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digitalmars.D - A strategic vision for D

reply Joakim <dlang joakim.fea.st> writes:
I realize it's right before the conference, but I'd like to put 
out a request for Walter and Andrei to spend five minutes during 
your talks laying out some overarching strategy for how you see D 
evolving. It could be during the keynotes or leading off the Q&A 
panel, but I think it's worth laying a broad strategy out there.

Specifically, what uses do you see D being put to for the next 
five years and how do we make it better in those directions.  For 
example, in what way you'd like to see D get better as a language 
for writing apps, or what particular niches you see D as a 
systems language doing well in first.

For another example, here's what I'd say, ie my strategic vision: 
the pendulum is about to swing hard back towards the client, 
towards the billion and a half mobile devices sold each year, and 
D is ideally positioned with its native efficiency to do well 
there. However, since it's not the blessed language for any 
mobile platform, like Kotlin or Swift, it will take much work on 
libraries to pull that off.

Some caveats: since D is not controlled by a company with W&A as 
co-CEOs, they cannot obviously order people to follow their 
vision. However, that should leave you free to really share your 
unexpurgated thoughts, after all, we're all free to ignore it. ;)

Another is that perhaps D has chosen to evolve tactically as 
opposed to strategically, carefully picking off wins with a new 
feature or mode of programming but not following any grand 
strategy, similar to how Linus Torvalds claims he didn't have any 
grand vision for linux either. However, a strategic vision can 
inspire people to work towards that goal, if there is one to be 
shared.
May 01 2018
next sibling parent reply bachmeier <no spam.net> writes:
On Tuesday, 1 May 2018 at 12:26:25 UTC, Joakim wrote:

 I realize it's right before the conference, but I'd like to put 
 out a request for Walter and Andrei to spend five minutes 
 during your talks laying out some overarching strategy for how 
 you see D evolving. It could be during the keynotes or leading 
 off the Q&A panel, but I think it's worth laying a broad 
 strategy out there.


My vision for D is that we'll get to a point where the community 
develops its own infrastructure to push D forward without the 
involvement of Andrei, Walter, or the D Foundation. Things like 
SciPy, RStudio, and the like. Not just a few side projects, but 
really large projects with many contributors.
May 01 2018
parent Joakim <dlang joakim.fea.st> writes:
On Tuesday, 1 May 2018 at 12:46:04 UTC, bachmeier wrote:

 On Tuesday, 1 May 2018 at 12:26:25 UTC, Joakim wrote:

 I realize it's right before the conference, but I'd like to 
 put out a request for Walter and Andrei to spend five minutes 
 during your talks laying out some overarching strategy for how 
 you see D evolving. It could be during the keynotes or leading 
 off the Q&A panel, but I think it's worth laying a broad 
 strategy out there.


 My vision for D is that we'll get to a point where the 
 community develops its own infrastructure to push D forward 
 without the involvement of Andrei, Walter, or the D Foundation. 
 Things like SciPy, RStudio, and the like. Not just a few side 
 projects, but really large projects with many contributors.


That's been going on for some time now, W&A and the foundation do 
a minority of the work, albeit very important. Mir is in the vein 
you seem to want and wasn't driven by them. I think Weka sponsors 
some work on ldc, at least for themselves.

But I take your point that it'd be good to see more efforts like 
that. I had hoped the bounties would spur some pooling around 
particular issues like that, but it hasn't done that well.
May 01 2018
prev sibling next sibling parent reply Ali <fakeemail example.com> writes:
On Tuesday, 1 May 2018 at 12:26:25 UTC, Joakim wrote:

 I realize it's right before the conference, but I'd like to put 
 out a request for Walter and Andrei to spend five minutes 
 during your talks laying out some overarching strategy for how 
 you see D evolving. It could be during the keynotes or leading 
 off the Q&A panel, but I think it's worth laying a broad 
 strategy out there.


For D's vision as set by D's core team
check https://wiki.dlang.org/Vision/2018H1

It is very clear, and feel free to read between the lines, on 
what might be the long term strategy

I think point 1 in the vision is very telling

 1. Lock down the language definition
May 01 2018
next sibling parent reply John Gabriele <jgabriele fastmail.fm> writes:
On Tuesday, 1 May 2018 at 17:20:54 UTC, Ali wrote:

 On Tuesday, 1 May 2018 at 12:26:25 UTC, Joakim wrote:

 I realize it's right before the conference, but I'd like to 
 put out a request for Walter and Andrei to spend five minutes 
 during your talks laying out some overarching strategy for how 
 you see D evolving. It could be during the keynotes or leading 
 off the Q&A panel, but I think it's worth laying a broad 
 strategy out there.


 For D's vision as set by D's core team
 check https://wiki.dlang.org/Vision/2018H1


In particular, I'd like to hear how the core team weighs:

   * making useful breaking changes vs maintaining backcompat, and

   * adding more features vs more simplification of the language.


 It is very clear, and feel free to read between the lines, on 
 what might be the long term strategy

 I think point 1 in the vision is very telling

 1. Lock down the language definition




Sorry, I'm not understanding. To me that says the core team 
values multiple implementations that adhere to the same spec. 
Does it imply something else?
May 01 2018
next sibling parent Nick Sabalausky <a a.a> writes:
On Tuesday, 1 May 2018 at 22:20:53 UTC, John Gabriele wrote:

 On Tuesday, 1 May 2018 at 17:20:54 UTC, Ali wrote:

 It is very clear, and feel free to read between the lines, on 
 what might be the long term strategy

 I think point 1 in the vision is very telling

 1. Lock down the language definition




 Sorry, I'm not understanding. To me that says the core team 
 values multiple implementations that adhere to the same spec. 
 Does it imply something else?


I think it means stop making changes to the language, and all 
further changes are limited to library-only. (Could be wrong. 
Hope I'm wrong. But that is the impression I've been getting that 
Andrei's been pushing for for quite awhile.)
May 01 2018
prev sibling parent Ali <fakeemail example.com> writes:
On Tuesday, 1 May 2018 at 22:20:53 UTC, John Gabriele wrote:

 On Tuesday, 1 May 2018 at 17:20:54 UTC, Ali wrote:

 I think point 1 in the vision is very telling

 1. Lock down the language definition




 Sorry, I'm not understanding. To me that says the core team 
 values multiple implementations that adhere to the same spec. 
 Does it imply something else?


In many ways, I agree, with the other comments
the current strategy seem to continue pushing D as a safer more
predictable systems programming language

Lock down the language definition, will help make D more 
predictable,
and safer to use
May 02 2018
prev sibling parent reply Joakim <dlang joakim.fea.st> writes:
On Tuesday, 1 May 2018 at 17:20:54 UTC, Ali wrote:

 On Tuesday, 1 May 2018 at 12:26:25 UTC, Joakim wrote:

 I realize it's right before the conference, but I'd like to 
 put out a request for Walter and Andrei to spend five minutes 
 during your talks laying out some overarching strategy for how 
 you see D evolving. It could be during the keynotes or leading 
 off the Q&A panel, but I think it's worth laying a broad 
 strategy out there.


 For D's vision as set by D's core team
 check https://wiki.dlang.org/Vision/2018H1

 It is very clear, and feel free to read between the lines, on 
 what might be the long term strategy

 I think point 1 in the vision is very telling

 1. Lock down the language definition




Those are specific technical priorities that hint at a strategy, 
as you say, but it is better to lay out that strategy itself. Not 
knocking that vision document, as I called for a concrete 
document like that for years, but a conference keynote is a good 
place to lay out a strategy too.
May 01 2018
parent reply "Nick Sabalausky (Abscissa)" <SeeWebsiteToContactMe semitwist.com> writes:
On 05/01/2018 10:27 PM, Joakim wrote:

 
 Those are specific technical priorities that hint at a strategy, as you 
 say, but it is better to lay out that strategy itself. Not knocking that 
 vision document, as I called for a concrete document like that for 
 years, but a conference keynote is a good place to lay out a strategy too.


I think the "overall strategy" is simply: "Identify the most important 
things for the core folk to work on, prioritize those things." Really 
don't think anything beyond that really matters or exists. We're not 
exactly pitching to VC's here.
May 01 2018
parent reply Joakim <dlang joakim.fea.st> writes:
On Wednesday, 2 May 2018 at 03:44:37 UTC, Nick Sabalausky 
(Abscissa) wrote:

 On 05/01/2018 10:27 PM, Joakim wrote:

 
 Those are specific technical priorities that hint at a 
 strategy, as you say, but it is better to lay out that 
 strategy itself. Not knocking that vision document, as I 
 called for a concrete document like that for years, but a 
 conference keynote is a good place to lay out a strategy too.


 I think the "overall strategy" is simply: "Identify the most 
 important things for the core folk to work on, prioritize those 
 things." Really don't think anything beyond that really matters 
 or exists. We're not exactly pitching to VC's here.


Yes, but how is it decided what the "most important things" are? 
There is a strategy at work for any prioritization, even if it's 
implicit and never even articulated in their own minds. If 
unarticulated, you can gain a lot by spending time to articulate 
it, as you may find unwanted contradictions in the way you had 
been prioritizing.

As for pitching VCs, there's a reason they want to know that 
vision, to know if that's something worth investing in. 
Similarly, potential D users and the existing community want to 
know if there's a vision worth investing their time and money 
into.

Since D is an open source project, they're always free to ignore 
the core team's vision and use D in their own way, ie meld their 
own vision as Linus talks about happened with linux over the 
years, but it helps to know what the core team's strategy is for 
many people.
May 01 2018
parent reply Dave Jones <dave jones.com> writes:
On Wednesday, 2 May 2018 at 04:48:46 UTC, Joakim wrote:

 On Wednesday, 2 May 2018 at 03:44:37 UTC, Nick Sabalausky 
 (Abscissa) wrote:

 On 05/01/2018 10:27 PM, Joakim wrote:





 Yes, but how is it decided what the "most important things" 
 are? There is a strategy at work for any prioritization, even 
 if it's implicit and never even articulated in their own minds. 
 If unarticulated, you can gain a lot by spending time to 
 articulate it, as you may find unwanted contradictions in the 
 way you had been prioritizing.


I'm sure Walter and Andrei would love to have the newsgroup 
micromanaging their decision making process.
May 07 2018
parent Ali <fakeemail example.com> writes:
On Monday, 7 May 2018 at 21:55:28 UTC, Dave Jones wrote

 I'm sure Walter and Andrei would love to have the newsgroup 
 micromanaging their decision making process.


i dont think anyone is trying to micromanage anyone

i think D's strategic positioning, is a very interesting question
and it is normal for some, especially for new comers or anyway 
who is not already very invested in D to be interested in an 
answer

and in D's case i think it is hard to find a satisfying answer

D have two leaders and you mention Andrei and Walter, and the way 
I see, I dont think they both fully agree on an answer for this 
question

Going back to D's 2018 vision document and comparing whats in it 
to both Andrei and Walter comments and youtube videos
I would argue Walter is all in on the -betterC feature (for now), 
while Andrei is more into improving D overall and doubling down 
on introspection

Both are really good and unique features
May 07 2018
prev sibling parent reply germandiago <germandiago gmail.com> writes:
On Tuesday, 1 May 2018 at 12:26:25 UTC, Joakim wrote:

 I realize it's right before the conference, but I'd like to put 
 out a request for Walter and Andrei to spend five minutes 
 during your talks laying out some overarching strategy for how 
 you see D evolving. It could be during the keynotes or leading 
 off the Q&A panel, but I think it's worth laying a broad 
 strategy out there.

 Specifically, what uses do you see D being put to for the next 
 five years and how do we make it better in those directions.  
 For example, in what way you'd like to see D get better as a 
 language for writing apps, or what particular niches you see D 
 as a systems language doing well in first.

 For another example, here's what I'd say, ie my strategic 
 vision: the pendulum is about to swing hard back towards the 
 client, towards the billion and a half mobile devices sold each 
 year, and D is ideally positioned with its native efficiency to 
 do well there. However, since it's not the blessed language for 
 any mobile platform, like Kotlin or Swift, it will take much 
 work on libraries to pull that off.

 Some caveats: since D is not controlled by a company with W&A 
 as co-CEOs, they cannot obviously order people to follow their 
 vision. However, that should leave you free to really share 
 your unexpurgated thoughts, after all, we're all free to ignore 
 it. ;)

 Another is that perhaps D has chosen to evolve tactically as 
 opposed to strategically, carefully picking off wins with a new 
 feature or mode of programming but not following any grand 
 strategy, similar to how Linus Torvalds claims he didn't have 
 any grand vision for linux either. However, a strategic vision 
 can inspire people to work towards that goal, if there is one 
 to be shared.


My 2 cents. I have been following D for a long time and started 
using it in a very small project. I am a very long term C++ user.

Many people say that D does not offer anything over C++, 
improvements-wise. Or people tell you that there is Go and Rust. 
Because D does not have these fancy algebraic data types, or that 
borrow checker... no, no and NO. I think we do not need to enter 
that game. I have tried all 3. Here is my opinion.

1. Go --> excellent...!!! For what it does: namely, intensive 
communication client/server. It falls short of abstraction power 
in some areas, has no compile-time evaluation, no 
metaprogramming... though I must recognize it works pretty smooth 
for its simplicity.

2. Rust --> the borrow checker... excellent, in theory: in 
practice, as Andrei Alexandrescu once mentioned: you spend a lot 
of effort on something that in reality is not a problem most of 
the time. It is a problem, yes, but these problems can be avoided 
with much more lightweight solutions or simply, as D does, being 
able to avoid GC where it is needed. A much more practical 
solution. Rust has other things of value, such as Algebraic data 
types and Traits, but the borrow checker has a big impact for 
several reasons: it takes time to get used to, socially, people 
cannot use Rust from day one, so... you need added training for 
teams. But also remember... an "alien" type system makes it more 
difficult for integration with previous systems.

How should be D advertised? Well, I think that Ali Çehreli did a 
good job explaining in one of his keynotes the conveniencies of 
D, but this will not make people migrate. Why I am myself 
starting to take a look into D? I am a person that if I publish a 
project as open source, I want people to be able to contribute. 
Coding is, above all, a social activity, so:


effort.
- Come from C, abstractions are too low level? D will take the 
same effort as alternatives with native performance, but you can 
start coding today.
- Come from C++ (like myself)? D is way cleaner and more 
convenient: modules, better metaprogramming, pervasive CTFE, 
*much better introspection* and also easy to learn.

Those are all good reasons, but, for me, what sets D apart is its 
level of integration with C/C++. If I come for D in the first 
place is because I can reuse my old code. This is true for most 
businesses: they have older code to integrate.

So my opinion is that D is a very pragmatic language that has 
this real, also management-perceivable advantages over all these 
nice algebraic data types integrated into the language and so on:

- if I pick up D in a team, it is very likely that D will be 

similar things. This is a very important social factor and 
usually not mentioned or underestimated.
- if I have some C/C++ code to integrate, I can do it *way 
smoother* than with other languages to do it: please guys keep 
working on this.
- if I want safety, there are mechanisms that take you 90% there. 
Why would you pick up an alien like Rust where you have to 
relearn all, but not only that, you have to train full teams? 
This has a cost that is never analyzed seriously, but, on top of 
that, with an alternative mechanism such as GC + ability to 
disable it you can easily get there at a very low cost, because 
you skip a lot of the training for things such as the borrow 
checker.
- and last but not least, because of its insanely powerful 
metaprogramming: opening files at compile time + CTFE + 
metaprogramming, you can reach a level of integration with 
language bindings like Python or others that it is simply not 
possible with other languages, all at compile-time.

So, all in all, if I had to advertise D in a strategic way, it 
would be:

- the language for which migration for your team is going to work 
much smoother than the alternatives. I mean *much better*. 
Especially C/C++
- it does not feel alien -> another practical reason for saving 

it up easily. And with native performance.
- powerful metaprogramming -> integration with other systems has 
an edge.
- native performance: fast code, but not only fast, you can avoid 
also the GC if you want and use it  safe ly.

What this means overall is that this language is the most 
practical of the pack for many reasons, compared to picking up 
the (in my opinion) almost academic Rust or the very specialized 
Go.

Some kind of slogans for D I could think of:

D: familiar, native and with a superior integration story: start 
being productive from day 1.
D: the pragmatic language, for people that need to get things 
done.

Or something similar. This is very true. We do not leave in a 
void, we have code, we have libraries from other languages, we 
need to integrate. D has an edge here, besides the learning 
curve, compared to any other native language.
May 04 2018
parent reply Joakim <dlang joakim.fea.st> writes:
On Saturday, 5 May 2018 at 04:59:58 UTC, germandiago wrote:

 On Tuesday, 1 May 2018 at 12:26:25 UTC, Joakim wrote:

 [...]


 My 2 cents. I have been following D for a long time and started 
 using it in a very small project. I am a very long term C++ 
 user.

 [...]


Interesting analysis.  These are pretty much the points of 
technical and marketing emphasis today, so it appears the current 
message resonated with you.

However, I was talking about more from the point of which markets 
D would target first, ie the types of end users who'd use D, 
whether game programmers or compiled GUI apps. So far D's gained 
some traction at startups that need performance.

One issue with the current approach is that they seem to 
implicitly assume that D needs to match or surpass C and C++. 
Can't disagree with the betterC approach as that's really needed, 
but I'm not sure if D should want to be a better C++. Certainly 
app devs don't really care about  nogc and the current systems 
programming emphasis aimed at C++ devs like you.

My point is that whatever that strategy is should be clearly 
articulated, or you may even undermine yourself by not thinking 
through carefully what your goals are.
May 07 2018
parent reply David J Kordsmeier <dkords gmail.com> writes:
On Monday, 7 May 2018 at 10:27:32 UTC, Joakim wrote:

 On Saturday, 5 May 2018 at 04:59:58 UTC, germandiago wrote:

 On Tuesday, 1 May 2018 at 12:26:25 UTC, Joakim wrote:

 [...]


 My 2 cents. I have been following D for a long time and 
 started using it in a very small project. I am a very long 
 term C++ user.

 [...]


 Interesting analysis.  These are pretty much the points of 
 technical and marketing emphasis today, so it appears the 
 current message resonated with you.

 However, I was talking about more from the point of which 
 markets D would target first, ie the types of end users who'd 
 use D, whether game programmers or compiled GUI apps. So far 
 D's gained some traction at startups that need performance.

 One issue with the current approach is that they seem to 
 implicitly assume that D needs to match or surpass C and C++. 
 Can't disagree with the betterC approach as that's really 
 needed, but I'm not sure if D should want to be a better C++. 
 Certainly app devs don't really care about  nogc and the 
 current systems programming emphasis aimed at C++ devs like you.

 My point is that whatever that strategy is should be clearly 
 articulated, or you may even undermine yourself by not thinking 
 through carefully what your goals are.


Great marketing beats great tech (sadly), but we are creatures 
subject to social influence and that which is shiny.

Who actually runs marketing for Dlang?  Is it the foundation, 
collective cooperation, or ?  Does Dlang have what it needs to be 
successful in this category in terms of financial resources, 
expertise, and focus?

As an aside, this was the original marketing for Node.js, in the 
years before it was acquired by Joyent: http://tinyclouds.org/ .  
In a single year, it caught fire (that is, it became wildly 
successful) because it had a strong BDFL (who was not a dictator, 
and who stepped down as soon as it made sense to do so, and he 
took on some messianic stature as a result), strong technical 
merits, a clear focused message of where it fit in the market, 
and it met a need.  In fact, it met many more needs than 
intended, widely used in both cloud and embedded type 
applications.  8 years on from moving the project into the hands 
of a corporate sponsor, through much controversy over governance 
and some community strife, forks, etc., it's doing well in the 
hands of a foundation: https://foundation.nodejs.org/ .

 From a market focused perspective there is the technology itself 
in one bucket, and then there is the adoption by enterprise.  
Certain things have to happen for enterprise adoption to actually 
take place.  If we follow the pattern of what happened for Go or 
Node.js, we can boil those down to execution of certain tangibles:

- Project is well documented
- Project is available under favorable OSS license (I won't get 
into what favorable means, but for corporations, they have their 
preferences)
- Project has a good toolchain and tools support
- Project has a good IDE integration
- Project has good sample applications built, lots of good 
examples
- Project has a strong and active community of developers with 
the appropriate mix of core contributors, external contributors, 
experts, casual users, and people evaluating possible use
- Project has strong technical merits
- Project has strong market differentiators (this may require 
real marketing to get this down on paper and promote this)
- Project has commercial support available (training, bug fixing, 
development)
- Project has an academic community (this often helps seed use in 
Universities), and students eventually grow up to work for 
enterprise corporations
- Project has corporate sponsors (or foundation sponsors ... they 
are really representing corporations)
- Project has a sustainable model (legal, financial) to maintain 
its community, engineering, and marketing.
- Project has multiple big projects that rely upon it

Grade Go, Rust, and Node.js on this list above.  Where are they 
at on each item?  Grade Dlang on this.  We still have some work 
to do.  What companies offer commercial support in D?  Are there 
any Dlang focused agencies out there?  How many projects are 
using Dlang commercially?  Who are the corporate sponsors of 
Dlang?  Again, I think much of this comes back to that marketing 
message.  What is the unique selling proposition.  Define that.  
Then conquer the world.
May 07 2018
parent Joakim <dlang joakim.fea.st> writes:
On Monday, 7 May 2018 at 15:52:38 UTC, David J Kordsmeier wrote:

 On Monday, 7 May 2018 at 10:27:32 UTC, Joakim wrote:

 [...]


 Great marketing beats great tech (sadly), but we are creatures 
 subject to social influence and that which is shiny.

 Who actually runs marketing for Dlang?  Is it the foundation, 
 collective cooperation, or ?  Does Dlang have what it needs to 
 be successful in this category in terms of financial resources, 
 expertise, and focus?

 As an aside, this was the original marketing for Node.js, in 
 the years before it was acquired by Joyent: 
 http://tinyclouds.org/ .  In a single year, it caught fire 
 (that is, it became wildly successful) because it had a strong 
 BDFL (who was not a dictator, and who stepped down as soon as 
 it made sense to do so, and he took on some messianic stature 
 as a result), strong technical merits, a clear focused message 
 of where it fit in the market, and it met a need.  In fact, it 
 met many more needs than intended, widely used in both cloud 
 and embedded type applications.  8 years on from moving the 
 project into the hands of a corporate sponsor, through much 
 controversy over governance and some community strife, forks, 
 etc., it's doing well in the hands of a foundation: 
 https://foundation.nodejs.org/ .

 From a market focused perspective there is the technology 
 itself in one bucket, and then there is the adoption by 
 enterprise.  Certain things have to happen for enterprise 
 adoption to actually take place.  If we follow the pattern of 
 what happened for Go or Node.js, we can boil those down to 
 execution of certain tangibles:

 - Project is well documented
 - Project is available under favorable OSS license (I won't get 
 into what favorable means, but for corporations, they have 
 their preferences)
 - Project has a good toolchain and tools support
 - Project has a good IDE integration
 - Project has good sample applications built, lots of good 
 examples
 - Project has a strong and active community of developers with 
 the appropriate mix of core contributors, external 
 contributors, experts, casual users, and people evaluating 
 possible use
 - Project has strong technical merits
 - Project has strong market differentiators (this may require 
 real marketing to get this down on paper and promote this)
 - Project has commercial support available (training, bug 
 fixing, development)
 - Project has an academic community (this often helps seed use 
 in Universities), and students eventually grow up to work for 
 enterprise corporations
 - Project has corporate sponsors (or foundation sponsors ... 
 they are really representing corporations)
 - Project has a sustainable model (legal, financial) to 
 maintain its community, engineering, and marketing.
 - Project has multiple big projects that rely upon it

 Grade Go, Rust, and Node.js on this list above.  Where are they 
 at on each item?  Grade Dlang on this.  We still have some work 
 to do.  What companies offer commercial support in D?  Are 
 there any Dlang focused agencies out there?  How many projects 
 are using Dlang commercially?  Who are the corporate sponsors 
 of Dlang?  Again, I think much of this comes back to that 
 marketing message.  What is the unique selling proposition.  
 Define that.  Then conquer the world.


Those are mostly things that have to be done collectively in a 
community project like this. Much has already been done: the 
front page of the website has a slogan, "Fast code, fast," and a 
list of companies using D.

D is never going to have a completely structured process like a 
well-organized company, where it defines those objectives and 
then pays to get them done. As a community project, it's much 
more decentralized, which has its pros and cons, but more 
positives for me than being backed by a single company.

However, what the community leaders can do is put out a strategic 
vision, for the community to gather around if they accept it. The 
vision document is a great example of this, where anyone can pick 
items off that list and go work on them.

However, an overall strategy is broader than that, which someone 
could further by working on something _not on that list_, that 
they think up themselves.
May 07 2018