces them to sit down and think about what they've done and 
how they are reaching their goals.

Re: Vision document for H2 2016

[Robert burner Schadek via Digitalmars-d-announce]

On Thursday, 7 July 2016 at 20:44:05 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu 
wrote:

On 7/7/16 3:55 PM, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:

https://wiki.dlang.org/Vision/2016H2 -- Andrei


In the next pass I will integrate Walter_Andrei_Action_List


I'm quite underwhelmed by the Vision Document (VD). I think that 
is because it is a biyearly VD, and IMO in half a year nothing 
really visionary can be done for D (because D is already pretty 
awesome and pushing the envelope takes a lot of time).


Also I think, that you treat the Action_List as competition to 
the VD. If you don't, even better but consider this:


You create a VD roughly twice a year. You have to compare it with 
the last VD and see what was done. That is a lot of overhead IMO.
Why not create "THE VISION DOCUMENT" and update it when needed. 
You would be able to add long term visions like "Awesome 
Container Library using Allocators", then add subpoints to it 
like "Create Allocator library" 
(strikethrough because it is already done). We could then link 
the relevant forum threads to the points and subpoints, 
discussing the work item. People would have a go to place looking 
for pre-approved work. Leading to no more gatekeeper rejection 
frustration.


Additionally, I think that the vision for phobos is really weak, 
no mentions of containers, xml, (si)-units, unit-testing 
(framework), benchmarking, blas, json ... .
I'm not the much in the DMD process, but what about making the 
frontend a library and being able to select the backend at the 
time of compilation, as shortly mentioned at DConf. I bet there 
are a lot of subpoints to that as well.

Re: Vision document for H2 2016

[Johannes Pfau via Digitalmars-d-announce]

Am Thu, 7 Jul 2016 15:55:51 -0400
schrieb Andrei Alexandrescu :

> https://wiki.dlang.org/Vision/2016H2 -- Andrei


> Safety and Memory Management
 
Btw: You said #15951 (Inefficiencies in struct initialization) is a
blocker for RCStr. I've started some basic optimizations in GDC, but we
can't merge this code as long as the spec doesn't even mention = void
initialized fields.

Would be great if you and or Walter could take the time to add 3-4
sentences to the spec answering these questions
https://issues.dlang.org/show_bug.cgi?id=15951#c4

Re: Vision document for H2 2016

[rikki cattermole via Digitalmars-d-announce]

On 08/07/2016 7:55 AM, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:

https://wiki.dlang.org/Vision/2016H2 -- Andrei


We really need opRef* implemented in dmd.

Re: Vision document for H2 2016

[qznc via Digitalmars-d-announce]

On Thursday, 7 July 2016 at 19:56:29 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu 
wrote:

On 07/07/2016 03:55 PM, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:

https://wiki.dlang.org/Vision/2016H2 -- Andrei


Please provide feedback. We'll make a couple more passes before 
this is complete. Thanks! -- Andrei


Wrt "Improve organization": I see a lot of potential in 
automating more stuff.


* Have a bot for pinging reviewers like Facebook's mention-bot or 
Rust's highfive


* Check various Phobos guidelines like "every function must have 
an example"


* Use dfmt on Phobos (I know this is much bigger than it sounds)

* Compile all dub packages for testing

* Track performance and memory use

* Have a blog post about the automation we already have 
(autotester deserves some applause once in while)


The nice thing about automating stuff is that it usually pays off 
the investment in the long run. ;)

Re: Vision document for H2 2016

[Walter Bright via Digitalmars-d-announce]

On 7/7/2016 1:16 PM, H. S. Teoh via Digitalmars-d-announce wrote:

Recently Walter has been fixing a series of compiler bugs related to
@safe, which is a very promising development, but we're not quite there
yet:


https://issues.dlang.org/buglist.cgi?keywords=safe_id=209407=---

The @safe cheesegrater still has (quite) a few more holes to plug.



Most of those are resolved. Here's a better link:

https://issues.dlang.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=NEW_status=ASSIGNED_status=REOPENED=safe_type=allwords_id=209410_format=advanced

19 of which are in DMD, down from around 40 a month ago. The remainder are 
mostly due to 'scope' not being implemented.

Re: Vision document for H2 2016

[Seb via Digitalmars-d-announce]

On Thursday, 7 July 2016 at 19:56:29 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu 
wrote:

On 07/07/2016 03:55 PM, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:

https://wiki.dlang.org/Vision/2016H2 -- Andrei


Please provide feedback. We'll make a couple more passes before 
this is complete. Thanks! -- Andrei


I agree that you should explain how it is planned to achieve 
"Raising participation". Here's an idea:


Create an outreach/PR team, with the following tasks

a) "Recruitment"
---

- Issue official press releases from the D foundation for major 
milestones and releases

- Improve the newcomer experience (aka your first five minutes)
- Find ways to inspire developers to get more in touch and 
inspire their community
- Find sponsors/members organizations for the D foundation once 
it's official
- Help and encourage others to create online course & learning 
material about D
- Reach out to interested universities and assist them in their 
leading role


See also: http://dlang.org/areas-of-d-usage.html#teaching

b) Brand awareness
--

- consider to use the new design from the DConf16
- provide (or better: sell) small branding items (stickers, 
posters, T-shirts, ...)
- make the #DlangMan culture more mainstream (atm it's mostly 
Japanese)


Another main point that I couldn't see at the moment is:

User experience
---

- better error messages & diagnostics (e.g. DIP83)
- afaik macOS still doesn't show line numbers
- create a Dlang survey (like the Rust survey) for feedback (e.g. 
with PR group from above)

Re: Vision document for H2 2016

[H. S. Teoh via Digitalmars-d-announce]

On Thu, Jul 07, 2016 at 03:55:51PM -0400, Andrei Alexandrescu via 
Digitalmars-d-announce wrote:
> https://wiki.dlang.org/Vision/2016H2 -- Andrei

Under "raising participation", are there any concrete steps that can be
taken to realize this goal? Given that last quarter we failed to achieve
the target number of PRs, it seems that specifying more concrete steps
would be a first step to actually reaching the goal, instead of merely
hoping things would somehow just come together.


T

-- 
Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, 
give him power. -- Abraham Lincoln

Re: Vision document for H2 2016

[Andrei Alexandrescu via Digitalmars-d-announce]

On 7/7/16 3:55 PM, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:

https://wiki.dlang.org/Vision/2016H2 -- Andrei


In the next pass I will integrate 
https://wiki.dlang.org/Walter_Andrei_Action_List#Walter_and_Andrei.27s_Action_List 
within the vision document. We're already stretched thin 
organizationally, and need to cut down on overhead and bureaucracy. Last 
thing we want is yet another document to maintain. -- Andrei

Re: Vision document for H2 2016

[Andrei Alexandrescu via Digitalmars-d-announce]

On 7/7/16 4:33 PM, Brad Roberts via Digitalmars-d-announce wrote:

On 7/7/16 12:55 PM, Andrei Alexandrescu via Digitalmars-d-announce wrote:

https://wiki.dlang.org/Vision/2016H2 -- Andrei


In the release management section, I'd like to see some priority placed
on regressions.  There was a time that releases were held until those
where addressed.  It was only a couple releases, but the list did get
down to just 1 that was deemed not blocking (I don't remember the details).


Added a sentence: "Regressions should be paid utmost attention." Thanks! 
-- Andrei

Re: Vision document for H2 2016

[Andrei Alexandrescu via Digitalmars-d-announce]

On 7/7/16 4:16 PM, H. S. Teoh via Digitalmars-d-announce wrote:

On Thu, Jul 07, 2016 at 03:55:51PM -0400, Andrei Alexandrescu via 
Digitalmars-d-announce wrote:

https://wiki.dlang.org/Vision/2016H2 -- Andrei


Under "safety and memory management", what about adding "plug existing
known loopholes in @safe"?

Recently Walter has been fixing a series of compiler bugs related to
@safe, which is a very promising development, but we're not quite there
yet:


https://issues.dlang.org/buglist.cgi?keywords=safe_id=209407=---

The @safe cheesegrater still has (quite) a few more holes to plug.


Added: "Fix all errors in language design and implementation that allow 
unsafe behavior in @safe code." Thanks! -- Andrei

Re: Vision document for H2 2016

[Brad Roberts via Digitalmars-d-announce]

On 7/7/16 12:55 PM, Andrei Alexandrescu via Digitalmars-d-announce wrote:

https://wiki.dlang.org/Vision/2016H2 -- Andrei


In the release management section, I'd like to see some priority placed on regressions.  There was a 
time that releases were held until those where addressed.  It was only a couple releases, but the 
list did get down to just 1 that was deemed not blocking (I don't remember the details).

Re: Vision document for H2 2016

[H. S. Teoh via Digitalmars-d-announce]

On Thu, Jul 07, 2016 at 03:55:51PM -0400, Andrei Alexandrescu via 
Digitalmars-d-announce wrote:
> https://wiki.dlang.org/Vision/2016H2 -- Andrei

Under "safety and memory management", what about adding "plug existing
known loopholes in @safe"?

Recently Walter has been fixing a series of compiler bugs related to
@safe, which is a very promising development, but we're not quite there
yet:


https://issues.dlang.org/buglist.cgi?keywords=safe_id=209407=---

The @safe cheesegrater still has (quite) a few more holes to plug.


T

-- 
Gone Chopin. Bach in a minuet.

Re: Vision document for H2 2016

[Andrei Alexandrescu via Digitalmars-d-announce]

On 07/07/2016 03:55 PM, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:

https://wiki.dlang.org/Vision/2016H2 -- Andrei


Please provide feedback. We'll make a couple more passes before this is 
complete. Thanks! -- Andrei