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digitalmars.D - Improve D's syntax to make it more python like

reply "Pedro Larroy" <pedro.larroy.lists gmail.com> writes:
Hi

As a newcomer to D, I wonder, how difficult would be and would it 
be welcome by the D community to have D's syntax with significant 
whitespace and without brackets more like python?


Thanks.
Mar 21 2014
next sibling parent Timon Gehr <timon.gehr gmx.ch> writes:
On 03/21/2014 07:47 PM, Pedro Larroy wrote:

 Hi

 As a newcomer to D, I wonder, how difficult would be and would it be
 welcome by the D community to have D's syntax with significant
 whitespace and without brackets more like python?


 Thanks.


http://delight.sourceforge.net/
Mar 21 2014
prev sibling next sibling parent reply "bearophile" <bearophileHUGS lycos.com> writes:
Pedro Larroy:


 As a newcomer to D, I wonder, how difficult would be and would 
 it be welcome by the D community to have D's syntax with 
 significant whitespace and without brackets more like python?


You have to revive this project to port it to D2:
http://delight.sourceforge.net/

Bye,
bearophile
Mar 21 2014
parent reply "The Guest" <dontspammebro blah.net> writes:
On Friday, 21 March 2014 at 18:51:46 UTC, bearophile wrote:

 Pedro Larroy:


 As a newcomer to D, I wonder, how difficult would be and would 
 it be welcome by the D community to have D's syntax with 
 significant whitespace and without brackets more like python?


 You have to revive this project to port it to D2:
 http://delight.sourceforge.net/

 Bye,
 bearophile


It's already in progress:
https://github.com/pplantinga/delight
http://pplantinga.github.io/
Mar 21 2014
parent reply "bearophile" <bearophileHUGS lycos.com> writes:
The Guest:


 It's already in progress:
 https://github.com/pplantinga/delight
 http://pplantinga.github.io/


Some design decision are bad, like "less" for "<", or the 
function definition syntax "function add(int a, b -> int):".

Bye,
bearophile
Mar 21 2014
parent "The Guest" <dontspammebro blah.net> writes:
On Friday, 21 March 2014 at 20:52:54 UTC, bearophile wrote:

 The Guest:


 It's already in progress:
 https://github.com/pplantinga/delight
 http://pplantinga.github.io/


 Some design decision are bad, like "less" for "<", or the 
 function definition syntax "function add(int a, b -> int):".

 Bye,
 bearophile


I agree with you. They should stick to PEP-3107 style "def add(a,
b: int) -> int:".
Mar 21 2014
prev sibling next sibling parent reply "Frustrated" <Frustrated nowhere.com> writes:
On Friday, 21 March 2014 at 18:47:49 UTC, Pedro Larroy wrote:

 Hi

 As a newcomer to D, I wonder, how difficult would be and would 
 it be welcome by the D community to have D's syntax with 
 significant whitespace and without brackets more like python?


 Thanks.


Why not just learn the correct syntax instead of perpetuating 
ignorance? Python syntax is not modern. COBOL just needs to go 
away...
Mar 21 2014
next sibling parent reply Russel Winder <russel winder.org.uk> writes:
On Fri, 2014-03-21 at 18:55 +0000, Frustrated wrote:
[…]

 Why not just learn the correct syntax instead of perpetuating 
 ignorance? Python syntax is not modern. COBOL just needs to go 
 away...


D syntax is of course less modern than that of Python: Python syntax is
1980s, D syntax is rooted in C syntax which is 1970s. It is an error to
equate the quality of a programming language with the age of the base
syntax: D and Python are both good programming languages, different
agreed.
 
-- 
Russel.
=============================================================================
Dr Russel Winder      t: +44 20 7585 2200   voip: sip:russel.winder ekiga.net
41 Buckmaster Road    m: +44 7770 465 077   xmpp: russel winder.org.uk
London SW11 1EN, UK   w: www.russel.org.uk  skype: russel_winder
Mar 21 2014
parent reply "Frustrated" <Frustrated nowhere.com> writes:
On Friday, 21 March 2014 at 19:23:34 UTC, Russel Winder wrote:

 On Fri, 2014-03-21 at 18:55 +0000, Frustrated wrote:
 […]

 Why not just learn the correct syntax instead of perpetuating 
 ignorance? Python syntax is not modern. COBOL just needs to go 
 away...


 D syntax is of course less modern than that of Python: Python 
 syntax is
 1980s, D syntax is rooted in C syntax which is 1970s. It is an 
 error to
 equate the quality of a programming language with the age of 
 the base
 syntax: D and Python are both good programming languages, 
 different
 agreed.
 



Um, ALGOL was created in the early 60's of which python's spacing 
scheme is based on. Just because python came out after C does not 
change that. Do you think it might have been possible that 
Ritchie learned the lessons of ALGOL of which Rossum spat in his 
face? Some people just never learn from history...

"Python mandates a convention that programmers in ALGOL-style 
languages often follow."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Python_syntax_and_semantics#Indentation
Mar 21 2014
next sibling parent Timon Gehr <timon.gehr gmx.ch> writes:
On 03/22/2014 12:47 AM, Frustrated wrote:

 D syntax is of course less modern than that of Python: Python syntax is
 1980s, D syntax is rooted in C syntax which is 1970s. It is an error to
 equate the quality of a programming language with the age of the base
 syntax: D and Python are both good programming languages, different
 agreed.



 Um, ALGOL was created in the early 60's of which python's spacing scheme
 is based on.


=D.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ALGOL#Examples_and_portability_issues


 Just because python came out after C does not change that.
 Do you think it might have been possible that Ritchie learned the
 lessons of ALGOL of which Rossum spat in his face?


No way.


 Some people just never learn from history...

 "Python mandates a convention that programmers in ALGOL-style languages
 often follow."

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Python_syntax_and_semantics#Indentation


Yup. ALGOL-style languages such as D.
Mar 21 2014
prev sibling parent reply Russel Winder <russel winder.org.uk> writes:
On Fri, 2014-03-21 at 23:47 +0000, Frustrated wrote:
[…]

 Um, ALGOL was created in the early 60's of which python's spacing 
 scheme is based on. Just because python came out after C does not 
 change that. Do you think it might have been possible that 
 Ritchie learned the lessons of ALGOL of which Rossum spat in his 
 face? Some people just never learn from history...
 
 "Python mandates a convention that programmers in ALGOL-style 
 languages often follow."
 
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Python_syntax_and_semantics#Indentation


ALGOL60 had begin and end to delimit blocks, the indentation of the
block was a visual thing to help readability, just as in C, C++, D.
ALGOL60 did not have significant whitespace and an offside rule, just
like C, C++ and D don't, whereas Python, OCaml, etc. do.

-- 
Russel.
=============================================================================
Dr Russel Winder      t: +44 20 7585 2200   voip: sip:russel.winder ekiga.net
41 Buckmaster Road    m: +44 7770 465 077   xmpp: russel winder.org.uk
London SW11 1EN, UK   w: www.russel.org.uk  skype: russel_winder
Mar 22 2014
parent reply "Brian Rogoff" <brogoff gmail.com> writes:
On Saturday, 22 March 2014 at 13:03:06 UTC, Russel Winder wrote:

 ALGOL60 did not have significant whitespace and an offside 
 rule, just
 like C, C++ and D don't, whereas Python, OCaml, etc. do.


I've programmed in OCaml for many years and I somehow missed the 
significant whitespace.  Even the Revised syntax for OCaml (the 
improved and unused one) did not use significant whitespace, 
though I recall that there were unloved projects to provide such 
a syntax.

C++ has a much nastier syntax than D (IMO of course :-) but the 
SPECS proposal for a resyntaxed C++ never caught on. I liked some 
of the improvements suggested there, in particular the more 
Pascal-ish or Scala-ish declaration syntax, and would have liked 
something like that in D, but there are so many more issues to be 
fixed that daydreams of improved syntax seem frivolous to me.
Mar 22 2014
next sibling parent reply Paulo Pinto <pjmlp progtools.org> writes:
Am 22.03.2014 17:14, schrieb Brian Rogoff:

 On Saturday, 22 March 2014 at 13:03:06 UTC, Russel Winder wrote:

 ALGOL60 did not have significant whitespace and an offside rule, just
 like C, C++ and D don't, whereas Python, OCaml, etc. do.


 I've programmed in OCaml for many years and I somehow missed the
 significant whitespace.  Even the Revised syntax for OCaml (the improved
 and unused one) did not use significant whitespace, though I recall that
 there were unloved projects to provide such a syntax.



significant whitespace mode that could be turned on with a compiler 
directive "#light on".



The significant whitespace mode won and became the default, with the
OCaml mode being the optional one.

--
Paulo
Mar 22 2014
parent reply "Brian Rogoff" <brogoff gmail.com> writes:
On Saturday, 22 March 2014 at 16:28:11 UTC, Paulo Pinto wrote:


 a significant whitespace mode that could be turned on with a 
 compiler directive "#light on".


 the default.

 The significant whitespace mode won and became the default, 
 with the
 OCaml mode being the optional one.


That's not too hard to believe. I like OCaml a lot but its syntax 
is not its best feature. The OCaml preprocessor (CamlP4) had an 
improved syntax called Revised as one of its applications. As I 
recall, Gerard Huet (who publicized 'the zipper') used a subset 
of Revised he called Pidgin ML in his publications. They looked a 
lot nicer than regular OCaml.


never visit Windows. It looks like it has some interesting 
improvements over OCaml (let!, async stuff, LINQ, some 
overloading, ...) but has a weak module system compared to OCaml.
Mar 22 2014
parent "bearophile" <bearophileHUGS lycos.com> writes:
Brian Rogoff:


 I like OCaml a lot but its syntax is not its best feature.


See also:
http://people.csail.mit.edu/mikelin/ocaml+twt/

Bye,
bearophile
Mar 22 2014
prev sibling next sibling parent reply Russel Winder <russel winder.org.uk> writes:
On Sat, 2014-03-22 at 16:14 +0000, Brian Rogoff wrote:

 On Saturday, 22 March 2014 at 13:03:06 UTC, Russel Winder wrote:

 ALGOL60 did not have significant whitespace and an offside 
 rule, just
 like C, C++ and D don't, whereas Python, OCaml, etc. do.


 
 I've programmed in OCaml for many years and I somehow missed the 
 significant whitespace.  Even the Revised syntax for OCaml (the 
 improved and unused one) did not use significant whitespace, 
 though I recall that there were unloved projects to provide such 
 a syntax.


I appear to have typed OCaml when I meant Haskell, possibly because I am
trying to build Unison. You are correct (obviously :-) OCaml does not

does, I did not appreciate this, so that is definitely a WILT.


 C++ has a much nastier syntax than D (IMO of course :-) but the 
 SPECS proposal for a resyntaxed C++ never caught on. I liked some 
 of the improvements suggested there, in particular the more 
 Pascal-ish or Scala-ish declaration syntax, and would have liked 
 something like that in D, but there are so many more issues to be 
 fixed that daydreams of improved syntax seem frivolous to me.


The Scala, Go, Rust, etc. use of "type after variable name" reads better
for me, but C, C++, D, Java, Groovy, Ceylon are all "type before
variable" (well the C++ rule is spiral out, but…), so I just get used to
switching.

-- 
Russel.
=============================================================================
Dr Russel Winder      t: +44 20 7585 2200   voip: sip:russel.winder ekiga.net
41 Buckmaster Road    m: +44 7770 465 077   xmpp: russel winder.org.uk
London SW11 1EN, UK   w: www.russel.org.uk  skype: russel_winder
Mar 22 2014
parent reply 1100110 <0b1100110 gmail.com> writes:
On 3/22/14, 12:43, Russel Winder wrote:

 On Sat, 2014-03-22 at 16:14 +0000, Brian Rogoff wrote:

 On Saturday, 22 March 2014 at 13:03:06 UTC, Russel Winder wrote:

 ALGOL60 did not have significant whitespace and an offside
 rule, just
 like C, C++ and D don't, whereas Python, OCaml, etc. do.


 I've programmed in OCaml for many years and I somehow missed the
 significant whitespace.  Even the Revised syntax for OCaml (the
 improved and unused one) did not use significant whitespace,
 though I recall that there were unloved projects to provide such
 a syntax.


 I appear to have typed OCaml when I meant Haskell, possibly because I am
 trying to build Unison. You are correct (obviously :-) OCaml does not

 does, I did not appreciate this, so that is definitely a WILT.


 C++ has a much nastier syntax than D (IMO of course :-) but the
 SPECS proposal for a resyntaxed C++ never caught on. I liked some
 of the improvements suggested there, in particular the more
 Pascal-ish or Scala-ish declaration syntax, and would have liked
 something like that in D, but there are so many more issues to be
 fixed that daydreams of improved syntax seem frivolous to me.


 The Scala, Go, Rust, etc. use of "type after variable name" reads better
 for me, but C, C++, D, Java, Groovy, Ceylon are all "type before
 variable" (well the C++ rule is spiral out, but…), so I just get used to
 switching.



I find I think of the type as an adjective, and since I'm only fluent in 
english it makes perfect sense that the "adjective" would come before 
the "noun".

What is X? X is an integer.  Integer describes what X is.

"type after variable name" just doesn't have that mental model to it, 
hence I like it less.
Mar 23 2014
next sibling parent reply Timon Gehr <timon.gehr gmx.ch> writes:
On 03/23/2014 02:01 PM, 1100110 wrote:

 ...

 I find I think of the type as an adjective,


It's a noun.


 and since I'm only fluent in
 english it makes perfect sense that the "adjective" would come before
 the "noun".

 What is X? X is an integer. ...


Exactly.
Mar 23 2014
parent 1100110 <0b1100110 gmail.com> writes:
On 3/23/14, 8:23, Timon Gehr wrote:

 On 03/23/2014 02:01 PM, 1100110 wrote:

 ...

 I find I think of the type as an adjective,


 It's a noun.


It's technically a metaphor  =)


 and since I'm only fluent in
 english it makes perfect sense that the "adjective" would come before
 the "noun".

 What is X? X is an integer. ...


 Exactly.
Mar 23 2014
prev sibling parent Nick Sabalausky <SeeWebsiteToContactMe semitwist.com> writes:
On 3/23/2014 9:01 AM, 1100110 wrote:

 I find I think of the type as an adjective, and since I'm only fluent in
 english it makes perfect sense that the "adjective" would come before
 the "noun".

 What is X? X is an integer.  Integer describes what X is.

 "type after variable name" just doesn't have that mental model to it,
 hence I like it less.


I like "type name;" order because I usually know the type I want (even 
if it's just "auto") before I know what I want to name the variable. So 
it's more natural for me to write.

I've done plenty of "name : type;" code before, and I'm fine with it, 
but I usually end up either writing the type first and then moving back 
to write the name, or come up with a name first while making sure not to 
forget what type I'd already had in mind. So a little bit more awkward 
for me.
Mar 23 2014
prev sibling parent reply evansl <cppljevans suddenlink.net> writes:
On 03/22/14 11:14, Brian Rogoff wrote:
[snip]

 C++ has a much nastier syntax than D (IMO of course :-) but the SPECS
 proposal for a resyntaxed C++ never caught on.


Brian, could you provide a link for this proposal?
I'd appreciate it.

-regards,
Larry
Mar 22 2014
parent "Brian Rogoff" <brogoff gmail.com> writes:
On Saturday, 22 March 2014 at 18:08:01 UTC, evansl wrote:

 On 03/22/14 11:14, Brian Rogoff wrote:
 [snip]

 C++ has a much nastier syntax than D (IMO of course :-) but 
 the SPECS
 proposal for a resyntaxed C++ never caught on.


 Brian, could you provide a link for this proposal?
 I'd appreciate it.

 -regards,
 Larry


http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~damian/papers/HTML/ModestProposal.html

I think there is an expanded version of this report too, but this 
gives you the flavor. Note that it is based on a fairly old 
version of C++. I prefer the D !() for templates to their <[]>, 
but I prefer their declaration and pointer syntax.

I don't think D's current syntax is really a problem. Well, there 
are some things that vex me a bit, like the multiple "alias this" 
and also the "is" syntax. Even though I prefer indentation 
sensitive syntax to C style syntax, if there were a front end for 
D that used an alternative syntax I would not use it. I suspect 
that I'm hardly unique in that either.
Mar 22 2014
prev sibling parent Iain Buclaw <ibuclaw gdcproject.org> writes:
On 21 March 2014 18:55, Frustrated <Frustrated nowhere.com> wrote:

 On Friday, 21 March 2014 at 18:47:49 UTC, Pedro Larroy wrote:

 Hi

 As a newcomer to D, I wonder, how difficult would be and would it be
 welcome by the D community to have D's syntax with significant whitespace
 and without brackets more like python?


 Thanks.



 Why not just learn the correct syntax instead of perpetuating ignorance?
 Python syntax is not modern. COBOL just needs to go away...


http://www.coboloncogs.org/INDEX.HTM
Mar 22 2014
prev sibling next sibling parent reply "Adam D. Ruppe" <destructionator gmail.com> writes:
On Friday, 21 March 2014 at 18:47:49 UTC, Pedro Larroy wrote:

 As a newcomer to D, I wonder, how difficult would be and would 
 it be welcome by the D community to have D's syntax with 
 significant whitespace and without brackets more like python?


I don't think it would be really hard to do in the compiler, you 
could probably make it work by hacking up the lexer.

But I'm totally against it, Python has hideous syntax.
Mar 21 2014
parent Russel Winder <russel winder.org.uk> writes:
On Fri, 2014-03-21 at 19:13 +0000, Adam D. Ruppe wrote:
[…]

 But I'm totally against it, Python has hideous syntax.


I would leave D syntax as it is. Python syntax is not hideous, it is
good; very Pythonic, unlike D.

-- 
Russel.
=============================================================================
Dr Russel Winder      t: +44 20 7585 2200   voip: sip:russel.winder ekiga.net
41 Buckmaster Road    m: +44 7770 465 077   xmpp: russel winder.org.uk
London SW11 1EN, UK   w: www.russel.org.uk  skype: russel_winder
Mar 21 2014
prev sibling next sibling parent "Asman01" <jckj33 gmail.com> writes:
On Friday, 21 March 2014 at 18:47:49 UTC, Pedro Larroy wrote:

 Hi

 As a newcomer to D, I wonder, how difficult would be and would 
 it be welcome by the D community to have D's syntax with 
 significant whitespace and without brackets more like python?


 Thanks.



I don't think it's so difficult but it will increase a lot of 
code. Also, I don't believe the community will like something 
this. I'm not sure how accepted is python to most of this C/C++ 
guys. I personally don't like python/ruby/perl syntax.
Mar 21 2014
prev sibling next sibling parent reply "Mason McGill" <mmcgill caltech.edu> writes:
On Friday, 21 March 2014 at 18:47:49 UTC, Pedro Larroy wrote:

 Hi

 As a newcomer to D, I wonder, how difficult would be and would 
 it be welcome by the D community to have D's syntax with 
 significant whitespace and without brackets more like python?


 Thanks.


What draws you to D, if not the syntax?  If you're looking for a 
fast, Python-like language, and you don't mind dependence on the 
CPython runtime, I'd suggest looking into Cython 
(http://cython.org/).

If you're interested in modern language features and expressive 
metaprogramming with a Python-like syntax, I'd recommend Julia 
(http://julialang.org/).

You might also be interested in Dylan (https://opendylan.org/), 
though I don't know much about it.
Mar 21 2014
next sibling parent Paulo Pinto <pjmlp progtools.org> writes:
Am 21.03.2014 21:43, schrieb Mason McGill:

 On Friday, 21 March 2014 at 18:47:49 UTC, Pedro Larroy wrote:

 Hi

 As a newcomer to D, I wonder, how difficult would be and would it be
 welcome by the D community to have D's syntax with significant
 whitespace and without brackets more like python?


 Thanks.


 What draws you to D, if not the syntax?  If you're looking for a fast,
 Python-like language, and you don't mind dependence on the CPython
 runtime, I'd suggest looking into Cython (http://cython.org/).

 If you're interested in modern language features and expressive
 metaprogramming with a Python-like syntax, I'd recommend Julia
 (http://julialang.org/).

 You might also be interested in Dylan (https://opendylan.org/), though I
 don't know much about it.


Dylan could have been a great language. A lisp for systems programming 
with algol syntax.

Developed at Apple, originally targeted at the Newton.

Since it was newly released as open source it has got some followers, 
but I am not sure if it will ever manage to get out of "could have been 
great" status.

--
Paulo
Mar 21 2014
prev sibling parent "Brian Rogoff" <brogoff gmail.com> writes:
On Friday, 21 March 2014 at 20:43:24 UTC, Mason McGill wrote:

 On Friday, 21 March 2014 at 18:47:49 UTC, Pedro Larroy wrote:

 Hi

 As a newcomer to D, I wonder, how difficult would be and would 
 it be welcome by the D community to have D's syntax with 
 significant whitespace and without brackets more like python?


 Thanks.


 What draws you to D, if not the syntax?


Definitely not the syntax!

The promise of a relatively high level statically typed language 
with low level control and C/C++ levels of performance. That's 
what I'm looking for with D. I choke down the syntax, telling 
myself "at least it's better than C++".


 If you're looking for a fast, Python-like language, and you 
 don't mind dependence on the CPython runtime, I'd suggest 
 looking into Cython (http://cython.org/).

 If you're interested in modern language features and expressive 
 metaprogramming with a Python-like syntax, I'd recommend Julia 
 (http://julialang.org/).


You're wrong about Julia. The syntax is most reminiscent of 
MATLAB and Octave.
Others are wrong comparing Ruby/Perl/whatever to Python, at least 
the syntax.
I find Python syntax very readable, it's the type system and 
semantics of Python that I dislike.

Closest language to D with a Pythonesque syntax is Nimrod, 
nimrod-lang.org
It's author, Araq, sometimes reads this forum.

I believe that Haskell is the most popular statically typed 
language with indentation sensitive syntax. But Haskell is a lazy 
functional language where programming with side effects is more 
difficult. That's not like D.

I doubt there's much interest in a new syntax for D. You may as 
well find or create a different language if it bothers you. I 
empathize, but I'm certain you'd be better off just getting used 
to the existing D syntax.
Mar 21 2014
prev sibling next sibling parent Brad Roberts <braddr puremagic.com> writes:
Whether or not white space is significant is a _very_ subjective matter.  It's
not a given that it's 
a universal improvement.  D is a C language family member and that's not going
to change, including 
it's treatment of whitespace and use of braces.

On 3/21/14, 11:47 AM, Pedro Larroy wrote:

 Hi

 As a newcomer to D, I wonder, how difficult would be and would it be welcome
by the D community to
 have D's syntax with significant whitespace and without brackets more like
python?


 Thanks.
Mar 21 2014
prev sibling next sibling parent "w0rp" <devw0rp gmail.com> writes:
A Python syntax wrapper around D is a fun thing. It's also 
suggested as a fun project to work in the D Programming Language 
book by Andrei. [1]

If you're coming to D from Python though, I suppose my suggestion 
would to try and get used to the C-like syntax. If C-like syntax 
is unusual for you, you'll get used to it eventually. It is nice 
sometimes in D to be able to use braces to declare an arbitrary 
scope and so on, and the braces tie in pretty well with closure 
syntax. You'll get used to it.

[1] 
http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=bn7GNq6fiIUC&pg=PT47&dq=d+programming+language+python&hl=en&sa=X&ei=Eq4sU-rREOOt7QaTzoCQBg&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=d%20programming%20language%20python&f=false
Mar 21 2014
prev sibling next sibling parent "Jonathan M Davis" <jmdavisProg gmx.com> writes:
On Friday, March 21, 2014 18:47:47 Pedro Larroy wrote:

 Hi
 
 As a newcomer to D, I wonder, how difficult would be and would it
 be welcome by the D community to have D's syntax with significant
 whitespace and without brackets more like python?


*shudder* Python is more like the antithesis of good syntax IMHO. Sure, you 
could have a language with D's capabilities where the syntax had been adjusted 
to be more python-like, but I don't know what the benefit would be. 
Regardless, it's not like we're going to change D's syntax at this point. That 
would be king of breaking changes which wasn't worth what it cost.

I expect that the closest you would get would be some project which 
essentially created its own language and simply converted it to D when 
compiling.

- Jonathan M Davis
Mar 21 2014
prev sibling next sibling parent reply "H. S. Teoh" <hsteoh quickfur.ath.cx> writes:
On Fri, Mar 21, 2014 at 05:47:03PM -0400, Jonathan M Davis wrote:

 On Friday, March 21, 2014 18:47:47 Pedro Larroy wrote:

 Hi
 
 As a newcomer to D, I wonder, how difficult would be and would it
 be welcome by the D community to have D's syntax with significant
 whitespace and without brackets more like python?


 
 *shudder* Python is more like the antithesis of good syntax IMHO.
 Sure, you could have a language with D's capabilities where the syntax
 had been adjusted to be more python-like, but I don't know what the
 benefit would be.  Regardless, it's not like we're going to change D's
 syntax at this point. That would be king of breaking changes which
 wasn't worth what it cost.
 
 I expect that the closest you would get would be some project which
 essentially created its own language and simply converted it to D when
 compiling.


[...]

I'm disappointed about how many discussions revolve around superficial
things such as syntax, while neglecting weightier matters such as
semantics and expressiveness.


T

-- 
What doesn't kill me makes me stranger.
Mar 21 2014
parent reply "w0rp" <devw0rp gmail.com> writes:
On Friday, 21 March 2014 at 21:52:47 UTC, H. S. Teoh wrote:

 I'm disappointed about how many discussions revolve around 
 superficial
 things such as syntax, while neglecting weightier matters such 
 as
 semantics and expressiveness.


 T


http://www.haskell.org/haskellwiki/Wadler%27s_Law

People love to debate syntax. Semantics are much more interesting 
and worth talking about.
Mar 21 2014
parent reply Andrei Alexandrescu <SeeWebsiteForEmail erdani.org> writes:
On 3/21/14, 5:18 PM, w0rp wrote:

 On Friday, 21 March 2014 at 21:52:47 UTC, H. S. Teoh wrote:

 I'm disappointed about how many discussions revolve around superficial
 things such as syntax, while neglecting weightier matters such as
 semantics and expressiveness.


 T


 http://www.haskell.org/haskellwiki/Wadler%27s_Law

 People love to debate syntax. Semantics are much more interesting and
 worth talking about.


Well, one issue that's happening is that every so often github pull 
requests that are simple but important (such as documentation) sit there 
without getting due review. The regular contributors are spending time 
looking into them, with takes away time from more important issues they 
could work on.

A dozen people are doing the simple work and the complicated work, while 
the rest of the forum sits on the sidelines wringing hands about what to 
do about the future of D.


Andrei
Mar 21 2014
next sibling parent reply "H. S. Teoh" <hsteoh quickfur.ath.cx> writes:
On Fri, Mar 21, 2014 at 06:47:28PM -0700, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:

 On 3/21/14, 5:18 PM, w0rp wrote:

On Friday, 21 March 2014 at 21:52:47 UTC, H. S. Teoh wrote:

I'm disappointed about how many discussions revolve around
superficial things such as syntax, while neglecting weightier
matters such as semantics and expressiveness.


T


http://www.haskell.org/haskellwiki/Wadler%27s_Law

People love to debate syntax. Semantics are much more interesting and
worth talking about.


 
 Well, one issue that's happening is that every so often github pull
 requests that are simple but important (such as documentation) sit
 there without getting due review. The regular contributors are
 spending time looking into them, with takes away time from more
 important issues they could work on.
 
 A dozen people are doing the simple work and the complicated work,
 while the rest of the forum sits on the sidelines wringing hands about
 what to do about the future of D.


[...]

Perhaps we should be talking about how more people can make github
contributions instead. ;-)


T

-- 
Why are you blatanly misspelling "blatant"? -- Branden Robinson
Mar 21 2014
parent reply Walter Bright <newshound2 digitalmars.com> writes:
On 3/21/2014 7:08 PM, H. S. Teoh wrote:

 Perhaps we should be talking about how more people can make github
 contributions instead. ;-)


Anyone can create a bugzilla account and/or a github account and get started 
contributing. Nobody's permission is required.
Mar 22 2014
parent "H. S. Teoh" <hsteoh quickfur.ath.cx> writes:
On Sat, Mar 22, 2014 at 10:48:44AM -0700, Walter Bright wrote:

 On 3/21/2014 7:08 PM, H. S. Teoh wrote:

Perhaps we should be talking about how more people can make github
contributions instead. ;-)


 
 Anyone can create a bugzilla account and/or a github account and get
 started contributing. Nobody's permission is required.


I know that. :) I was alluding to motivating more forumites to
participate.


T

-- 
Без труда не выловишь и рыбку из пруда.
Mar 22 2014
prev sibling next sibling parent reply "Steve Teale" <steve.teale britseyeview.com> writes:
On Saturday, 22 March 2014 at 01:47:48 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu
wrote:

 On 3/21/14, 5:18 PM, w0rp wrote:



 A dozen people are doing the simple work and the complicated 
 work, while the rest of the forum sits on the sidelines 
 wringing hands about what to do about the future of D.


Andrei,

Is there a list of grunt jobs that need to be done?

Steve
Mar 22 2014
parent Andrei Alexandrescu <SeeWebsiteForEmail erdani.org> writes:
On 3/22/14, 1:22 AM, Steve Teale wrote:

 On Saturday, 22 March 2014 at 01:47:48 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu
 wrote:

 On 3/21/14, 5:18 PM, w0rp wrote:



 A dozen people are doing the simple work and the complicated work,
 while the rest of the forum sits on the sidelines wringing hands about
 what to do about the future of D.


 Andrei,

 Is there a list of grunt jobs that need to be done?

 Steve


Maintaining a list would be as much overhead as fixing the items on it. 
Just pick from:

https://github.com/D-Programming-Language/dlang.org/pulls
https://github.com/D-Programming-Language/tools/pulls
https://github.com/D-Programming-Language/installer/pulls
https://github.com/D-Programming-Language/dconf.org/pulls
https://github.com/D-Programming-Language/visuald/pulls
https://github.com/D-Programming-Language/phobos/pulls
https://github.com/D-Programming-Language/druntime/pulls
https://github.com/D-Programming-Language/dmd/pulls


Andrei
Mar 22 2014
prev sibling parent reply 1100110 <0b1100110 gmail.com> writes:
On 3/21/14, 20:47, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:

 On 3/21/14, 5:18 PM, w0rp wrote:

 On Friday, 21 March 2014 at 21:52:47 UTC, H. S. Teoh wrote:

 I'm disappointed about how many discussions revolve around superficial
 things such as syntax, while neglecting weightier matters such as
 semantics and expressiveness.


 T


 http://www.haskell.org/haskellwiki/Wadler%27s_Law

 People love to debate syntax. Semantics are much more interesting and
 worth talking about.


 Well, one issue that's happening is that every so often github pull
 requests that are simple but important (such as documentation) sit there
 without getting due review. The regular contributors are spending time
 looking into them, with takes away time from more important issues they
 could work on.

 A dozen people are doing the simple work and the complicated work, while
 the rest of the forum sits on the sidelines wringing hands about what to
 do about the future of D.


 Andrei


You really want me to contribute?  Cause I will.

And due to my lack of education on the matter I will get all up in your 
way.   You want the community to help participate?  Get a list of simple 
moderate and hard jobs that are relatively high priority, and update the 
list weekly.   A "stickied" post on the announce forum would work.

Cause if there's something simple I can do, I'll do it.  I just don't 
know what I can do.
Mar 23 2014
parent reply Marco Leise <Marco.Leise gmx.de> writes:
Am Sun, 23 Mar 2014 08:09:03 -0500
schrieb 1100110 <0b1100110 gmail.com>:


 A "stickied" post on the announce forum would work.


... stickied ... in a NNTP news group ... :)

-- 
Marco
Mar 23 2014
parent 1100110 <0b1100110 gmail.com> writes:
On 3/23/14, 9:36, Marco Leise wrote:

 Am Sun, 23 Mar 2014 08:09:03 -0500
 schrieb 1100110 <0b1100110 gmail.com>:


 A "stickied" post on the announce forum would work.


 .... stickied ... in a NNTP news group ... :)



Haha, I just meant bump it so that it stays active.

There's a reason I used quotes!  =P
Mar 23 2014
prev sibling next sibling parent reply Ziad Hatahet <hatahet gmail.com> writes:
I don't know if significant whitespace is actually "improving" the syntax.

"As a simple, self-contained example, consider the representation of
program structure. Some observers objected to Go's C-like block structure
with braces, preferring the use of spaces for indentation, in the style of
Python or Haskell. However, we have had extensive experience tracking down
build and test failures caused by cross-language builds where a Python
snippet embedded in another language, for instance through a SWIG
invocation, is subtly and invisibly broken by a change in the indentation
of the surrounding code. Our position is therefore that, although spaces
for indentation is nice for small programs, it doesn't scale well, and the
bigger and more heterogeneous the code base, the more trouble it can cause.
It is better to forgo convenience for safety and dependability, so Go has
brace-bounded blocks. "

Source:  http://talks.golang.org/2012/splash.article

--
Ziad
Mar 21 2014
parent "Chris" <wendlec tcd.ie> writes:
On Friday, 21 March 2014 at 23:33:51 UTC, Ziad Hatahet wrote:

 I don't know if significant whitespace is actually "improving" 
 the syntax.

 "As a simple, self-contained example, consider the 
 representation of
 program structure. Some observers objected to Go's C-like block 
 structure
 with braces, preferring the use of spaces for indentation, in 
 the style of
 Python or Haskell. However, we have had extensive experience 
 tracking down
 build and test failures caused by cross-language builds where a 
 Python
 snippet embedded in another language, for instance through a 
 SWIG
 invocation, is subtly and invisibly broken by a change in the 
 indentation
 of the surrounding code. Our position is therefore that, 
 although spaces
 for indentation is nice for small programs, it doesn't scale 
 well, and the
 bigger and more heterogeneous the code base, the more trouble 
 it can cause.
 It is better to forgo convenience for safety and dependability, 
 so Go has
 brace-bounded blocks. "

 Source:  http://talks.golang.org/2012/splash.article

 --
 Ziad


+1

This is exactly my experience. A lot of people use Python for 
quick prototyping which doesn't involve more than a few hundered 
lines of code. Fine. If, however, you have a medium-to-big 
project in Python it is just one big annoyance. Python's syntax 
is prescriptive in the sense that it prescribes how your code 
should look like on the page ("to help you write clean code"). 
Even trivial things like copy and paste cause problems in Python 
(not to mention the "tab against space war"). As usual, 
(over-)prescriptiveness causes more problems than it solves in 
the long run.
Mar 25 2014
prev sibling next sibling parent "Jonathan M Davis" <jmdavisProg gmx.com> writes:
On Friday, March 21, 2014 14:51:13 H. S. Teoh wrote:

 I'm disappointed about how many discussions revolve around superficial
 things such as syntax, while neglecting weightier matters such as
 semantics and expressiveness.


I suspect that a lot of it just comes down to bikeshedding. Syntax is 
something that pretty much everyone can discuss, whereas semantics get a lot 
more complicated and require a much greater understanding.

- Jonathan M Davis
Mar 21 2014
prev sibling next sibling parent reply Andrei Alexandrescu <SeeWebsiteForEmail erdani.org> writes:
On 3/21/14, 11:47 AM, Pedro Larroy wrote:

 Hi

 As a newcomer to D, I wonder, how difficult would be and would it be
 welcome by the D community to have D's syntax with significant
 whitespace and without brackets more like python?


Hey Pedro,

I think some (including possibly myself) could enjoy a D dialect with 
Python indentation quite a bit. Given D's compilation speed, that can be 
achieved as a dialect without much aggravation by using a preprocessor.

In fact I considered writing such a preprocessor as a running example 
through the chapters of TDPL, but didn't get around to it.


Andrei
Mar 21 2014
next sibling parent reply Russel Winder <russel winder.org.uk> writes:
On Fri, 2014-03-21 at 18:21 -0700, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
[…]

 I think some (including possibly myself) could enjoy a D dialect with 
 Python indentation quite a bit. Given D's compilation speed, that can be 
 achieved as a dialect without much aggravation by using a preprocessor.
 
 In fact I considered writing such a preprocessor as a running example 
 through the chapters of TDPL, but didn't get around to it.


I am not convinced. CoffeeScript as a JavaScript dialect hasn't really
taken off, people just use JavaScript.

Interestingly a similar thought is on a thread in the Go community:
provide a nicer syntax to Go.

-- 
Russel.
=============================================================================
Dr Russel Winder      t: +44 20 7585 2200   voip: sip:russel.winder ekiga.net
41 Buckmaster Road    m: +44 7770 465 077   xmpp: russel winder.org.uk
London SW11 1EN, UK   w: www.russel.org.uk  skype: russel_winder
Mar 22 2014
next sibling parent "David Nadlinger" <code klickverbot.at> writes:
On Saturday, 22 March 2014 at 12:36:17 UTC, Russel Winder wrote:

 I am not convinced. CoffeeScript as a JavaScript dialect hasn't 
 really
 taken off, people just use JavaScript.


Well, that depends on your definition of "taken off". If you were 
to do a GitHub search, you'd probably find a lot more projects 
using CoffeeScript than e.g. D. Also, CoffeeScript compiles to 
JavaScript, so it isn't even an either-or question in first place.

David
Mar 22 2014
prev sibling parent reply "Ola Fosheim =?UTF-8?B?R3LDuHN0YWQi?= writes:
On Saturday, 22 March 2014 at 12:36:17 UTC, Russel Winder wrote:

 I am not convinced. CoffeeScript as a JavaScript dialect hasn't 
 really taken off, people just use JavaScript.


Well, I don't know, Dart is in the same vein as CoffeeScript. 
Dart is compiling to Javascript and Angular Dart is gaining quite 
a bit of interest even before being ready for production. 
AngularJS is already quite popular, and more messy than the Dart 
version. There is a clear upgrade path from JS->Dart. Dart VM 
will most likely be integrated in Chrome by the end of the year 
and that probably will have an effect on adoption rate. But, the 
Dart semantics are significantly better than 
ECMAScript/Javascript. Probably more so than CoffeeScript.

cfront also used to compile to C, but the C++ semantics are more 
suitable for OO than C. So it supports a different workflow. (but 
cfront as I remember it was nowhere near great)

So, in one aspect I agree, if the dialect is just syntax, then it 
has less chance of gaining momentum, but if it better supports a 
particular workflow/ type of modelling then it might succeed.

I think a python-like syntax in combination with an interpreter 
like environment (in the vain of ipython) could be more suitable 
for a particular workflow than the c-like syntax. A strongly 
typed, terse and readable language with a good dev environment 
could be a real killer.

Prototype in the REPL/interpreter and paste into your editor is 
an attractive development proposition.
Mar 22 2014
parent reply Russel Winder <russel winder.org.uk> writes:
On Sat, 2014-03-22 at 15:10 +0000, Ola Fosheim =?UTF-8?B?R3LDuHN0YWQi?=
 puremagic.com wrote:
[…]

 Well, I don't know, Dart is in the same vein as CoffeeScript. 
 Dart is compiling to Javascript and Angular Dart is gaining quite 
 a bit of interest even before being ready for production. 
 AngularJS is already quite popular, and more messy than the Dart 
 version. There is a clear upgrade path from JS->Dart. Dart VM 
 will most likely be integrated in Chrome by the end of the year 
 and that probably will have an effect on adoption rate. But, the 
 Dart semantics are significantly better than 
 ECMAScript/Javascript. Probably more so than CoffeeScript.


[…]

I am currently ambivalent about Dart. Node.js has shown that many people
like "end to end" the same language. Many are asking about server-side
Dart as well as client-side Dart in the browser.

Another player in this game is Ceylon which has the explicit aim of
being the "end to end" language compiling to JVM or JavaScript for
server side and JavaScript for client side. I'm not sure how they play
the HTML5 (AngularJS, Ember.js, Backbone.js, jQuery, etc) game. But I
have stopped following all that recently for various reasons.


 I think a python-like syntax in combination with an interpreter 
 like environment (in the vain of ipython) could be more suitable 
 for a particular workflow than the c-like syntax. A strongly 
 typed, terse and readable language with a good dev environment 
 could be a real killer.
 
 Prototype in the REPL/interpreter and paste into your editor is 
 an attractive development proposition.


IPython is an excellent tool for creating documents that incorporate
executable Python as an integral component. It is "literate Python
programming". However it is only a good tool if the end result is a
document to be read and shared. I think the Python IDE such as Wing IDE,
PyCharm, actually do the REPL and editor model better. But as the saying
goes YMMV.


-- 
Russel.
=============================================================================
Dr Russel Winder      t: +44 20 7585 2200   voip: sip:russel.winder ekiga.net
41 Buckmaster Road    m: +44 7770 465 077   xmpp: russel winder.org.uk
London SW11 1EN, UK   w: www.russel.org.uk  skype: russel_winder
Mar 22 2014
parent reply "Ola Fosheim =?UTF-8?B?R3LDuHN0YWQi?= writes:
On Saturday, 22 March 2014 at 17:54:16 UTC, Russel Winder wrote:

 like "end to end" the same language. Many are asking about 
 server-side Dart as well as client-side Dart in the browser.


Yes, a CLI/server Dart VM exists that is suitable for a http 
server. The advantage of client/server code sharing is obvious 
when you write web-apps, but I am a bit weary of using dynamic 
languages on web servers since runtime errors can be nasty. I 
personally would like to see a Dart version with a much stricter 
type system, but I think the Dart library is just about right for 
web development and the language itself is pretty well rounded 
and pragmatic (but nothing spectacular).


 IPython is an excellent tool for creating documents that 
 incorporate executable Python as an integral component. It is
 "literate  Python programming". However it is only a good tool
 if the end result is a document to be read and shared.


Hm, I use it for all kinds of small scale experiments/testing, 
which usually just involves getting those 1-4 lines of python 
code right (array transformations, regexps etc). I guess it 
depends on what you use Python for.


 I think the Python IDE such as Wing IDE,
 PyCharm, actually do the REPL and editor model better.


They probably are, but my point was more that a REPL/interpreter 
friendly syntax is not the same as a write/compile friendly 
syntax.

(I am currently using Eclipse with PyDev and am a bit reluctant 
to use even more IDEs, but I see that PyCharm has a new free 
edition that I probably should check out. Thanks for the tip!)

Ola.
Mar 22 2014
parent reply Nick Sabalausky <SeeWebsiteToContactMe semitwist.com> writes:
On 3/22/2014 2:38 PM, "Ola Fosheim Grøstad" 
<ola.fosheim.grostad+dlang gmail.com>" wrote:

 On Saturday, 22 March 2014 at 17:54:16 UTC, Russel Winder wrote:

 like "end to end" the same language. Many are asking about server-side
 Dart as well as client-side Dart in the browser.


 Yes, a CLI/server Dart VM exists that is suitable for a http server. The
 advantage of client/server code sharing is obvious when you write
 web-apps, but I am a bit weary of using dynamic languages on web servers
 since runtime errors can be nasty. I personally would like to see a Dart
 version with a much stricter type system, but I think the Dart library
 is just about right for web development and the language itself is
 pretty well rounded and pragmatic (but nothing spectacular).


Using the same language on client/server is indeed quite nice, partly 
because of less mental context-switching, and also because of increased 
code sharing (which also makes it easier to move things between client 
vs server if you need to). Because of that, and an irritating need to 
support cheapo shared/PHP-hosting servers (which are NEVER run by 
companies who have the slightest comprehension of security), I'd been 
using Haxe pretty heavily for a good while. Haxe is a rather "ok" 
language, which is practically high praise coming from me - I'm 
typically very critical of languages.

FWIW though, lately I've been swinging back over to the side of "I'd 
rather use the best language I can whenever possible, code duplication 
and other concerns over multiple languages be damnned." Life's too short 
to tolerate subpar tools.
Mar 24 2014
parent reply "Ola Fosheim =?UTF-8?B?R3LDuHN0YWQi?= writes:
On Monday, 24 March 2014 at 22:23:50 UTC, Nick Sabalausky wrote:

 Using the same language on client/server is indeed quite nice, 
 partly because of less mental context-switching, and also 
 because of increased code sharing (which also makes it easier 
 to move things between client vs server if you need to).


Yes, especially for data models. It is always annoying to modify 
several different layers just to add some fields to a database 
entry. Not a big deal, but so… pointless.


 using Haxe pretty heavily for a good while. Haxe is a rather 
 "ok" language, which is practically high praise coming from me 
 - I'm typically very critical of languages.


I've looked at Haxe from time to time, and I like the approach, 
but it has never been sufficient to solve any issues in any real 
code I've worked on.


 FWIW though, lately I've been swinging back over to the side of 
 "I'd rather use the best language I can whenever possible, code 
 duplication and other concerns over multiple languages be 
 damnned." Life's too short to tolerate subpar tools.


Yeah, that's where I am at now too. So currently I deal with 
Python, Dart (working hard to get rid of Javascript) and C++ (and 
dabble with XSLT, Java and Objective-C). But I'd rather use 
something more clean and strongly typed like Go and D, but with 
Pythonesque terseness and functional style list processing hight 
level cleaness. Unfortunately both D and Go lack production level 
support. And even with production level support they still lack 
production quality libraries for excel handling, pdf generation 
etc.
Mar 24 2014
parent reply Nick Sabalausky <SeeWebsiteToContactMe semitwist.com> writes:
On 3/24/2014 6:49 PM, "Ola Fosheim Grøstad" 
<ola.fosheim.grostad+dlang gmail.com>" wrote:

 On Monday, 24 March 2014 at 22:23:50 UTC, Nick Sabalausky wrote:

 Using the same language on client/server is indeed quite nice, partly
 because of less mental context-switching, and also because of
 increased code sharing (which also makes it easier to move things
 between client vs server if you need to).


 Yes, especially for data models. It is always annoying to modify several
 different layers just to add some fields to a database entry. Not a big
 deal, but so… pointless.


Yea, common data models was a very big use of shared server/client code 
for me, too.


 using Haxe pretty heavily for a good while. Haxe is a rather "ok"
 language, which is practically high praise coming from me - I'm
 typically very critical of languages.


 I've looked at Haxe from time to time, and I like the approach, but it
 has never been sufficient to solve any issues in any real code I've
 worked on.


For me, the killer features were:

- As mentioned already, shared server/client code.

- Being able to run code on any commodity PHP servers I was required to 
support, without having to actually *write* any PHP.

- (Note this was several years ago:) Being able to generate Flash 
applets without having to actually use any of Adobe's horrible toolchain.

- The language itself *didn't* totally piss me off. ;)

So yea, the Haxe language itself wasn't really a key thing for me, just 
what it allowed me to *avoid* doing. But even those reasons are loosing 
their bite for me now, since Flash has pretty much become legacy, vibe.d 
has appeared, and I'd just as soon avoid the entire PHP runtime as a whole.


 Yeah, that's where I am at now too. So currently I deal with Python,
 Dart (working hard to get rid of Javascript) and C++ (and dabble with
 XSLT, Java and Objective-C). But I'd rather use something more clean and
 strongly typed like Go and D, but with Pythonesque terseness and
 functional style list processing hight level cleaness. Unfortunately
 both D and Go lack production level support. And even with production
 level support they still lack production quality libraries for excel
 handling, pdf generation etc.


Heh, I guess that's where we differ ;) I'm...not exactly a big Python 
fan, and I find D totally production-ready. I generally avoid 
client-side JS - when I do use it, it's just a sprinkling. If I need to 
do anything else Flash-like in the future, I'm looking more at Unity3D 
(esp. the v5 on the horizon with asm.js support) rather than doing HTML5 
directly or via things like Dart or CoffeScript.
Mar 25 2014
next sibling parent "Rikki Cattermole" <alphaglosined gmail.com> writes:
On Tuesday, 25 March 2014 at 10:28:51 UTC, Nick Sabalausky wrote:

 On 3/24/2014 6:49 PM, "Ola Fosheim Grøstad" 
 <ola.fosheim.grostad+dlang gmail.com>" wrote:

 On Monday, 24 March 2014 at 22:23:50 UTC, Nick Sabalausky 
 wrote:

 Using the same language on client/server is indeed quite 
 nice, partly
 because of less mental context-switching, and also because of
 increased code sharing (which also makes it easier to move 
 things
 between client vs server if you need to).


 Yes, especially for data models. It is always annoying to 
 modify several
 different layers just to add some fields to a database entry. 
 Not a big
 deal, but so… pointless.


 Yea, common data models was a very big use of shared 
 server/client code for me, too.


 using Haxe pretty heavily for a good while. Haxe is a rather 
 "ok"
 language, which is practically high praise coming from me - 
 I'm
 typically very critical of languages.


 I've looked at Haxe from time to time, and I like the 
 approach, but it
 has never been sufficient to solve any issues in any real code 
 I've
 worked on.


 For me, the killer features were:

 - As mentioned already, shared server/client code.

 - Being able to run code on any commodity PHP servers I was 
 required to support, without having to actually *write* any PHP.

 - (Note this was several years ago:) Being able to generate 
 Flash applets without having to actually use any of Adobe's 
 horrible toolchain.

 - The language itself *didn't* totally piss me off. ;)

 So yea, the Haxe language itself wasn't really a key thing for 
 me, just what it allowed me to *avoid* doing. But even those 
 reasons are loosing their bite for me now, since Flash has 
 pretty much become legacy, vibe.d has appeared, and I'd just as 
 soon avoid the entire PHP runtime as a whole.


 Yeah, that's where I am at now too. So currently I deal with 
 Python,
 Dart (working hard to get rid of Javascript) and C++ (and 
 dabble with
 XSLT, Java and Objective-C). But I'd rather use something more 
 clean and
 strongly typed like Go and D, but with Pythonesque terseness 
 and
 functional style list processing hight level cleaness. 
 Unfortunately
 both D and Go lack production level support. And even with 
 production
 level support they still lack production quality libraries for 
 excel
 handling, pdf generation etc.


 Heh, I guess that's where we differ ;) I'm...not exactly a big 
 Python fan, and I find D totally production-ready. I generally 
 avoid client-side JS - when I do use it, it's just a 
 sprinkling. If I need to do anything else Flash-like in the 
 future, I'm looking more at Unity3D (esp. the v5 on the horizon 
 with asm.js support) rather than doing HTML5 directly or via 
 things like Dart or CoffeScript.


In semi related news, have you guys seen Cmsed? Built into the 
data model registration is generation of javascript models which 
tie into the restful routing to give you (if I finished it) the 
same level of interaction with the database as you would in D. 
And yes you're in control of the security of each data model for 
each operation type.
I just think thats a neat little feature.
Mar 25 2014
prev sibling parent "Ola Fosheim =?UTF-8?B?R3LDuHN0YWQi?= writes:
On Tuesday, 25 March 2014 at 10:28:51 UTC, Nick Sabalausky wrote:

 So yea, the Haxe language itself wasn't really a key thing for 
 me, just what it allowed me to *avoid* doing. But even those 
 reasons are loosing their bite for me now, since Flash has 
 pretty much become legacy, vibe.d has appeared, and I'd just as 
 soon avoid the entire PHP runtime as a whole.


I like the basic idea of Haxe since it in theory would allow 
programming cross platform on mobile units, but Apple, Google and 
Microsoft have made moves to make cross platform programming more 
difficult by deliberately being different for the sake of being 
different...


 Heh, I guess that's where we differ ;) I'm...not exactly a big 
 Python fan, and I find D totally production-ready.


Well, I wasn't a Python fan until I started using it, and still 
don't like the dynamic aspects of it, but the language/library 
support is better than the alternatives.

The syntax does not prevent Python from scaling with a decent 
IDE, the lack of compile time type safety does. However it is 
nice to replace perl, bash, php etc with one cross platform 
language. Python manage to cover a lot of ground.

That said I consider using D for a Windows tool (reading CVS 
files and uploading the result to a web server as a "cron" job). 
If I can do full static linking and just install a single binary 
then I can get simple "unbreakable" installs on client computers.
Mar 29 2014
prev sibling parent reply "MattCoder" <somekindofmonster email.com.br> writes:
On Saturday, 22 March 2014 at 01:22:14 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu
wrote:

 ...Given D's compilation speed, that can be achieved as a 
 dialect without much aggravation by using a preprocessor.

 In fact I considered writing such a preprocessor as a running 
 example...


Please someone could show a little example of the quote above? I
mean it would act like C preprocessor or in D it has another
meaning?

Thanks,

Matheus.
Mar 22 2014
next sibling parent "Adam D. Ruppe" <destructionator gmail.com> writes:
On Saturday, 22 March 2014 at 16:19:44 UTC, MattCoder wrote:

 Please someone could show a little example of the quote above? I
 mean it would act like C preprocessor or in D it has another
 meaning?


You would write a little program that sees changes of indentation 
and puts the braces in. So

foo
   bar
   baz
whatever

It would see that bar and baz are indented together and put {} 
around it, making:

foo
{ bar
   baz }
whatever

or something like that, which can then be fed into the D compiler 
normally.
Mar 22 2014
prev sibling parent reply Andrei Alexandrescu <SeeWebsiteForEmail erdani.org> writes:
On 3/22/14, 9:19 AM, MattCoder wrote:

 On Saturday, 22 March 2014 at 01:22:14 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu
 wrote:

 ...Given D's compilation speed, that can be achieved as a dialect
 without much aggravation by using a preprocessor.

 In fact I considered writing such a preprocessor as a running example...


 Please someone could show a little example of the quote above? I
 mean it would act like C preprocessor or in D it has another
 meaning?


As simple as it gets. The program would translate files with extension 
".wsd" into files with extension ".d" and run dmd (or rdmd) 
transparently. Appropriate handling of file timestamps etc. would 
complete a nice utility. You'd use it like

wsd myscript.wsd

which under the hood would create (if necessary) myscript.d and then 
exec rdmd on it.


Andrei
Mar 22 2014
next sibling parent reply "Colden Cullen" <ColdenCullen gmail.com> writes:
On Saturday, 22 March 2014 at 17:28:16 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu 
wrote:

 On 3/22/14, 9:19 AM, MattCoder wrote:

 On Saturday, 22 March 2014 at 01:22:14 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu
 wrote:

 ...Given D's compilation speed, that can be achieved as a 
 dialect
 without much aggravation by using a preprocessor.

 In fact I considered writing such a preprocessor as a running 
 example...


 Please someone could show a little example of the quote above? 
 I
 mean it would act like C preprocessor or in D it has another
 meaning?


 As simple as it gets. The program would translate files with 
 extension ".wsd" into files with extension ".d" and run dmd (or 
 rdmd) transparently. Appropriate handling of file timestamps 
 etc. would complete a nice utility. You'd use it like

 wsd myscript.wsd

 which under the hood would create (if necessary) myscript.d and 
 then exec rdmd on it.


 Andrei


After far too many hours on a plane today, I ended up building 
this[1]. This is very much a proof of concept, and not production 
ready in the slightest.

I should point out that the extensibility and maintainability of 
this is roughly equivalent to that of a potato, but it serves its 
purpose decently well.

[1] https://github.com/ColdenCullen/wsd
Mar 22 2014
parent "bearophile" <bearophileHUGS lycos.com> writes:
Colden Cullen:


 [1] https://github.com/ColdenCullen/wsd


Looks like a good start. I could even use that syntax in some 
cases :-) (like some script-like programs).

Using just an indent to define a sub-block seems a little too 
much brittle. So perhaps a specific keyword or symbol could be be 
used.

In Python there is also the keyword "pass" that could be useful 
here.

It could also be useful some way to switch back to normal D 
syntax inside a file, to solve some problem (like to simplify 
mixins creation).

Bye,
bearophile
Mar 22 2014
prev sibling parent "Colden Cullen" <ColdenCullen gmail.com> writes:
On Saturday, 22 March 2014 at 17:28:16 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu 
wrote:

 As simple as it gets. The program would translate files with 
 extension ".wsd" into files with extension ".d" and run dmd (or 
 rdmd) transparently. Appropriate handling of file timestamps 
 etc. would complete a nice utility. You'd use it like

 wsd myscript.wsd

 which under the hood would create (if necessary) myscript.d and 
 then exec rdmd on it.


 Andrei


Turns out this already exists:
http://pplantinga.github.io/archives/delight-programming-language.html
Mar 28 2014
prev sibling next sibling parent reply "logicchains" <jonathan.t.barnard gmail.com> writes:
On Friday, 21 March 2014 at 18:47:49 UTC, Pedro Larroy wrote:

 Hi

 As a newcomer to D, I wonder, how difficult would be and would 
 it be welcome by the D community to have D's syntax with 
 significant whitespace and without brackets more like python?


 Thanks.


It's interesting to see this being discussed, as somebody 
recently created a Go-like language with Pythonic syntax that 
compiles to Go. The Go community however didn't appear to be 
particularly interested in it: 
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/golang-nuts/-STRYo2Cc0g
Mar 22 2014
parent 1100110 <0b1100110 gmail.com> writes:
On 3/22/14, 23:33, logicchains wrote:

 On Friday, 21 March 2014 at 18:47:49 UTC, Pedro Larroy wrote:

 Hi

 As a newcomer to D, I wonder, how difficult would be and would it be
 welcome by the D community to have D's syntax with significant
 whitespace and without brackets more like python?


 Thanks.


 It's interesting to see this being discussed, as somebody recently
 created a Go-like language with Pythonic syntax that compiles to Go. The
 Go community however didn't appear to be particularly interested in it:
 https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/golang-nuts/-STRYo2Cc0g




...And that is a perfect example of why I don't like Go.   The Community 
seems overly hostile.
Mar 23 2014
prev sibling next sibling parent "Bienlein" <jeti789 web.de> writes:
I would appreciate being allowed to omit the trailing semicolon 
as in Scala, Go, Kotlin and some other newer languages. Not 
terribly important, but in most cases the end-of-line character 
is simply redundant.
Mar 24 2014
prev sibling parent "Steve Teale" <steve.teale britseyeview.com> writes:
On Friday, 21 March 2014 at 18:47:49 UTC, Pedro Larroy wrote:

 Hi

 As a newcomer to D, I wonder, how difficult would be and would 
 it be welcome by the D community to have D's syntax with 
 significant whitespace and without brackets more like python?


 Thanks.


As an alternative, python could be modified to make it more D 
like.

Steve
Mar 30 2014