www.digitalmars.com         C & C++   DMDScript  

digitalmars.D - Making 2024 the Year of D

reply Waffle56 <waffle56 biz.com> writes:
Hello everyone, I wish you all a happy 2024 with my warmest 
regards.

I am a software developer with a deep passion for the D 
programming language, actively using it in my projects. In my own 
software company, we prefer to use D to meet the needs of our 
clients. However, I have some concerns about the future of this 
language.

What are your thoughts on the journey of the D language? Although 
it hasn’t gained widespread popularity since its launch, I see it 
as a hidden treasure waiting to be discovered. First and 
foremost, I would like to express my gratitude to everyone 
involved in developing this language, especially the core team. 
However, I believe we need to resolve the disagreements within 
our community and support this language more robustly.

 From forum discussions, I understand that the D language is 
undergoing a process of forking. Forking can be positive in some 
instances, but how beneficial can such divisions be for a 
programming language that already has a limited community? Let's 
please come together to develop this language and advance this 
wonderful project that has been shaped by years of hard work, 
finding common ground without hurting anyone.

Let’s declare 2024 as the "Year of D". Spend this year spreading 
and using D more extensively. Together, let's take this project 
to the place it deserves. With your support, we have the 
opportunity to showcase the potential of the D language to the 
entire world.
Jan 03
next sibling parent reply bauss <jacobbauss gmail.com> writes:
On Thursday, 4 January 2024 at 07:47:01 UTC, Waffle56 wrote:

 From forum discussions, I understand that the D language is 
 undergoing a process of forking. Forking can be positive in 
 some instances, but how beneficial can such divisions be for a 
 programming language that already has a limited community? 
 Let's please come together to develop this language and advance 
 this wonderful project that has been shaped by years of hard 
 work, finding common ground without hurting anyone.


I think the problem lies in that a lot of people want D in one 
direction, while the org wants D in another direction.

A lot of things are stalled or down right rejected, although they 
would provide quality of life improvements to D.

So I think the fork of D is mostly to add things that are QOL to 
D without the hassle of it being rejected or taking years to be 
implemented.
Jan 04
parent Waffle56 <waffle56 biz.com> writes:
On Thursday, 4 January 2024 at 09:00:04 UTC, bauss wrote:

 I think the problem lies in that a lot of people want D in one 
 direction, while the org wants D in another direction.

 A lot of things are stalled or down right rejected, although 
 they would provide quality of life improvements to D.

 So I think the fork of D is mostly to add things that are QOL 
 to D without the hassle of it being rejected or taking years to 
 be implemented.


I want there to be improvements in the D language, this language 
really needs to be the best, and I think we can achieve it if we 
all strive for it, because this language has nothing less than C 
or C++, on the contrary, it is better than them.
Jan 04
prev sibling next sibling parent reply GrimMaple <grimmaple95 gmail.com> writes:
On Thursday, 4 January 2024 at 07:47:01 UTC, Waffle56 wrote:

 a programming language that already has a limited community?


Have you ever stopped to think why is that the case? Being a 
contributor myself, it's incredibly frustrating to see how issues 
are ignored for years if not decades. Also, contributing to D is 
an incredibly painful and displeasing process. Hence the fork.
A lot of quality contributors have left the community solely 
becase of the DLF's stubbornes to change, to a point an unnamed 
someone would revert community changes based on his ridiculous 
claims

It's not that we just want to watch the world burn, we want the 
language to improve after all.
Jan 04
next sibling parent reply Waffle56 <waffle56 biz.com> writes:
On Thursday, 4 January 2024 at 09:35:45 UTC, GrimMaple wrote:

 It's not that we just want to watch the world burn, we want the 
 language to improve after all.


Even though I don't know as much as you, is there anything I can 
do to help you? I'm generally involved in web backend 
development. If I can contribute, I would like to help you.
Jan 04
parent GrimMaple <grimmaple95 gmail.com> writes:
On Thursday, 4 January 2024 at 09:50:04 UTC, Waffle56 wrote:

 On Thursday, 4 January 2024 at 09:35:45 UTC, GrimMaple wrote:

 It's not that we just want to watch the world burn, we want 
 the language to improve after all.


 Even though I don't know as much as you, is there anything I 
 can do to help you? I'm generally involved in web backend 
 development. If I can contribute, I would like to help you.


The best way to start is to get in touch with Adam via Discord or 
by other means, the idea is still fresh and a lot of discussing 
is taking place.
Jan 04
prev sibling parent reply Micah <none none.com> writes:
On Thursday, 4 January 2024 at 09:35:45 UTC, GrimMaple wrote:

 On Thursday, 4 January 2024 at 07:47:01 UTC, Waffle56 wrote:

 a programming language that already has a limited community?


 Have you ever stopped to think why is that the case? Being a 
 contributor myself, it's incredibly frustrating to see how 
 issues are ignored for years if not decades. Also, contributing 
 to D is an incredibly painful and displeasing process. Hence 
 the fork.
 A lot of quality contributors have left the community solely 
 becase of the DLF's stubbornes to change, to a point an unnamed 
 someone would revert community changes based on his ridiculous 
 claims

 It's not that we just want to watch the world burn, we want the 
 language to improve after all.


I would be personally interested in a fork project, and would 
contribute if one kicks off
Jan 04
parent reply "H. S. Teoh" <hsteoh qfbox.info> writes:
On Thu, Jan 04, 2024 at 10:01:55AM +0000, Micah via Digitalmars-d wrote:
[...]

 I would be personally interested in a fork project, and would
 contribute if one kicks off


See: https://dpldocs.info/opend/index.html


T

-- 
Without geometry, life would be pointless. -- VS
Jan 04
parent reply Martin Tschierschke <mt smartdolphin.de> writes:
On Thursday, 4 January 2024 at 18:36:36 UTC, H. S. Teoh wrote:

 On Thu, Jan 04, 2024 at 10:01:55AM +0000, Micah via 
 Digitalmars-d wrote: [...]

 I would be personally interested in a fork project, and would 
 contribute if one kicks off


 See: https://dpldocs.info/opend/index.html


 T


Please check the last link on this page

https://dpldocs.info/opend/start.html

The result is an ERROR.
Jan 09
parent "H. S. Teoh" <hsteoh qfbox.info> writes:
On Tue, Jan 09, 2024 at 04:41:26PM +0000, Martin Tschierschke via Digitalmars-d
wrote:

 On Thursday, 4 January 2024 at 18:36:36 UTC, H. S. Teoh wrote:

 On Thu, Jan 04, 2024 at 10:01:55AM +0000, Micah via Digitalmars-d wrote:
 [...]

 I would be personally interested in a fork project, and would
 contribute if one kicks off


 
 See: https://dpldocs.info/opend/index.html
 
 
 T


 Please check the last link on this page
 
 https://dpldocs.info/opend/start.html
 
 The result is an ERROR.


Please let Adam know. I'm not in charge of the fork and do not have
access to change the page.


T

-- 
What do you call optometrist jokes? Vitreous humor.
Jan 09
prev sibling next sibling parent reply Micah <none none.com> writes:
On Thursday, 4 January 2024 at 07:47:01 UTC, Waffle56 wrote:

 Hello everyone, I wish you all a happy 2024 with my warmest 
 regards.

 I am a software developer with a deep passion for the D 
 programming language, actively using it in my projects. In my 
 own software company, we prefer to use D to meet the needs of 
 our clients. However, I have some concerns about the future of 
 this language.

 What are your thoughts on the journey of the D language? 
 Although it hasn’t gained widespread popularity since its 
 launch, I see it as a hidden treasure waiting to be discovered. 
 First and foremost, I would like to express my gratitude to 
 everyone involved in developing this language, especially the 
 core team. However, I believe we need to resolve the 
 disagreements within our community and support this language 
 more robustly.

 From forum discussions, I understand that the D language is 
 undergoing a process of forking. Forking can be positive in 
 some instances, but how beneficial can such divisions be for a 
 programming language that already has a limited community? 
 Let's please come together to develop this language and advance 
 this wonderful project that has been shaped by years of hard 
 work, finding common ground without hurting anyone.

 Let’s declare 2024 as the "Year of D". Spend this year 
 spreading and using D more extensively. Together, let's take 
 this project to the place it deserves. With your support, we 
 have the opportunity to showcase the potential of the D 
 language to the entire world.


My general experience is;


and I tinker with D from time to time. I would absolutely Love to 
adopt D more widely in my own projects and eventually propose D 
as a solution for writing tools in commercial environment

The language I feel is very good. Has a vast feature set, and is 
definitely a competitor to other mainstream languages, but the 
pushback I face isn't the language.

It's general things like infrastructure. Dub registry is basic, 
lacking some very important features. Even very basic stuff like 
downloading dmd using the install.sh script which is a 
recommended way to download the toolchain fails because of a lack 
of GPG public key.

My honest suggestion would be the community/organisation focus on 
improving the infrastructure before looking to add more to the 
language as people's first experience of a new language (i.e. 
website, documentation, the steps to get started) should be 
positive otherwise they wont stick around, and wont become 
contributors
Jan 04
parent Waffle56 <waffle56 biz.com> writes:
On Thursday, 4 January 2024 at 09:52:49 UTC, Micah wrote:

 My honest suggestion would be the community/organisation focus 
 on improving the infrastructure before looking to add more to 
 the language as people's first experience of a new language 
 (i.e. website, documentation, the steps to get started) should 
 be positive otherwise they wont stick around, and wont become 
 contributors


I completely agree with this view, the language really needs to 
be promoted, and I am conducting efforts to do this in my own 
country. We wrote a project in the D language for a government 
institution, and I want to do everything I can to spread it more 
widely.

If you see it fit, we can establish a platform for our community 
where we adapt and share our knowledge and experiences in the D 
language. I can develop a system for this in a short time, using 
the D language for the backend.
Jan 04
prev sibling parent reply Doigt <labog outlook.com> writes:
On Thursday, 4 January 2024 at 07:47:01 UTC, Waffle56 wrote:

 Hello everyone, I wish you all a happy 2024 with my warmest 
 regards.

 I am a software developer with a deep passion for the D 
 programming language, actively using it in my projects. In my 
 own software company, we prefer to use D to meet the needs of 
 our clients. However, I have some concerns about the future of 
 this language.

 What are your thoughts on the journey of the D language? 
 Although it hasn’t gained widespread popularity since its 
 launch, I see it as a hidden treasure waiting to be discovered. 
 First and foremost, I would like to express my gratitude to 
 everyone involved in developing this language, especially the 
 core team. However, I believe we need to resolve the 
 disagreements within our community and support this language 
 more robustly.

 From forum discussions, I understand that the D language is 
 undergoing a process of forking. Forking can be positive in 
 some instances, but how beneficial can such divisions be for a 
 programming language that already has a limited community? 
 Let's please come together to develop this language and advance 
 this wonderful project that has been shaped by years of hard 
 work, finding common ground without hurting anyone.

 Let’s declare 2024 as the "Year of D". Spend this year 
 spreading and using D more extensively. Together, let's take 
 this project to the place it deserves. With your support, we 
 have the opportunity to showcase the potential of the D 
 language to the entire world.


Do keep in mind that the fork is just two people who have long 
been angry and extreme in both how they express their anger at D 
and how exaggerated their concerns are. Especially Grim, who has 
managed more than once to find the weirdest of problems/usecases 
nobody has but him. The community is still one and the same. It 
will not follow them over there. They will burn themselves out 
maintaining their fork alone and then they'll come back begging 
or leave D entirely.
Jan 04
parent reply Jordan Wilson <wilsonjord gmail.com> writes:
On Friday, 5 January 2024 at 02:57:43 UTC, Doigt wrote:

 Do keep in mind that the fork is just two people who have long 
 been angry and extreme in both how they express their anger at 
 D and how exaggerated their concerns are.


This is unfair to Adam, and does not characterise the vast 
majority of his contributions to the forums at all (yes, it 
appeared things escalated recently, and clearly there was some 
extreme frustration, as one could tell from his since-removed 
Boxing day post).



 ... The community is still one and the same. It will not follow 
 them over there. They will burn themselves out maintaining 
 their fork alone and then they'll come back begging or leave D 
 entirely.


If Adam comes back to D, I hope he is welcomed back with open 
arms; it's a sad loss of a great contributor to Dlang as a whole, 
from the This Week in D blog, his arsd libs, right to his D 
Cookbook, which I found really helpful when I begin learning D.

Jordan K. Wilson
Jan 04
parent reply "Richard (Rikki) Andrew Cattermole" <richard cattermole.co.nz> writes:
On 05/01/2024 5:19 PM, Jordan Wilson wrote:

 On Friday, 5 January 2024 at 02:57:43 UTC, Doigt wrote:
 
     Do keep in mind that the fork is just two people who have long been
     angry and extreme in both how they express their anger at D and how
     exaggerated their concerns are.
 
 This is unfair to Adam, and does not characterise the vast majority of 
 his contributions to the forums at all (yes, it appeared things 
 escalated recently, and clearly there was some extreme frustration, as 
 one could tell from his since-removed Boxing day post).


No. It is a very fair statement about both people.

It matches their statements and behavior over many years and over many 
different mediums.

This did not escalate quickly, it was intentional.
Jan 04
parent reply Mike Parker <aldacron gmail.com> writes:
On Friday, 5 January 2024 at 04:26:33 UTC, Richard (Rikki) Andrew 
Cattermole wrote:

 On 05/01/2024 5:19 PM, Jordan Wilson wrote:

 On Friday, 5 January 2024 at 02:57:43 UTC, Doigt wrote:
 
     Do keep in mind that the fork is just two people who have 
 long been
     angry and extreme in both how they express their anger at 
 D and how
     exaggerated their concerns are.
 
 This is unfair to Adam, and does not characterise the vast 
 majority of his contributions to the forums at all (yes, it 
 appeared things escalated recently, and clearly there was some 
 extreme frustration, as one could tell from his since-removed 
 Boxing day post).


 No. It is a very fair statement about both people.

 It matches their statements and behavior over many years and 
 over many different mediums.

 This did not escalate quickly, it was intentional.


This is off topic for both this thread and the forum. So let's 
please get back to the topic of making 2024 the year of D. Thanks!
Jan 04
parent reply Doigt <labog outlook.com> writes:
On Friday, 5 January 2024 at 04:45:35 UTC, Mike Parker wrote:

 This is off topic for both this thread and the forum. So let's 
 please get back to the topic of making 2024 the year of D. 
 Thanks!


Thank you for getting us back on track, Mike. What I was trying 
to say is that we shouldn't have to worry about the community 
splitting anytime soon; making this year the Year of D should be 
possible.

I have a 3 ideas in my mind that should help make this happen:

1) People should make contributions to D in the form docs and 
tutorials. If anyone's drawing blanks, I have a couple of fun 
project ideas that should be relatively simple to implement and 
be excellent learning tools such as:
* emulating real life social games (rock-paper-scissors, tic tac 
toe, nim, guessing a random number, hangman, etc.)
* recreating classic video games (pacman, tetris, space invaders, 
boulder dash, sokoban, etc.)
* making simple websites (url bookmarks, basic chat, image 
gallery, etc.)

2) People should talk about D and showcase it to 
colleagues/fellow students at their jobs/uni. I have been quite 
successful in the past in getting around a dozen interested in 
the language. (unfortunately, the lack of good and easily 
approachable examples/docs/tutorials turned them almost all of 
them away from the language)

3) People should write about their projects and not just inside 
the D community space but also outside. Livestream your coding 
sessions guys. Make youtube vids about them. Generate content.

I know it's not easy to find the time, motivation or 
editing/writing/oral skills to do those things I suggested, so 
don't hesitate to team up where it makes sense to do so.
Jan 05
next sibling parent reply Renato <renato athaydes.com> writes:
On Saturday, 6 January 2024 at 03:18:03 UTC, Doigt wrote:

 1) People should make contributions to D in the form docs and 
 tutorials.


I would love to help...

I think that something that needs urgent attention is 
documentation for dub. It's criminally underdocumented, despite 
being a pretty good tool!

I've been learning it by basically looking at many other D 
projects and how they're using it... because the dub docs are 
just so incomplete. There's no CONTRIBUTING file on the dub 
project, so I assume I can just pick a topic and start writing 
docs for it and submit PRs??   Is there a "guide" or anything 
that can help find out how things work, or basically looking at 
the code is the only way to find out?

Basic stuff like which platforms can be specified is missing in 
the docs, lots of pages are incomplete...

Something else I found unnecessarily frustrating is that there's 
no "default" approach to testing D code. The official D docs seem 
to only talk about the built-in unittest and `assert` which are 
quite far from being sufficient for comprehensive testing... but 
as I've discovered after looking around at various existing 
projects, there seems to be really nice test runners (tested, 
unit-threaded), assertion libraries (dshould) etc. there really 
should be a "recommended" way to do it which involves good error 
reporting (reporting in general)... integrating with tools [like 
this](https://github.com/marketplace/actions/test-reporter) is 
really important, no one wants to look at a test failure in CI 
and have to spend more than a few minutes understanding exactly 
why and how the test failed.

About blog posts... I already wrote a basic blog post about my 
first impressions with D which I didn't publicize much yet 
because I still want to improve it a bit more... if I could write 
about how easy it is to start using D, add libs with dub, get 
test reports on GitHub Actions (or other CIs) easily and so on, 
that would be much nicer than my current post (which goes from 
showing how D is pretty nice, to complaining about these 
problems).
Jan 06
parent reply Walter Bright <newshound2 digitalmars.com> writes:
On 1/6/2024 12:24 PM, Renato wrote:

 I think that something that needs urgent attention is documentation for dub. 


Trying to fix the documentation for a large project like dub can look like an 
overwhelming task, with the result that nothing happens.

A way that works is to decide just fix one detail, one that is underdocumented 
and you know how it should work. Don't think about fixing the rest of it. Just 
the one problem.

Submit a PR, get it merged.

Then another detail. And so on.

It's amazing how much progress one can make just by taking a small step at a
time.

Sometimes with the dlang documentation, I simply open a random page, and start 
reading. I'll inevitably find a paragraph or example that is crummy, and submit 
a fix for it.

The same goes for improving a large code base.
Jan 06
parent reply jmh530 <john.michael.hall gmail.com> writes:
On Saturday, 6 January 2024 at 21:49:56 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:

 On 1/6/2024 12:24 PM, Renato wrote:

 I think that something that needs urgent attention is 
 documentation for dub.


 Trying to fix the documentation for a large project like dub 
 can look like an overwhelming task, with the result that 
 nothing happens.
 [snip]


Conveniently enough there has been quite a bit of progress 
recently on improving the dub documentation. Still room for 
improvement, but it looks better than it did a year ago IMO.
Jan 06
parent Walter Bright <newshound2 digitalmars.com> writes:
On 1/6/2024 2:01 PM, jmh530 wrote:

 Conveniently enough there has been quite a bit of progress recently on
improving 
 the dub documentation. Still room for improvement, but it looks better than it 
 did a year ago IMO.


Ehhxcellent!
Jan 07
prev sibling parent reply i_meva <i_meva outlook.com> writes:
On Saturday, 6 January 2024 at 03:18:03 UTC, Doigt wrote:

 I have a 3 ideas in my mind that should help make this happen:

 1) People should make contributions to D in the form docs and 
 tutorials. If anyone's drawing blanks, I have a couple of fun 
 project ideas that should be relatively simple to implement and 
 be excellent learning tools such as:
 * emulating real life social games (rock-paper-scissors, tic 
 tac toe, nim, guessing a random number, hangman, etc.)
 * recreating classic video games (pacman, tetris, space 
 invaders, boulder dash, sokoban, etc.)
 * making simple websites (url bookmarks, basic chat, image 
 gallery, etc.)


I plan to launch a project this month that I have developed using 
the D programming language. I am considering publishing 
educational materials in this language to contribute and expand 
knowledge. After gaining some more experience in mobile app 
development, I intend to create a chat system, but for now, my 
focus will be on developing a web-based chat system.
Jan 07
parent Walter Bright <newshound2 digitalmars.com> writes:
On 1/7/2024 1:45 AM, i_meva wrote:

 I plan to launch a project this month that I have developed using the D 
 programming language. I am considering publishing educational materials in
this 
 language to contribute and expand knowledge. After gaining some more
experience 
 in mobile app development, I intend to create a chat system, but for now, my 
 focus will be on developing a web-based chat system.


Keep us posted!
Jan 07