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digitalmars.D - More Linux love?

reply "Dawid =?UTF-8?B?Q2nEmcW8YXJraWV3aWN6Ig==?= <dpc ucore.info> writes:
Hi,

I've been following D development for quite a bit of years now 
and it have always been the case that Linux was a second (or even 
third) class citizen in D-Lang world.

I've always wondered when D is going to mature and gain more 
popularity and always attributed the problems with D catching up 
mostly for two things:

* that it's was essentially developed by one man only;
* that it neglected Linux;

The first issue have changed some while ago, and I was very happy 
to hear that finally Walter somewhat embraced more distributed 
and open development model. "D on github? Hell must have frozen 
over." -- I thought. And I think everyone could quickly see the 
results. Each of the latest releases seem like a big leap 
forward, not just small set improvements.

But the later seems to be the same as it was. Yeah, DMD can 
generate x86_64 nowadays which I remember was a long time pending 
issue some while back and I can find `gdc` in the Ubuntu 
repository, which is huge improvement, but overall the impression 
is the same: D is Windows-centric.

It seems to me that because historically D was Windows-centric, 
because Walter is Windows user, for all this years Windows 
developers had easier time when playing with D, than Linux devs. 
And after all this years, D community is mostly Windows-centric. 
Have anyone did any poll regarding this? I am guessing, I may be 
wrong.

Each time I fell the urge to play with D in the free time and 
want to test newest, coolest features and projects written in D, 
I am constantly hitting some Linux-related issues. Library 
incompatibilities, path incompatibilities. I toy with a lot of 
languages and I never hit issues like this with eg. Rust or Go, 
which fall into similar category of programming languages. Both 
of them seem to be developed for Linux/Unix - first, Windows 
later.

So I'd really like to ask all Windows-users D-developers: please 
install Virtual Box, latest Ubuntu guest inside, maybe Fedora too 
and see for yourself is your project is easy to install and 
working each time you release it.

In my opinion in the last 15 years most of the noticeable, long 
lasting programming software improvements came from Linux/Mac 
world (Unix, generally speaking), but I am biased. But the fact 
is: Open Source and Linux is where young, eager to learn and risk 
devs and cool kids are. In great numbers. Embrace them, just like 
Open, Collaborative development model and you'll quickly see a 
lot of new cool projects, developers, bug fixes and buzz. :)

PS. Kudos for whole D community, the language is even better and 
more impressive then it used to be.
Jun 15 2013
next sibling parent "Tyler Jameson Little" <beatgammit gmail.com> writes:
 But the later seems to be the same as it was. Yeah, DMD can 
 generate x86_64 nowadays which I remember was a long time 
 pending issue some while back and I can find `gdc` in the 
 Ubuntu repository, which is huge improvement, but overall the 
 impression is the same: D is Windows-centric.

 It seems to me that because historically D was Windows-centric, 
 because Walter is Windows user, for all this years Windows 
 developers had easier time when playing with D, than Linux 
 devs. And after all this years, D community is mostly 
 Windows-centric. Have anyone did any poll regarding this? I am 
 guessing, I may be wrong.

 Each time I fell the urge to play with D in the free time and 
 want to test newest, coolest features and projects written in 
 D, I am constantly hitting some Linux-related issues. Library 
 incompatibilities, path incompatibilities. I toy with a lot of 
 languages and I never hit issues like this with eg. Rust or Go, 
 which fall into similar category of programming languages. Both 
 of them seem to be developed for Linux/Unix - first, Windows 
 later.


Well, there's at least a significant chunk of the community on 
Linux, judging by the LDC and GDC projects. I haven't had any 
major problems on Linux (I use Arch Linux), and DMD gets regular 
testing on Linux: http://d.puremagic.com/test-results/ (it even 
gets tested on FreeBSD =D). LDC's CI (travis-ci) only supports 
Linux, and Windows support is in an alpha state.

A while ago I tried D on Windows and it wasn't nearly as nice as 
running on Linux. I don't use very many libraries (just some C 
bindings) and my projects aren't very complicated, so perhaps I 
haven't gotten to the point you're describing.


 So I'd really like to ask all Windows-users D-developers: 
 please install Virtual Box, latest Ubuntu guest inside, maybe 
 Fedora too and see for yourself is your project is easy to 
 install and working each time you release it.


I can agree with this, but there also aren't very many 
high-profile D libraries. Most developers seem to write something 
to scratch their own itch, and kudos if it happens to work for 
you.

I would like to see a stronger library management solution, but 
there currently isn't a "standard" build tool (except maybe DSSS, 
but it seems abandoned). There's also dub 
(https://github.com/rejectedsoftware/dub), which looks promising 
or orbit (https://github.com/jacob-carlborg/orbit). Maybe the 
community will settle on one and this problem will magically go 
away?


 In my opinion in the last 15 years most of the noticeable, long 
 lasting programming software improvements came from Linux/Mac 
 world (Unix, generally speaking), but I am biased. But the fact 
 is: Open Source and Linux is where young, eager to learn and 
 risk devs and cool kids are. In great numbers. Embrace them, 
 just like Open, Collaborative development model and you'll 
 quickly see a lot of new cool projects, developers, bug fixes 
 and buzz. :)


I agree, but this also depends on your target market. For 
Windows, I guess you've forgotten .NET?

A lot of the D community came from C++, and AFAICT Windows nearly 
dominates the commercial C++ market. All those C++ developers who 
got tired of C++'s warts came to D. Many other languages (Go, 
Ruby, Python, etc) are developed for users coming from C, Perl 
and Java, which have traditionally been *nix or cross-platform, 
so naturally development would happen on the platform they know 
better.

That being said, D has pretty strong Linux support, and from what 
I've seen in the community, even the Windows users have a pretty 
solid knowledge of Linux; moreso than many other open-source 
programming language projects (many are ignorant of everything 
Windows).

Personally, I think it's refreshing to have such strong Windows 
support, so when I need to make my project work on Windows, I 
know there's solid support in the community. Moving a node.js app 
from Linux to Windows was a bug-riddled experience because many 
of the libs didn't have proper Windows support (paths were just 
the tip of the iceburg).


 PS. Kudos for whole D community, the language is even better 
 and more impressive then it used to be.


I'm in a similar boat. I come back to the D community every few 
months and check back, and each time I run into less and less 
problems. There are still a lot of annoying things (CTFE, the 
garbage collector, no package manager), but these seem to be 
under pretty heavy development.

Anyway, with the last couple of releases, I now feel comfortable 
recommending D to my friends. If D had a nice, stupid-simple 
build process (like Go's), then I may even become a fanboy. =D
Jun 15 2013
prev sibling next sibling parent "Vladimir Panteleev" <vladimir thecybershadow.net> writes:
On Sunday, 16 June 2013 at 03:25:19 UTC, Dawid Ciężarkiewicz 
wrote:

 So I'd really like to ask all Windows-users D-developers: 
 please install Virtual Box, latest Ubuntu guest inside, maybe 
 Fedora too and see for yourself is your project is easy to 
 install and working each time you release it.


Hi, no offense but your post comes to me like overly-biased 
flamebait. As a Windows user, my experience is quite opposite - 
most D users and developers are not using Windows, so Windows 
support was lagging behind in many instances. x64 came to Windows 
last. The Windows compiler is up to twice as slow than the Linux 
compiler (because it's compiled with DMC). The coverage of the OS 
API in the standard library/Druntime is underwhelming. GDC and 
LDC are starting to officially support Windows only just now.

In contrast, deploying my D software on Linux servers is quite 
painless and straight-forward.

Saying that D is neglecting Linux is an outright fabrication.
Jun 15 2013
prev sibling next sibling parent reply Nick Sabalausky <SeeWebsiteToContactMe semitwist.com> writes:
I use D on both Windows and Linux and I've *never* felt that D seemed
Windows-centric, nor have I ever had Linux-centric problems with it.
Jun 15 2013
parent reply "Dawid =?UTF-8?B?Q2nEmcW8YXJraWV3aWN6Ig==?= <dpc ucore.info> writes:
Well, I can't tell much about the Windows experience, so might be 
that my experiences are misleading. Maybe I should try D on 
Windows and compare.

I don't want to start a flamewar or anything. That's not my point.
Jun 15 2013
parent "Chris Nicholson-Sauls" <ibisbasenji gmail.com> writes:
As far as installing/managing DMD itself on Linux, DVM will 
change your life.  Try the following:

wget -Odvm 
https://github.com/downloads/jacob-carlborg/dvm/dvm-0.4.1-linux-32
chmod +x dvm && ./dvm install dvm
  << open new terminal >>
dvm install 2.063.2
dvm use -d --64bit 2.063.2
Jun 16 2013
prev sibling next sibling parent "Jesse Phillips" <Jesse.K.Phillips+D gmail.com> writes:
On Sunday, 16 June 2013 at 03:25:19 UTC, Dawid Ciężarkiewicz 
wrote:

 Hi,

 I've been following D development for quite a bit of years now 
 and it have always been the case that Linux was a second (or 
 even third) class citizen in D-Lang world.


My main use of D has been Linux. Work is being done on shared 
libraries which has probably been the biggest missing support, 
but I think Windows has also had to bear some of it.

Is it merely the lack of a dmd package in different 
distributions? Linux receive 64-bit support long before Windows.

As for third party libraries, I'd say if it doesn't work for you 
in Linux, it also isn't working in Windows (Assuming it isn't a 
Windows library like Juno).
Jun 15 2013
prev sibling next sibling parent "Michael" <pr m1xa.com> writes:
I use Win 8 Pro 64 bit and stable Debian on VirtualBox without 
big problems.
Jun 15 2013
prev sibling next sibling parent Jordi Sayol <g.sayol yahoo.es> writes:
Hello,

I'm the responsible of the Linux packages building process
(http://dlang.org/download.html) and I'm absolutely disagree with you.

- Linux can compile to 64-bit since may 2011, Windows just now.
- Linux has 32-bit and 64-bit binaries since may 2011, Windows 32-bit only.
- Last dmd release includes "libphobos2.so" Linux shared library. Will see when
"phobos.dll" will be available for Windows.

Regards,
-- 
Jordi Sayol
Jun 16 2013
prev sibling next sibling parent "Peter Alexander" <peter.alexander.au gmail.com> writes:
On Sunday, 16 June 2013 at 03:25:19 UTC, Dawid Ciężarkiewicz 
wrote:

 I am constantly hitting some Linux-related issues. Library 
 incompatibilities, path incompatibilities.


 From your post, this seems like the only concrete piece of 
evidence to support your claim. I have seen similar bug reports 
about these sorts of things in the past, but can you be more 
specific about the issues you are having? Perhaps they have been 
solved, or are easily solvable.

Also, please list any other issues you are having. It's important 
that D is solid on Linux.

Note, I'm on OSX so I'm not biased towards either Linux or 
Windows :-)
Jun 16 2013
prev sibling next sibling parent Walter Bright <newshound2 digitalmars.com> writes:
On 6/15/2013 8:25 PM, "Dawid Ciężarkiewicz" <dpc ucore.info>" wrote:

 Each time I fell the urge to play with D in the free time and want to test
 newest, coolest features and projects written in D, I am constantly hitting
some
 Linux-related issues. Library incompatibilities, path incompatibilities.


Unfortunately, general comments like this are not actionable. Alternatively,

"I keep running into Bugzilla issues nnnn, nnnn, nnnn, and nnnn, which impair
my 
usage of D on Linux."

gives us something to work with. If you run into issues and do not file them on 
Bugzilla, please do so. Otherwise, odds are pretty good they will never be 
fixed, or if they are fixed you'll never be notified, or if they are user
errors 
rather than actual bugs, nobody can help you with them.
Jun 16 2013
prev sibling next sibling parent reply "bioinfornatics" <bioinfornatics fedoraproject.org> writes:
Hi,

I am a fedora packager and i put some D into official fedora repo
  - derelict  version 3
  - dsqlite   a tiny wrapper
  - dustmite  to debug
  - gl3n      to works with vectors and 3D
  - glfw      to use it  with derelict 3
  - gtkd      to use gtk in D
  - ldc       to build D code
  - tango     to use tango and miscellaneus feature
  - syntastic to use gvim

You see linux has some love at least into fedora the bleeding 
edge distro :-)
Jun 16 2013
next sibling parent reply "Tyler Jameson Little" <beatgammit gmail.com> writes:
On Sunday, 16 June 2013 at 23:43:15 UTC, bioinfornatics wrote:

 Hi,

 I am a fedora packager and i put some D into official fedora 
 repo
  - derelict  version 3
  - dsqlite   a tiny wrapper
  - dustmite  to debug
  - gl3n      to works with vectors and 3D
  - glfw      to use it  with derelict 3
  - gtkd      to use gtk in D
  - ldc       to build D code
  - tango     to use tango and miscellaneus feature
  - syntastic to use gvim

 You see linux has some love at least into fedora the bleeding 
 edge distro :-)


Well, not **the** bleeding edge distro. I'm on Arch, which has 
some very good D support: derelict, GDC & gl3n in AUR, DMD and 
LDC in official repos.

Anyway, used to be on Fedora and I also loved the D support. Most 
Debian-based distros seem to be a bit behind the times for D 
support. Perhaps there aren't a lot of D users on Debian Sid? I 
haven't ever had a good experience with D on Debian and I usually 
end up recompiling from source.
Jun 16 2013
parent reply Nick Sabalausky <SeeWebsiteToContactMe semitwist.com> writes:
On Mon, 17 Jun 2013 04:54:30 +0200
"Tyler Jameson Little" <beatgammit gmail.com> wrote:

 
 Anyway, used to be on Fedora and I also loved the D support. Most 
 Debian-based distros seem to be a bit behind the times for D 
 support. Perhaps there aren't a lot of D users on Debian Sid? I 
 haven't ever had a good experience with D on Debian and I usually 
 end up recompiling from source.


DMD's prebuilt zip releases always worked out-of-the-box on Debian for
me.
Jun 18 2013
parent reply 1100110 <0b1100110 gmail.com> writes:
On 06/18/2013 03:36 PM, Nick Sabalausky wrote:

 On Mon, 17 Jun 2013 04:54:30 +0200
 "Tyler Jameson Little" <beatgammit gmail.com> wrote:

 Anyway, used to be on Fedora and I also loved the D support. Most
 Debian-based distros seem to be a bit behind the times for D
 support. Perhaps there aren't a lot of D users on Debian Sid? I
 haven't ever had a good experience with D on Debian and I usually
 end up recompiling from source.


 DMD's prebuilt zip releases always worked out-of-the-box on Debian for
 me.


DMD's prebuilt deb releases have always worked out-of-the-box on every 
Debian-based distro I've tried it.

And there is a debian repository that *mostly* works out-of-the-box 
(meaning dmd works, but the other packages (vibe.d, dub,...) might not 
work, depending on your distro..

http://code.google.com/p/d-apt/wiki/APT_Repository

I've bitched at people before for creating distro-dependent packages, 
but D has been very good about "just working."  I'm pretty pleased with 
the level of compatibility that the current packages exhibit.

The debian package has worked for me on:
Linux Mint, Linux Mint Debian, Debian oldstable, Debian Stable, Debian 
Testing, Debian Unstable, Ubuntu, etc.

I don't know who does the packaging, but based on the amount of 
incompatibilities that other projects have, I think the packagers 
deserve a round of applause.
Jun 18 2013
parent reply Walter Bright <newshound2 digitalmars.com> writes:
On 6/18/2013 1:55 PM, 1100110 wrote:

 I don't know who does the packaging, but based on the amount of
 incompatibilities that other projects have, I think the packagers deserve a
 round of applause.


Jordi Sayol authored the linux packages, and keeps them maintained, and yes, he 
deserves a round of applause for it!
Jun 18 2013
parent reply Jordi Sayol <g.sayol yahoo.es> writes:
On 18/06/13 23:01, Walter Bright wrote:

 On 6/18/2013 1:55 PM, 1100110 wrote:

 I don't know who does the packaging, but based on the amount of
 incompatibilities that other projects have, I think the packagers deserve a
 round of applause.


 
 Jordi Sayol authored the linux packages, and keeps them maintained, and yes,
he deserves a round of applause for it!
 


Thank you all! it's a pleasure to do it :-)

BTW, due to the new phobos Linux shared library, I've split dmd into three deb
packages:

"dmd-bin"         (compiler and others binaries)
"libphobos2-63"   (runtime shared library)
"libphobos2-dev"  (symlink, module files and static library)


"libphobos2-63" can be installed alone without the compiler, allowing to run
programs linked against it. It contains the version on its name allowing to
have multiple phobos shared libraries installed at same time.
https://code.google.com/p/d-apt/wiki/APT_Repository

These deb packages are installable on Debian-like systems with "multiarch"
support (Debian 7, Ubuntu 12.4).
http://wiki.debian.org/Multiarch


Also "D programing language specifications" in several formats:
https://code.google.com/p/d-apt/

Regards,
-- 
Jordi Sayol
Jun 18 2013
next sibling parent "deadalnix" <deadalnix gmail.com> writes:
On Wednesday, 19 June 2013 at 05:30:32 UTC, Jordi Sayol wrote:

 Thank you all! it's a pleasure to do it :-)

 BTW, due to the new phobos Linux shared library, I've split dmd 
 into three deb packages:

 "dmd-bin"         (compiler and others binaries)
 "libphobos2-63"   (runtime shared library)
 "libphobos2-dev"  (symlink, module files and static library)


 "libphobos2-63" can be installed alone without the compiler, 
 allowing to run programs linked against it. It contains the 
 version on its name allowing to have multiple phobos shared 
 libraries installed at same time.
 https://code.google.com/p/d-apt/wiki/APT_Repository

 These deb packages are installable on Debian-like systems with 
 "multiarch" support (Debian 7, Ubuntu 12.4).
 http://wiki.debian.org/Multiarch


 Also "D programing language specifications" in several formats:
 https://code.google.com/p/d-apt/

 Regards,


Ho god, you have an apt repo ?

Y U NO SAY IT EARLIER ?

I must add this to my source list once at home.
Jun 18 2013
prev sibling parent reply "eles" <eles eles.com> writes:
On Wednesday, 19 June 2013 at 05:30:32 UTC, Jordi Sayol wrote:

 On 18/06/13 23:01, Walter Bright wrote:

 On 6/18/2013 1:55 PM, 1100110 wrote:

 I don't know who does the packaging, but based on the amount 
 of
 incompatibilities that other projects have, I think the 
 packagers deserve a
 round of applause.


 
 Jordi Sayol authored the linux packages, and keeps them 
 maintained, and yes, he deserves a round of applause for it!
 


 Thank you all! it's a pleasure to do it :-)


I did not know that you are the man behind all this work. Sincere 
congratulations! You are doing an admirable job.

Eles
Jun 19 2013
parent Jordi Sayol <g.sayol yahoo.es> writes:
On 19/06/13 09:07, eles wrote:

 On Wednesday, 19 June 2013 at 05:30:32 UTC, Jordi Sayol wrote:

 On 18/06/13 23:01, Walter Bright wrote:

 On 6/18/2013 1:55 PM, 1100110 wrote:

 I don't know who does the packaging, but based on the amount of
 incompatibilities that other projects have, I think the packagers deserve a
 round of applause.


 Jordi Sayol authored the linux packages, and keeps them maintained, and yes,
he deserves a round of applause for it!


 Thank you all! it's a pleasure to do it :-)


 
 I did not know that you are the man behind all this work. Sincere
congratulations! You are doing an admirable job.
 
 Eles
 


Many thanks Eles! :-) But believe me when I say that it's very easy to do this
work with dmd, and Walter.


BTW, d-apt repository will change its path. I'll give more information when
available.

Regards,
-- 
Jordi Sayol
Jun 19 2013
prev sibling parent "qznc" <qznc web.de> writes:
On Sunday, 16 June 2013 at 23:43:15 UTC, bioinfornatics wrote:

 Hi,

 I am a fedora packager and i put some D into official fedora 
 repo
  - derelict  version 3
  - dsqlite   a tiny wrapper
  - dustmite  to debug
  - gl3n      to works with vectors and 3D
  - glfw      to use it  with derelict 3
  - gtkd      to use gtk in D
  - ldc       to build D code
  - tango     to use tango and miscellaneus feature
  - syntastic to use gvim

 You see linux has some love at least into fedora the bleeding 
 edge distro :-)


As a Fedora user (well Korora spin), Thank You! :)
Jun 19 2013
prev sibling parent reply "H. S. Teoh" <hsteoh quickfur.ath.cx> writes:
On Sun, Jun 16, 2013 at 05:25:18AM +0200, digitalmars-d-bounces puremagic.com
wrote:

 Hi,
 
 I've been following D development for quite a bit of years now and
 it have always been the case that Linux was a second (or even third)
 class citizen in D-Lang world.


Huh? I find this comment rather strange, to say the least. I'm a
hardcore Linux user (I hardly ever use Windows), and I've never felt
that Linux support was "second class". In fact, judging from the
periodic comments from Windows users on this list, I have the impression
that it's Windows support that's lacking.

Granted, I do use DMD from git HEAD, so maybe my perceptions are biased.
But quite frankly, I find DMD almost unbelievably easy to install and
use, compared with other compiler toolchains (*ahem*cough*GCC*ahem*),
most of which requires installing 25 additional library dependencies, 6
macro preprocessors and that horror known as autotools, and obscure
environment variables set to specific values that cannot be found
anywhere in the documentation. And that's just to get the thing to
build. Then to install it, you have to rearrange your system directory
trees, edit user profiles, add symlinks everywhere, etc..

DMD, in contrast, builds with just make -f posix.mak. So do druntime and
phobos. Installation is just a matter of editing dmd.conf to point to
the right places, and everything Just Works. You can even run DMD from
the directory the Makefile builds it in -- something that will cause GCC
to choke and keel over and die 'cos it's expecting this binary in that
location and this hardcoded path doesn't match that hardcoded path and
it just falls to pieces.



 I've always wondered when D is going to mature and gain more
 popularity and always attributed the problems with D catching up
 mostly for two things:
 
 * that it's was essentially developed by one man only;


I find this statement needlessly inflammatory. Have you looked at DMD's
git commit log? I find it hard to take seriously anyone who looks at
that and still says with a straight face that D is a one-man project.



 * that it neglected Linux;


In light of my own experience as a hardcore exclusive Linux user, I have
to say this is patently false.



 The first issue have changed some while ago, and I was very happy to
 hear that finally Walter somewhat embraced more distributed and open
 development model. "D on github? Hell must have frozen over." -- I
 thought. And I think everyone could quickly see the results. Each of
 the latest releases seem like a big leap forward, not just small set
 improvements.
 
 But the later seems to be the same as it was. Yeah, DMD can generate
 x86_64 nowadays which I remember was a long time pending issue some
 while back and I can find `gdc` in the Ubuntu repository, which is
 huge improvement, but overall the impression is the same: D is
 Windows-centric.
 
 It seems to me that because historically D was Windows-centric,
 because Walter is Windows user, for all this years Windows
 developers had easier time when playing with D, than Linux devs. And
 after all this years, D community is mostly Windows-centric. Have
 anyone did any poll regarding this? I am guessing, I may be wrong.


Your guesses are way out in left field, at least from my POV. I've been
using D on Linux happily ever since I learned how to build it from git
HEAD -- which is ridiculously easy as far as compiler toolchains are
involved, as I described above. If you've ever had to build GCC from
scratch, you'll know what I mean.



 Each time I fell the urge to play with D in the free time and want to
 test newest, coolest features and projects written in D, I am
 constantly hitting some Linux-related issues. Library
 incompatibilities, path incompatibilities. I toy with a lot of
 languages and I never hit issues like this with eg. Rust or Go, which
 fall into similar category of programming languages. Both of them seem
 to be developed for Linux/Unix - first, Windows later.


This is totally puzzling to me. I've never had a problem with library
incompatibilities and path incompatibilities. In fact, if anything, it's
the opposite: DMD actually doesn't depend on 101 other external
libraries that something like GCC won't even _begin_ to compile without!
And path incompatibilities? Are you serious? Have you ever had the
misfortune of building GCC with the wrong --prefix setting, and had it
crash into a brick wall and shatter into a thousand pieces when it then
tries to invoke the wrong version of the backend which, if it even runs
at all, then tries to link your program to the wrong version of the C
runtime and chokes with an obscure error that only linker writers could
understand?  DMD is actually *pleasant* to install and use, by
comparison!



 So I'd really like to ask all Windows-users D-developers: please
 install Virtual Box, latest Ubuntu guest inside, maybe Fedora too and
 see for yourself is your project is easy to install and working each
 time you release it.
 
 In my opinion in the last 15 years most of the noticeable, long
 lasting programming software improvements came from Linux/Mac world
 (Unix, generally speaking), but I am biased. But the fact is: Open
 Source and Linux is where young, eager to learn and risk devs and cool
 kids are. In great numbers. Embrace them, just like Open,
 Collaborative development model and you'll quickly see a lot of new
 cool projects, developers, bug fixes and buzz. :)
 
 PS. Kudos for whole D community, the language is even better and more
 impressive then it used to be.


I find these comments rather needlessly provocative. I followed some of
the recent discussion on std.process, and I have to say that I'm quite
impressed at the level of concern for interoperability between Windows
and Linux -- something rather foreign to my experience of library
development mailing lists: most are either Linux-only ("who cares about
Windows it's your own problem if you use a broken system"), or
Windows-only ("what's Linux I've never heard of such a thing get on with
the program install Microsoft already"). And designing the API to be
maximally compatible with both? That's almost unprecedented!

So I feel compelled, as a dedicated (and exclusively) Linux user, to
state that the sentiment expressed by the OP does *not* represent my
experience of D at all.  While certainly there are always ways to
improve the D experience for both platforms, I can't say the way the OP
worded it is a very constructive approach, IMO.


T

-- 
Meat: euphemism for dead animal. -- Flora
Jun 16 2013
parent reply "JohnnyK" <johnnykinsey comcast.net> writes:
+1 here

yeah DMD is easy to use in linux.  I have installed and used it 
in several Linux distros and everytime it has just worked.  I 
just installed DMD on Slackware 14 x86_64 and it was a copy/paste 
of the binaries fix up the paths in dmd.comf and Hello World just 
compiles and runs.  The only issue I have is that I am wondering 
why I cannot compile hello world with -m32.  I get linker errors. 
  Anyway this is not the thread for this.  I will post the output 
to the proper location later.  I must say it's not really hard to 
install and use dmd on any OS that it supports of course I have 
not used it on Mac OS but I have used it on Freebsd and that was 
a piece of cake even had the gtkd lib working without too much 
trouble.  Most of the libraries are being built today with Linux 
in mind I have noticed so really if your on Linux your in the 
sweet spot for dmd if you ask me.
Sep 25 2013
parent Jacob Carlborg <doob me.com> writes:
On 2013-09-25 17:16, JohnnyK wrote:

 +1 here

 yeah DMD is easy to use in linux.  I have installed and used it in
 several Linux distros and everytime it has just worked.  I just
 installed DMD on Slackware 14 x86_64 and it was a copy/paste of the
 binaries fix up the paths in dmd.comf and Hello World just compiles and
 runs.  The only issue I have is that I am wondering why I cannot compile
 hello world with -m32.  I get linker errors.


Have you installed 32bit libraries? That would be gcc-multilib and 
ia32-libs on Ubuntu. On Debian 7 and later it will be "dpkg 
--add-architecture i386" and "apt-get install <package>:i386".


 Anyway this is not the  thread for this.  I will post the output to the proper
location later.
 I must say it's not really hard to install and use dmd on any OS that it
 supports of course I have not used it on Mac OS


You can install it exactly the same on Mac OS X.

-- 
/Jacob Carlborg
Sep 25 2013