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digitalmars.D - What you use D for?

reply Arne <user domain.invalid> writes:
Hi all,

I'm a developer specialised in making eclipse based IDEs. We consider to create
a comercial quality IDE for D but are unsure if it will pay of (and so we are
able to throw full time developers at the project).

We need to know if there will be enough customers. Do you use D for commercial
projects? Does your company make money with it? And is able to pay for an IDE
(if it fullfill your needs and speed up your development, of course)?

It would be helpfull if you can describe in a few words what you do with D and
perhaps could provide a link.

Thanks!

Arne
May 14 2008
next sibling parent Frank Benoit <keinfarbton googlemail.com> writes:
Arne schrieb:

 Hi all,
 
 I'm a developer specialised in making eclipse based IDEs. We consider to
create a comercial quality IDE for D but are unsure if it will pay of (and so
we are able to throw full time developers at the project).
 
 We need to know if there will be enough customers. Do you use D for commercial
projects? Does your company make money with it? And is able to pay for an IDE
(if it fullfill your needs and speed up your development, of course)?
 
 It would be helpfull if you can describe in a few words what you do with D and
perhaps could provide a link.
 
 Thanks!
 
 Arne


A system for software test in the automotive industry.
www.tionex.de
May 14 2008
prev sibling next sibling parent Trevor Parscal <trevorparscal hotmail.com> writes:
Arne Wrote:


 Hi all,
 
 I'm a developer specialised in making eclipse based IDEs. We consider to
create a comercial quality IDE for D but are unsure if it will pay of (and so
we are able to throw full time developers at the project).
 
 We need to know if there will be enough customers. Do you use D for commercial
projects? Does your company make money with it? And is able to pay for an IDE
(if it fullfill your needs and speed up your development, of course)?
 
 It would be helpfull if you can describe in a few words what you do with D and
perhaps could provide a link.
 
 Thanks!
 
 Arne


GUI/Windowing/Graphics/etc library (http://www.dsource.org/projects/unid) which
I look forward to developing a commercial multimedia production suite on top of.

I would gladly pay for a stable and feature rich eclipse plugin or comparable
IDE, but I would need to work on Linux, OSX, and Windows.

- Trevor
May 15 2008
prev sibling next sibling parent "Christof Schardt" <csnews christof-schardt.de> writes:
"Arne" <user domain.invalid> schrieb im Newsbeitrag 
news:g0gm1q$2ar1$1 digitalmars.com...

 Hi all,

 I'm a developer specialised in making eclipse based IDEs. We consider to 
 create a comercial quality IDE for D but are unsure if it will pay of (and 
 so we are able to throw full time developers at the project).

 We need to know if there will be enough customers. Do you use D for 
 commercial projects? Does your company make money with it? And is able to 
 pay for an IDE (if it fullfill your needs and speed up your development, 
 of course)?

 It would be helpfull if you can describe in a few words what you do with D 
 and perhaps could provide a link.


I would gladly pay for a tool, which brings the productivity and comfort of 
VisualStudio plus VisualAssist.
This combination is a benchmark for other tools.  If you once have had 
VAssist at your fingertips and
enjoyed, how it intelligently types the names for you, you never can go back 
behind this.
Christof
May 15 2008
prev sibling next sibling parent reply BCS <ao pathlink.com> writes:
Reply to Arne,


 Hi all,
 
 I'm a developer specialised in making eclipse based IDEs. We consider
 to create a comercial quality IDE for D but are unsure if it will pay
 of (and so we are able to throw full time developers at the project).
 
 We need to know if there will be enough customers. Do you use D for
 commercial projects? Does your company make money with it? And is able
 to pay for an IDE (if it fullfill your needs and speed up your
 development, of course)?
 
 It would be helpfull if you can describe in a few words what you do
 with D and perhaps could provide a link.
 
 Thanks!
 
 Arne
 


I currently have one project (a job) that is done in VB6 and I'm trying to 
talk the guy into letting me redo it in D.

I have another project (different job) that the bosses want to do in D but 
would need to see a better tool set: IDE+Debugger+etc.

I'd pay something ($30, maybe a bit more) for such a product. I suspect my 
bosses would be willing to pay a bit more than that.
May 15 2008
parent reply BCS <ao pathlink.com> writes:
Reply to Benjamin,


 I'd pay something ($30, maybe a bit more) for such a product. I
 suspect my bosses would be willing to pay a bit more than that.
 


BTW: I'm a broke collage student ;-).

Talking to my boss, he'd be willing to pay more like 200-250 for a good IDE, 
if it has good debugger support.
May 15 2008
parent reply "Steven Schveighoffer" <schveiguy yahoo.com> writes:
"BCS" wrote

 Reply to Benjamin,


 I'd pay something ($30, maybe a bit more) for such a product. I
 suspect my bosses would be willing to pay a bit more than that.


 BTW: I'm a broke collage student ;-).


What kind of collages are you learning to make?

Sorry, couldn't help myself ;)

-Steve
May 15 2008
parent BCS <ao pathlink.com> writes:
Reply to Steven,


 "BCS" wrote
 

 BTW: I'm a broke collage student ;-).
 


 What kind of collages are you learning to make?
 
 Sorry, couldn't help myself ;)
 
 -Steve
 


What can I say, I'm a child of the spell check generation!
May 15 2008
prev sibling next sibling parent Georg Wrede <georg nospam.org> writes:
Arne wrote:

 Hi all,
 
 I'm a developer specialised in making eclipse based IDEs. We consider
 to create a comercial quality IDE for D but are unsure if it will pay
 of (and so we are able to throw full time developers at the project).


I assume this would not be an eclipse plugin. I'm also expecting it to 
be programmed using D or some other fast, native compiling language. And 
I expect it to work on both Linux and Windows.


 We need to know if there will be enough customers. Do you use D for
 commercial projects? Does your company make money with it? And is
 able to pay for an IDE (if it fullfill your needs and speed up your
 development, of course)?


If you look at the publicity D has been acquiring at an ever expanding 
rate, D's position on the Tiobe language index, and finally, industry 
insiders' opinions on D, it should be obvious there is enough potential 
with D.

Further, if you look at the scarcity of good IDEs that really function 
well with D and support D's specific features (templates, mixins, unit 
tests, documentation comments), you'd immediately see that a commercial 
quality IDE for D is an excellent choice compared to writing an IDE for 
any other language right now.

Now, as to financial returns: superior quality will bring you the money 
back. This superior quality here means, of course, being bug free, but 
most of all, it means the needed features are all there, no superfluos 
bells or whistles -- and it has to have superior support for the above 
mentioned language features.

For example, support for documentation comments means the editor shows 
them "as on a web site", i.e. interpreted, and when the programmer wants 
to edit them the IDE shows fill-in boxes for the various values and free 
text. Or in some other (possibly yet uninvented) manner helps in editing 
and viewing them, as well as helping them stay congruent with the actual 
code.

I'd pay $50 any day for such an IDE. But a bit of a warning is in order 
here. Before I'd pay the $50, I'd have to become convinced that it's not 
a waste of time from my part. That means, I'd have to have read positive 
reviews on quality sites, seen people in this NG talk favorably of it, 
and, then of course tried it on both Linux and Windows myself, before 
buying.

You'd probably have to start with a free version that you gradually 
improve on until it meets and beats the competition, and only then start 
charging for it. This will take years of development, a team that really 
can beat the other teams in finding and realizing superior solutions to 
the programming tasks, and you simply will need to garner the support 
and help of the user community. And the transition from free to non-free 
is both a managerial and a marketing challenge one should not belittle.


 It would be helpfull if you can describe in a few words what you do
 with D and perhaps could provide a link.


I've written a process monitoring and controlling application for the 
plastics industry in D, some 2 years ago. It is still in use, but I 
don't have a web page for it, since it was programmed for a customer.
May 15 2008
prev sibling next sibling parent Bill Baxter <dnewsgroup billbaxter.com> writes:
Arne wrote:

 Hi all,
 
 I'm a developer specialised in making eclipse based IDEs. We consider to
create a comercial quality IDE for D but are unsure if it will pay of (and so
we are able to throw full time developers at the project).


Since no one has mentioned it yet, there is an eclipse-based IDE for D 
already.  There are two of them, actually.  Descent and Mrnmnhrmn.  Just 
thought I'd mention it, in case you weren't aware of your competition.

I haven't really used either.  I toyed around with Descent for about an 
hour recently, but generally I use emacs for everything.  However the 
Descent guys do seem to be doing a pretty good job with their plugin.


 We need to know if there will be enough customers. Do you use D for commercial
projects? Does your company make money with it? And is able to pay for an IDE
(if it fullfill your needs and speed up your development, of course)?


My biggest woes with D development usually come from the debugger 
(Jascha Wetzel's ddbg) not giving useful stack traces rather than from 
anything an IDE would help with.

--bb
May 15 2008
prev sibling next sibling parent reply Jason House <jason.james.house gmail.com> writes:
I develop a multithreaded game-playing engine http://housebot.sourceforge.net
Of critical importance to me is debugger integration, multithreaded support,
data visualization, full Tango compatibility, support for all gdc platforms,
and integrated profiling and unit test coverage analysis. I could see spending
$50 on something like that, but only if I know it will remain useful.

An IDE stops being useful if I have to buy a new version with each D release,
or is close in functionality to free alternatives.

Arne Wrote:


 Hi all,
 
 I'm a developer specialised in making eclipse based IDEs. We consider to
create a comercial quality IDE for D but are unsure if it will pay of (and so
we are able to throw full time developers at the project).
 
 We need to know if there will be enough customers. Do you use D for commercial
projects? Does your company make money with it? And is able to pay for an IDE
(if it fullfill your needs and speed up your development, of course)?
 
 It would be helpfull if you can describe in a few words what you do with D and
perhaps could provide a link.
 
 Thanks!
 
 Arne
May 15 2008
parent reply "Dave" <Dave_member pathlink.com> writes:
"Jason House" <jason.james.house gmail.com> wrote in message 
news:g0i5gi$sr2$1 digitalmars.com...

I develop a multithreaded game-playing engine 
http://housebot.sourceforge.net
 Of critical importance to me is debugger integration, multithreaded 
 support, data visualization, full Tango compatibility, support for all gdc 
 platforms, and integrated profiling and unit test coverage analysis. I 
 could see spending $50 on something like that, but only if I know it will 
 remain useful.

 An IDE stops being useful if I have to buy a new version with each D 
 release, or is close in functionality to free alternatives.


$50 for all that and a virtual life-time maintenance contract -- Wow, big 
spender!

Just because you give your software away doesn't mean the rest of us should 
<g>

This is a perfect example of how the open-source mentality stifles 
innovation - small development organizations can't make a buck off of 
software anymore, so why take the time to do it right ;)


 Arne Wrote:


 Hi all,

 I'm a developer specialised in making eclipse based IDEs. We consider to 
 create a comercial quality IDE for D but are unsure if it will pay of 
 (and so we are able to throw full time developers at the project).

 We need to know if there will be enough customers. Do you use D for 
 commercial projects? Does your company make money with it? And is able to 
 pay for an IDE (if it fullfill your needs and speed up your development, 
 of course)?

 It would be helpfull if you can describe in a few words what you do with 
 D and perhaps could provide a link.

 Thanks!

 Arne
May 15 2008
next sibling parent Bill Baxter <dnewsgroup billbaxter.com> writes:
Dave wrote:

 
 "Jason House" <jason.james.house gmail.com> wrote in message 
 news:g0i5gi$sr2$1 digitalmars.com...

 I develop a multithreaded game-playing engine 
 http://housebot.sourceforge.net
 Of critical importance to me is debugger integration, multithreaded 
 support, data visualization, full Tango compatibility, support for all 
 gdc platforms, and integrated profiling and unit test coverage 
 analysis. I could see spending $50 on something like that, but only if 
 I know it will remain useful.

 An IDE stops being useful if I have to buy a new version with each D 
 release, or is close in functionality to free alternatives.


 
 $50 for all that and a virtual life-time maintenance contract -- Wow, 
 big spender!


That's not an outrageous request for a C++ or Java IDE.  There are so 
many devs out there for those languages that a company probably could 
survive with that pricing.  D isn't quite there yet, though, in terms of 
number of devs and penetration into corporate markets where employers 
can easily fork out the $$ for an IDE.



 Just because you give your software away doesn't mean the rest of us 
 should <g>
 
 This is a perfect example of how the open-source mentality stifles 
 innovation - small development organizations can't make a buck off of 
 software anymore, so why take the time to do it right ;)


Thanks to open source, we already have an Eclipse-based IDE, which I've 
heard is pretty decent.  (err... no pun intended there).   Without open 
source we'd all still be sitting around waiting for the D community to 
get large enough for a commercial developer like Arne to take notice.

Furthermore, Arne was proposing to make an Eclipse-based IDE.  Eclipse 
is open source.  So without open source Arne would have no business 
model at all here.

Still, you do have a point that free-as-in-beer software has given 
people an expectation that they can get something for nothing.  Still I 
think it's better than the alternative we used to have, which was being 
forced to pay something to get software that all too often turned out be 
basically worth nothing.

--bb


 Arne Wrote:


 Hi all,

 I'm a developer specialised in making eclipse based IDEs. We consider 
 to create a comercial quality IDE for D but are unsure if it will pay 
 of (and so we are able to throw full time developers at the project).

 We need to know if there will be enough customers. Do you use D for 
 commercial projects? Does your company make money with it? And is 
 able to pay for an IDE (if it fullfill your needs and speed up your 
 development, of course)?

 It would be helpfull if you can describe in a few words what you do 
 with D and perhaps could provide a link.
May 15 2008
prev sibling next sibling parent reply Brad Roberts <braddr puremagic.com> writes:
On Thu, 15 May 2008, Dave wrote:


 "Jason House" <jason.james.house gmail.com> wrote in message
 news:g0i5gi$sr2$1 digitalmars.com...

 I develop a multithreaded game-playing engine
 http://housebot.sourceforge.net
 Of critical importance to me is debugger integration, multithreaded support,
 data visualization, full Tango compatibility, support for all gdc platforms,
 and integrated profiling and unit test coverage analysis. I could see
 spending $50 on something like that, but only if I know it will remain
 useful.
 
 An IDE stops being useful if I have to buy a new version with each D
 release, or is close in functionality to free alternatives.
 


 
 $50 for all that and a virtual life-time maintenance contract -- Wow, big
 spender!
 
 Just because you give your software away doesn't mean the rest of us should
 <g>
 
 This is a perfect example of how the open-source mentality stifles innovation
 - small development organizations can't make a buck off of software anymore,
 so why take the time to do it right ;)


The thread was seeking opinions, and Jason's is a perfectly valid one.  
He'd rather have a less superior IDE that's both free and kept current 
than one that costs more and isn't kept current or costs more to follow 
the evolution of the language.  Considering how fast the language evolves, 
that's a very real consideration.

Personally, I can't see a commercial IDE succeeding for D yet.  I'd 
certainly never dream of telling someone not to give it a whirl, of 
course.  That said, a paid eclipse based ide isn't likely to see a lot of 
adoption as long as there's two others being actively developed that are 
both free.

My two cents,
Brad
May 15 2008
next sibling parent BCS <ao pathlink.com> writes:
Reply to Brad,


 That said, a paid eclipse based ide isn't likely to see a lot of
 adoption as long as there's two others being actively developed that
 are both free.
 


I'd be willing to pay /somthing/ for support for what we have. 

me: "Hay ___ dosn't work!"
them: "you paid up?"
me: "Yup"
them: "ok, how about now."
me: "thanks!"

:b
May 15 2008
prev sibling parent Robert Fraser <fraserofthenight gmail.com> writes:
Brad Roberts wrote:

 That said, a paid eclipse based ide isn't likely to see a lot of 
 adoption as long as there's two others being actively developed that are 
 both free.


Only one. Mmrnmhrm (I have to copy-paste that every time ;-P) is "on 
hold", and AFAIK, DDT, EclipseD and Elephant (I think that was the other 
one...?) are all no longer active.
May 15 2008
prev sibling next sibling parent reply Robert Fraser <fraserofthenight gmail.com> writes:
Dave wrote:

 This is a perfect example of how the open-source mentality stifles 
 innovation - small development organizations can't make a buck off of 
 software anymore, so why take the time to do it right


I'm not sure if I'm understanding you point. Are you saying?:

- Open source developers make products that are good enough such that 
small development houses can't compete? How does that "stifle innovation"?

- Open source developers are not innovative or are "doing it wrong", but 
because their products are often made available for free, people and 
companies aren't willing to look into commercial options?

- Something else...?
May 15 2008
parent BCS <ao pathlink.com> writes:
Reply to Robert,


 Dave wrote:
 

 This is a perfect example of how the open-source mentality stifles
 innovation - small development organizations can't make a buck off of
 software anymore, so why take the time to do it right
 


 I'm not sure if I'm understanding you point. Are you saying?:
 
 - Open source developers make products that are good enough such that
 small development houses can't compete? How does that "stifle
 innovation"?
 
 - Open source developers are not innovative or are "doing it wrong",
 but because their products are often made available for free, people
 and companies aren't willing to look into commercial options?
 
 - Something else...?
 


one possible issue is if there is a better way to do something that is not 
practical to do without a pile of money. Open source won't do it near as 
fast as for-profit will and open source makes it hard for smaller shops to 
break into a market.

That said, I can't think of anything that fits the bill.
May 16 2008
prev sibling parent Jason House <jason.james.house gmail.com> writes:
Dave Wrote:


 
 "Jason House" <jason.james.house gmail.com> wrote in message 
 news:g0i5gi$sr2$1 digitalmars.com...

I develop a multithreaded game-playing engine 
http://housebot.sourceforge.net
 Of critical importance to me is debugger integration, multithreaded 
 support, data visualization, full Tango compatibility, support for all gdc 
 platforms, and integrated profiling and unit test coverage analysis. I 
 could see spending $50 on something like that, but only if I know it will 
 remain useful.

 An IDE stops being useful if I have to buy a new version with each D 
 release, or is close in functionality to free alternatives.


 
 $50 for all that and a virtual life-time maintenance contract -- Wow, big 
 spender!


I don't expect life-time maintenance for free, but I also don't want to pay for
an upgrade every time the DMD compiler changes.  That can happen on a weekly
basis!  Visual studio runs $100-$200 and seems to release new versions every
2-3 years.  I don't think a D IDE can wait that long between new releases.




 Just because you give your software away doesn't mean the rest of us should 
 <g>



It more means that my D-based cash flow is limited ($0).  That then puts IDE's
into the category of recreational spending.  I don't pay more than ~$50 for
video games.  I'm sure the hobbyist's perspective is far different from that of
copanies which'll pay top dollar to enhance the efficiency of their employees.




 This is a perfect example of how the open-source mentality stifles 
 innovation - small development organizations can't make a buck off of 
 software anymore, so why take the time to do it right ;)


You may be joking, but it's probably worth saying that open source raises the
expected quality of commercial applications.  Right now, I can already get most
functionality I want/need for free:
  IDE: emacs+d-mode or Eclipse+Descent
  Debugger: GDB (with demangling patch)
  Compiler: GDC or DMD
  Build System: make or dsss
(There are some other windows-only options too)

Do I mind having all of those pieces separate?  Not really.  Would I like
having better integration between the tools?  Yes.

If those open source projects didn't exist, my need for an all-in-one IDE would
be much higher.  This makes it tougher for a commercial company because their
price is not measured against their feature set but rather the incremental
features beyond what is available for free.  I also expect modern commercial
applications to leverage existing open source products.  I think the original
post talked about a commercial PLUGIN to eclipse.
May 16 2008
prev sibling next sibling parent reply Tower Ty <towerty msn.com.au> writes:
In other words they want everything they can possibly get ,right now and for
nothing .

There are not the numbers here to justify your time and prior competition
anyway.
You would be better advised to move on .
May 15 2008
next sibling parent BCS <ao pathlink.com> writes:
Reply to Tower,


 In other words they want everything they can possibly get ,right now
 and for nothing .
 
 There are not the numbers here to justify your time and prior
 competition anyway.


I think the same thing applies here as with job adds. People ask for a lot 
more than they expect to get. (That was told to me by someone who writes 
them)

As to cost: Don't plan on selling it to people (me and us), plan on selling 
it to people's employers. They will spend a bit more. As for me, the only 
way I'm going to buy it with my /own/ money would be something like an academic 
license.

While Ty may be not to far off on the market size for now, the proposed product 
just might be able to change that.

And a little competition never hurt anyone.
May 15 2008
prev sibling parent "Chris R. Miller" <lordSaurontheGreat gmail.com> writes:
Tower Ty wrote:

 In other words they want everything they can possibly get ,right now an=


d for nothing .

=20
 There are not the numbers here to justify your time and prior competiti=


on anyway.

 You would be better advised to move on .


I have to agree.  Descent is already shaping up to be something of an=20
end-all IDE for D.  If Descent doesn't beat you to the punch, then quite =

certainly Entice Designer will.  I would imagine that it's very=20
difficult to write a GUI builder, and especially so to write one that=20
works with *both* DWT and DFL.
May 15 2008
prev sibling next sibling parent reply Arne <user domain.invalid> writes:
Hi all,

thank you for your feedback. Of course we know TIOBE, of course we know Descent
and the other competition. And it's pretty clear that a single person that does
not make it's living from programming D couldn't pay (much) for an commercial
IDE. But thats not the point. The only information that we miss is:

Are there comercial companys that use D? Are there persons that sit 8 hours a
day programming D to make theire living?
May 15 2008
next sibling parent Sclytrack <Sclytrack pi.be> writes:
It is too soon for commercial. Ask the question again next year.

There I just saved you from bankruptcy.
May 16 2008
prev sibling next sibling parent "Saaa" <empty needmail.com> writes:
 Are there comercial companys that use D? Are there persons that sit 8 
 hours a day programming D to make theire living?


Yes
May 16 2008
prev sibling next sibling parent reply "Vladimir Panteleev" <thecybershadow gmail.com> writes:
On Fri, 16 May 2008 09:21:39 +0300, Arne <user domain.invalid> wrote:


 Are there comercial companys that use D? Are there persons that sit 8 hours a
day programming D to make theire living?


There are (I freelance and program in D whenever I can), but probably less than
you expect.

If you intend to make profit as soon as you release the product, IMHO right now
it's early for a commercial product targeted for developers, because not enough
"suits" know about D for it to have any kind of corporate usage/support. On the
other hand, one of the reasons why this is not happening is the lack of a
stable, productive platform/package with available commercial support. D's
toolchain is currently more than sufficient, but new developers must acquire
and study all the necessary tools to become productive. Currently, I'm not
aware of a package that either contains or can download&install a
compiler+builder, debugger, IDE, additional libraries/packages, etc. - which is
what (IMO) D needs most for quick adoption. Given the speed of D's rising
popularity and depending on the development time, your IDE might hit the market
at just the right moment.

-- 
Best regards,
  Vladimir                          mailto:thecybershadow gmail.com
May 16 2008
next sibling parent "Nick Sabalausky" <a a.a> writes:
"Vladimir Panteleev" <thecybershadow gmail.com> wrote in message 
news:op.ua9fq9qam02fvl cybershadow...

 On Fri, 16 May 2008 09:21:39 +0300, Arne <user domain.invalid> wrote:


 Are there comercial companys that use D? Are there persons that sit 8 
 hours a day programming D to make theire living?


 There are (I freelance and program in D whenever I can), but probably less 
 than you expect.

 If you intend to make profit as soon as you release the product, IMHO 
 right now it's early for a commercial product targeted for developers, 
 because not enough "suits" know about D for it to have any kind of 
 corporate usage/support. On the other hand, one of the reasons why this is 
 not happening is the lack of a stable, productive platform/package with 
 available commercial support. D's toolchain is currently more than 
 sufficient, but new developers must acquire and study all the necessary 
 tools to become productive. Currently, I'm not aware of a package that 
 either contains or can download&install a compiler+builder, debugger, IDE, 
 additional libraries/packages, etc. - which is what (IMO) D needs most for 
 quick adoption. Given the speed of D's rising popularity and depending on 
 the development time, your IDE might hit the market at just the right 
 moment.


Sorry for this "me too" post, but I have to say: Vladimir hit the nail 
squarely on the head here. This is exactly correct on the state of things 
and what needs to happen.
May 16 2008
prev sibling next sibling parent Bill Baxter <dnewsgroup billbaxter.com> writes:
Vladimir Panteleev wrote:


 Currently, I'm
 not aware of a package that either contains or can download&install a
 compiler+builder, debugger, IDE, additional libraries/packages, etc.
 - which is what (IMO) D needs most for quick adoption. 


There is the thing the Chris Miller the Newer has put together. 
Windows-only though.

--bb
May 16 2008
prev sibling next sibling parent Georg Wrede <georg nospam.org> writes:
Vladimir Panteleev wrote:

 On Fri, 16 May 2008 09:21:39 +0300, Arne <user domain.invalid> wrote:
 
 Given the speed of D's rising popularity and depending on the
 development time, your IDE might hit the market at just the right
 moment.


I have to agree.
May 16 2008
prev sibling parent Walter Bright <newshound1 digitalmars.com> writes:
Vladimir Panteleev wrote:

 Given the
 speed of D's rising popularity and depending on the development time,
 your IDE might hit the market at just the right moment.


When I first started on a C++ compiler, there wasn't much interest in 
C++. When it was done, I got lucky and it hit the market right with the 
rising interest (and I believe that the Zortech C++ was a big factor in 
that rise in popularity and C++ gaining critical mass). The competition 
was caught flat-footed, and it took them years to catch up.

Which was great for Zortech, they made a lot of money.

If you wait for everyone else to get on the dance floor first, then you 
have to share :-)
May 16 2008
prev sibling next sibling parent reply Jesse Phillips <jessekphillips gmail.com> writes:
On Fri, 16 May 2008 02:21:39 -0400, Arne wrote:


 Hi all,
 
 thank you for your feedback. Of course we know TIOBE, of course we know
 Descent and the other competition. And it's pretty clear that a single
 person that does not make it's living from programming D couldn't pay
 (much) for an commercial IDE. But thats not the point. The only
 information that we miss is:
 
 Are there comercial companys that use D? Are there persons that sit 8
 hours a day programming D to make theire living?


I'm agreeing with Vladimir, right now there is no market for a commercial 
IDE. D is gaining popularity, it is getting lots of good press and some 
bad. Complaints come around that D is missing this market, that it hasn't 
been polished enough to be used by anyone, see any of Ty Towers posts. 
And I'm sure that most everyone here would love to be able to push their 
employers to switch, but without a commercial IDE it is harder.

The point is you aren't likely to be making money with in the next year 
or two. Once you have completed it, you might have to keep it updated to 
the latest language features even if your not rolling in the dough. It 
might be important to consider if your company could eat the cost of 
development, I think there will be a market coming for D, but it could 
take awhile.

Oh and as mentioned before, good debugging support there really isn't 
much to support D's features yet.
May 16 2008
parent reply Tower Ty <tytower hotmail.com.au> writes:
Jesse Phillips Wrote:


 I'm agreeing with Vladimir, right now there is no market for a commercial 
 IDE. D is gaining popularity, it is getting lots of good press and some 
 bad. Complaints come around that D is missing this market, that it hasn't 
 been polished enough to be used by anyone, see any of Ty Towers posts. 
 And I'm sure that most everyone here would love to be able to push their 
 employers to switch, but without a commercial IDE it is harder.
 
 The point is you aren't likely to be making money with in the next year 
 or two. Once you have completed it, you might have to keep it updated to 
 the latest language features even if your not rolling in the dough. It 
 might be important to consider if your company could eat the cost of 
 development, I think there will be a market coming for D, but it could 
 take awhile.



Exaggeration  indeed .  I answer the question honestly withwhat  I have seen   

I have not seen any evidence of  usage by even 200 people as yet.
I have not seen evidence of any appreciable development work being undertaken
at this time except on DWT . 
I don't know but I don't think the development team is very big ,possibly only
a handful .

D looks like an easily understandable and potentially very useable programming
language , simplifying a lot of the confusing superfluous stuff of other
languages.

By the same token getting in at the start can put you ahead of the game as
Walter added in his post above and  as much as I bitch  I would still recommend
a student study it . Valuable pointer to the future. You just have to ignore
the possessive protectionists who frequent the forums

Can't see how anyone could make a buck from another IDE for D
May 17 2008
parent reply Jesse Phillips <jessekphillips gmail.com> writes:
On Sat, 17 May 2008 07:54:53 -0400, Tower  Ty wrote:


 Jesse Phillips Wrote:
 

 I'm agreeing with Vladimir, right now there is no market for a
 commercial IDE. D is gaining popularity, it is getting lots of good
 press and some bad. Complaints come around that D is missing this
 market, that it hasn't been polished enough to be used by anyone, see
 any of Ty Towers posts. And I'm sure that most everyone here would love
 to be able to push their employers to switch, but without a commercial
 IDE it is harder.
 
 The point is you aren't likely to be making money with in the next year
 or two. Once you have completed it, you might have to keep it updated
 to the latest language features even if your not rolling in the dough.
 It might be important to consider if your company could eat the cost of
 development, I think there will be a market coming for D, but it could
 take awhile.


 
 
 Exaggeration  indeed .  I answer the question honestly withwhat  I have
 seen
 
 I have not seen any evidence of  usage by even 200 people as yet. I have
 not seen evidence of any appreciable development work being undertaken
 at this time except on DWT . I don't know but I don't think the
 development team is very big ,possibly only a handful .
 
 D looks like an easily understandable and potentially very useable
 programming language , simplifying a lot of the confusing superfluous
 stuff of other languages.
 
 By the same token getting in at the start can put you ahead of the game
 as Walter added in his post above and  as much as I bitch  I would still
 recommend a student study it . Valuable pointer to the future. You just
 have to ignore the possessive protectionists who frequent the forums
 
 Can't see how anyone could make a buck from another IDE for D


I agree, you did answer based on your observations, but I don't feel that 
I misrepresented your complaints either. You were correct in that there 
aren't the numbers to justify their time, right now. My post more about 
D's potential much like Walter's, though I don't know why my post was so 
late as I posted before 8. I wasn't trying to attack you, many share your 
views, but they aren't using D.
May 17 2008
parent reply Lars Ivar Igesund <larsivar igesund.net> writes:
Jesse Phillips wrote:


 On Sat, 17 May 2008 07:54:53 -0400, Tower  Ty wrote:
 

 Jesse Phillips Wrote:
 

 I'm agreeing with Vladimir, right now there is no market for a
 commercial IDE. D is gaining popularity, it is getting lots of good
 press and some bad. Complaints come around that D is missing this
 market, that it hasn't been polished enough to be used by anyone, see
 any of Ty Towers posts. And I'm sure that most everyone here would love
 to be able to push their employers to switch, but without a commercial
 IDE it is harder.
 
 The point is you aren't likely to be making money with in the next year
 or two. Once you have completed it, you might have to keep it updated
 to the latest language features even if your not rolling in the dough.
 It might be important to consider if your company could eat the cost of
 development, I think there will be a market coming for D, but it could
 take awhile.


 
 
 Exaggeration  indeed .  I answer the question honestly withwhat  I have
 seen
 
 I have not seen any evidence of  usage by even 200 people as yet. I have
 not seen evidence of any appreciable development work being undertaken
 at this time except on DWT . I don't know but I don't think the
 development team is very big ,possibly only a handful .
 
 D looks like an easily understandable and potentially very useable
 programming language , simplifying a lot of the confusing superfluous
 stuff of other languages.
 
 By the same token getting in at the start can put you ahead of the game
 as Walter added in his post above and  as much as I bitch  I would still
 recommend a student study it . Valuable pointer to the future. You just
 have to ignore the possessive protectionists who frequent the forums
 
 Can't see how anyone could make a buck from another IDE for D


 
 I agree, you did answer based on your observations, but I don't feel that
 I misrepresented your complaints either. You were correct in that there
 aren't the numbers to justify their time, right now. My post more about
 D's potential much like Walter's, though I don't know why my post was so
 late as I posted before 8. I wasn't trying to attack you, many share your
 views, but they aren't using D.


Considering that close to a 100 peoples (just names I know, there are others
without names) contributed to Tango so far, there definately are far more D
users out there than 200 - and most companies using D for commercial
development won't tell you in public. So whatever goes on in these news
group is _not_ accountable for even a small portion of total D activity.

-- 
Lars Ivar Igesund
blog at http://larsivi.net
DSource, #d.tango & #D: larsivi
Dancing the Tango
May 17 2008
next sibling parent reply Walter Bright <newshound1 digitalmars.com> writes:
Lars Ivar Igesund wrote:

 Considering that close to a 100 peoples (just names I know, there are others
 without names) contributed to Tango so far, there definately are far more D
 users out there than 200 - and most companies using D for commercial
 development won't tell you in public. So whatever goes on in these news
 group is _not_ accountable for even a small portion of total D activity.


I suspect that probably about 20-25 times as many people lurk in this 
n.g. rather than post in it. The ratio of users to developers to 
contribute to Tango is probably much, much higher.
May 17 2008
parent BCS <ao pathlink.com> writes:
Reply to Walter,


 Lars Ivar Igesund wrote:
 

 Considering that close to a 100 peoples (just names I know, there are
 others without names) contributed to Tango so far, there definately
 are far more D users out there than 200 - and most companies using D
 for commercial development won't tell you in public. So whatever goes
 on in these news group is _not_ accountable for even a small portion
 of total D activity.
 


 I suspect that probably about 20-25 times as many people lurk in this
 n.g. rather than post in it. The ratio of users to developers to
 contribute to Tango is probably much, much higher.
 


anyway we can get ballpark number on the IP counts for the NG downloads, 
dmd.zip downloads or svn.dsource.org?
May 17 2008
prev sibling parent Jesse Phillips <jessekphillips gmail.com> writes:
On Sat, 17 May 2008 18:28:27 +0200, Lars Ivar Igesund wrote:


 Jesse Phillips wrote:
 

 On Sat, 17 May 2008 07:54:53 -0400, Tower  Ty wrote:
 

 Jesse Phillips Wrote:
 

 I'm agreeing with Vladimir, right now there is no market for a
 commercial IDE. D is gaining popularity, it is getting lots of good
 press and some bad. Complaints come around that D is missing this
 market, that it hasn't been polished enough to be used by anyone, see
 any of Ty Towers posts. And I'm sure that most everyone here would
 love to be able to push their employers to switch, but without a
 commercial IDE it is harder.
 
 The point is you aren't likely to be making money with in the next
 year or two. Once you have completed it, you might have to keep it
 updated to the latest language features even if your not rolling in
 the dough. It might be important to consider if your company could
 eat the cost of development, I think there will be a market coming
 for D, but it could take awhile.


 
 
 Exaggeration  indeed .  I answer the question honestly withwhat  I
 have seen
 
 I have not seen any evidence of  usage by even 200 people as yet. I
 have not seen evidence of any appreciable development work being
 undertaken at this time except on DWT . I don't know but I don't think
 the development team is very big ,possibly only a handful .
 
 D looks like an easily understandable and potentially very useable
 programming language , simplifying a lot of the confusing superfluous
 stuff of other languages.
 
 By the same token getting in at the start can put you ahead of the
 game as Walter added in his post above and  as much as I bitch  I
 would still recommend a student study it . Valuable pointer to the
 future. You just have to ignore the possessive protectionists who
 frequent the forums
 
 Can't see how anyone could make a buck from another IDE for D


 
 I agree, you did answer based on your observations, but I don't feel
 that I misrepresented your complaints either. You were correct in that
 there aren't the numbers to justify their time, right now. My post more
 about D's potential much like Walter's, though I don't know why my post
 was so late as I posted before 8. I wasn't trying to attack you, many
 share your views, but they aren't using D.


 
 Considering that close to a 100 peoples (just names I know, there are
 others without names) contributed to Tango so far, there definately are
 far more D users out there than 200 - and most companies using D for
 commercial development won't tell you in public. So whatever goes on in
 these news group is _not_ accountable for even a small portion of total
 D activity.


Oh, I realize that who is seen is not the number of users, but 200, 300 
or 1000 users really isn't that much. The number of users that are 
willing to purchase the product is only going to be a fraction of that 
number. If you charge $50 for it you might only get 20% to buy it, if you 
increase the price the percentage will drop. You need the correct 
percentage/user ratio to get your money back.

I'm sure you already know this, and it is good to know that there has 
been a good number of contributors to Tango, and I'm sure Arne likes to 
hear that.
May 18 2008
prev sibling parent Lars Ivar Igesund <larsivar igesund.net> writes:
Arne wrote:


 Hi all,
 
 thank you for your feedback. Of course we know TIOBE, of course we know
 Descent and the other competition. And it's pretty clear that a single
 person that does not make it's living from programming D couldn't pay
 (much) for an commercial IDE. But thats not the point. The only
 information that we miss is:
 
 Are there comercial companys that use D? Are there persons that sit 8
 hours a day programming D to make theire living?


Yes.

As to whether there are enough of those to make the work worth it for you,
hard to say. I'd say there is a hen-and-chicken situation, and companies
like yours will have to step up to resolve it. A good IDE (and complete
toolchain) will help fulfill the prophecy of the coming of D. Saying "wait
another year" will leave D dead in the water.

-- 
Lars Ivar Igesund
blog at http://larsivi.net
DSource, #d.tango & #D: larsivi
Dancing the Tango
May 17 2008
prev sibling next sibling parent reply "Nick Sabalausky" <a a.a> writes:
"Arne" <user domain.invalid> wrote in message 
news:g0gm1q$2ar1$1 digitalmars.com...

 Hi all,

 I'm a developer specialised in making eclipse based IDEs. We consider to 
 create a comercial quality IDE for D but are unsure if it will pay of (and 
 so we are able to throw full time developers at the project).

 We need to know if there will be enough customers. Do you use D for 
 commercial projects? Does your company make money with it? And is able to 
 pay for an IDE (if it fullfill your needs and speed up your development, 
 of course)?

 It would be helpfull if you can describe in a few words what you do with D 
 and perhaps could provide a link.


I use D whenever my hands aren't tied in regard to which language to use.

Regarding tools: right now, I'm using the open-source stuff (CodeBlocks 
currently), but out of all such things I've tried, I've have had a number of 
complaints with each. Even with CodeBlocks, I have a good handful of 
bug/feature tickets in their system, and being open-source, I'm not 
expecting those tickets to get resolved soon. And, unfortunately, I just 
don't have time to help out on them myself. I've been meaning to give 
another try to things like Zeus and Programmer's Notepad, but haven't gotten 
around to it.

So basically, I'd be willing to pay a price comparable to Visual Studio 
Professional for an IDE that's comparable to Visual Studio Professional (I'm 

since I've used it for C/C++). Although, preferably with better performance 
in terms of speed and memory usage - I really like responsiveness of the 
lighter-weight solutions like CodeBlocks.

Oh, and there better not be any invisible text (or other UI elements) when I 
run it on a system with a light-on-dark system color scheme, because that's 
just incredibly unprofessional and places it squarely in the category of 
"things I'd only use for free". You'd be surprised how many people, both 
commercial and open-source, don't follow the guideline of "Foreground and 
background colors: Never change one away from system-default without also 
changing the other." Hell, I've even seen built-in Windows screens that 
ignored that, and you think that *MS'S WINDOWS TEAM*, of all people, would 
be well aware that Windows *SUPPORTS CUSTOM COLOR SCHEMES*, and has 
supported them since at least as far back as Win3.1. Umm, sorry for the rant 
;)

But back to the original issue, anything based on Eclipse would definitely 
NOT fit the bill for me. I've tried to use Eclipse a few times before and 
find it hopelessly bloated (even a little moreso than Visual Studio), and 
whatever the heck it uses instead of the nice clean "project file and 
workspace file" mechanism of IDE's like Visual Studio and CodeBlocks just 
doesn't seem to make any sense at all.
May 16 2008
parent reply Robert Fraser <fraserofthenight gmail.com> writes:
Nick Sabalausky wrote:

 whatever the heck it uses instead of the nice clean "project file and 
 workspace file" mechanism of IDE's like Visual Studio and CodeBlocks just 
 doesn't seem to make any sense at all. 


... Hidden folder in the workspace and 2 project files?
May 16 2008
parent reply "Nick Sabalausky" <a a.a> writes:
"Robert Fraser" <fraserofthenight gmail.com> wrote in message 
news:g0kv7d$2gvg$1 digitalmars.com...

 Nick Sabalausky wrote:

 whatever the heck it uses instead of the nice clean "project file and 
 workspace file" mechanism of IDE's like Visual Studio and CodeBlocks just 
 doesn't seem to make any sense at all.


 ... Hidden folder in the workspace and 2 project files?


The whole concept of projects and workspaces in Eclipse just strikes me as a 
bit...clumsy.

With Notepad, you start it up, create whatever you need to create, and then 
save it as a single file, named whatever you want, placed wherever you want 
(Or, of course, you can save first just to create the file, and then add 
whatever to the blank file). Simple, easy, flexible, and IMO the way it 
should be.

Visual Studio extends this simple, flexible mechanism to the concept of both 
projects and workspaces (with .NET-era Visual Studio using the term 
"solution" instead of "workspace"). I start up Visual Studio, create 
whatever I want to create (or save first), and then save the project to one 
single file named whatever I want, placed wherever I want. The workspace is 
also saved to one single file named whatever I want, placed wherever I want. 
If I add another project to the workspace, same thing, one nice neat file 
per project and one per workspace. Each file references whatever files it 
needs, and if you move/rename something, you can always update the 
references either in the IDE or in the actual files themselves.

Granted, Visual Studio does automatically generate one extra "user settings" 
file per project (or is it per workspace? whatever, either way...), but I've 
never found that to be a problem. It's just data that wouldn't make sense to 
put under source control anyway, and nothing important enough that 
recreating the data is anything you'd even give a conscious thought to 
anyway (IIRC, frame layout settings, etc).

But with Eclipse: First, you can't even be in the main UI at all without the 
session already being attached to an already named-and-saved workspace 
(Hence, the "choose a workspace" startup dialog.) That's a bit of a clumsy 
and arbitrary restriction and doesn't appear to provide any real benefit 
(imagine if Notepad worked that way).

Secondly, being from the Java world, Eclipse follows the (misguided, IMO) 
Java philosophy of marrying its self with the filesystem. "A workspace 
contains projects and projects contain sources, therefore workspaces and 
projects should be folders, not files." Yea, well, the problem is that's 
forcefully imposing an arbitrary choice.

If I want to follow a convention of projects and workspaces being folders, I 
can already do that with VS-style projects and workspaces. I make a folder 
for the workspace, stick a workspace file named ".workspace" in there, make 
subfolders for the projects, stick project files named ".project" in those, 
etc. True, in that case, projects and workspaces aren't *really* folders, 
they're each a folder *and* a file, but Eclipse already has to do that 
anyway.

You can *kinda* work around this in Eclipse with "Create Project From 
Existing Source", but there are still limitations (a project and workspace 
can't occupy the same directory - which breaks my usual style of sticking 
the project and workspace files next to each other in the top-level of a 
"MyProgram" directory).

Plus, switching workspaces makes the entire Eclipse program reload (slow, 
and why, for instance, should the help window close when I load a different 
workspace?)

Also, Eclipse seems to marry the ideas of "user settings" together with that 
of "workspace". For instance, there are some settings, like syntax coloring 
settings and "Open Associated Perspective: Remember my decision", that are 
associated with a workspace, but should be treated as global user settings 
(or at least, global within the scope of a user account).

Now if Eclipse had a notion of "Targets" (like CodeWarrior, IIRC) that were 
children of projects, and contained the source files, then that would solve 
most of my problems with Eclipse's workspaces, because then I could treat a 
"Workspace" as container for user settings, and treat "A project with 
target(s)" as alternate terminology for VS.NET's "A solution with 
project(s)". But as far as I can tell, Eclipse doesn't seem to have this.
May 17 2008
parent reply Robert Fraser <fraserofthenight gmail.com> writes:
Nick Sabalausky wrote:

 "Robert Fraser" <fraserofthenight gmail.com> wrote in message 
 news:g0kv7d$2gvg$1 digitalmars.com...

 Nick Sabalausky wrote:

 whatever the heck it uses instead of the nice clean "project file and 
 workspace file" mechanism of IDE's like Visual Studio and CodeBlocks just 
 doesn't seem to make any sense at all.


 ... Hidden folder in the workspace and 2 project files?


 
 The whole concept of projects and workspaces in Eclipse just strikes me as a 
 bit...clumsy.
 
 With Notepad, you start it up, create whatever you need to create, and then 
 save it as a single file, named whatever you want, placed wherever you want 
 (Or, of course, you can save first just to create the file, and then add 
 whatever to the blank file). Simple, easy, flexible, and IMO the way it 
 should be.
 
 Visual Studio extends this simple, flexible mechanism to the concept of both 
 projects and workspaces (with .NET-era Visual Studio using the term 
 "solution" instead of "workspace"). I start up Visual Studio, create 
 whatever I want to create (or save first), and then save the project to one 
 single file named whatever I want, placed wherever I want. The workspace is 
 also saved to one single file named whatever I want, placed wherever I want. 
 If I add another project to the workspace, same thing, one nice neat file 
 per project and one per workspace. Each file references whatever files it 
 needs, and if you move/rename something, you can always update the 
 references either in the IDE or in the actual files themselves.


I think Eclipse has a lot of the same things, but gives special names to 
the enclosing folder. For example, in Visual Studio you have a workspace 
file, while in Eclipse, you have a .metadata folder in the workspace. 
The .metadata folder can be thought of as the "workspace file" since any 
folder that encloses this is a workspace. Similarly, in the project root 
directory, there's a ".project" and ".classpath" file. These files can 
be thought of as the "project files", and whatever folder they are in 
Eclipse will treat as the project.


 Granted, Visual Studio does automatically generate one extra "user settings" 
 file per project (or is it per workspace? whatever, either way...), but I've 
 never found that to be a problem. It's just data that wouldn't make sense to 
 put under source control anyway, and nothing important enough that 
 recreating the data is anything you'd even give a conscious thought to 
 anyway (IIRC, frame layout settings, etc).
 
 But with Eclipse: First, you can't even be in the main UI at all without the 
 session already being attached to an already named-and-saved workspace 
 (Hence, the "choose a workspace" startup dialog.) That's a bit of a clumsy 
 and arbitrary restriction and doesn't appear to provide any real benefit 
 (imagine if Notepad worked that way).


The user settings in Eclipse are associated with the workspace and not 
the user (I guess this is what you're complaining about).


 Secondly, being from the Java world, Eclipse follows the (misguided, IMO) 
 Java philosophy of marrying its self with the filesystem. "A workspace 
 contains projects and projects contain sources, therefore workspaces and 
 projects should be folders, not files." Yea, well, the problem is that's 
 forcefully imposing an arbitrary choice.
 
 If I want to follow a convention of projects and workspaces being folders, I 
 can already do that with VS-style projects and workspaces. I make a folder 
 for the workspace, stick a workspace file named ".workspace" in there, make 
 subfolders for the projects, stick project files named ".project" in those, 
 etc. True, in that case, projects and workspaces aren't *really* folders, 
 they're each a folder *and* a file, but Eclipse already has to do that 
 anyway.
 
 You can *kinda* work around this in Eclipse with "Create Project From 
 Existing Source", but there are still limitations (a project and workspace 
 can't occupy the same directory - which breaks my usual style of sticking 
 the project and workspace files next to each other in the top-level of a 
 "MyProgram" directory).


If that's the case then you're probably misunderstanding the point of 
workspaces and making thm too small in scope. For example, I use a 
single workspace for all my projects (well, two; I always use Descent as 
an Eclipse runtime).


 Plus, switching workspaces makes the entire Eclipse program reload (slow, 
 and why, for instance, should the help window close when I load a different 
 workspace?)
 
 Also, Eclipse seems to marry the ideas of "user settings" together with that 
 of "workspace". For instance, there are some settings, like syntax coloring 
 settings and "Open Associated Perspective: Remember my decision", that are 
 associated with a workspace, but should be treated as global user settings 
 (or at least, global within the scope of a user account).
 
 Now if Eclipse had a notion of "Targets" (like CodeWarrior, IIRC) that were 
 children of projects, and contained the source files, then that would solve 
 most of my problems with Eclipse's workspaces, because then I could treat a 
 "Workspace" as container for user settings, and treat "A project with 
 target(s)" as alternate terminology for VS.NET's "A solution with 
 project(s)". But as far as I can tell, Eclipse doesn't seem to have this.


I think you're tying the "workspace" to the "project" too closely. 
Visual Studio tends to associate those two concepts. In Eclipse, 
"workspace" and "user" are tied together, as there rarely seems to be 
any need to have multiple workspaces per user.
May 18 2008
next sibling parent reply Jussi Jumppanen <jussij zeusedit.com> writes:
Robert Fraser Wrote:


 as there rarely seems to be any need to have multiple 
 workspaces per user.


MSVC used the term "workspace" to represent what was
being created and in this context is probably a bad
choice of word. 

In more recent versions of MSVC this wording has been
improved since the name workspace has been replaced by 
solution and the word project replaced by item.

So for example any solution (ie the complete package
being built) can be made up on many items (exes, dll's, 
database, help files, image files, installers etc).

In this context there is definitely a need for multiple 
workspaces/solutions per user.
May 18 2008
parent Robert Fraser <fraserofthenight gmail.com> writes:
Jussi Jumppanen wrote:

 Robert Fraser Wrote:
 

 as there rarely seems to be any need to have multiple 
 workspaces per user.


 
 MSVC used the term "workspace" to represent what was
 being created and in this context is probably a bad
 choice of word. 
 
 In more recent versions of MSVC this wording has been
 improved since the name workspace has been replaced by 
 solution and the word project replaced by item.
 
 So for example any solution (ie the complete package
 being built) can be made up on many items (exes, dll's, 
 database, help files, image files, installers etc).
 
 In this context there is definitely a need for multiple 
 workspaces/solutions per user.


Ah, I see what you mean.

Eclipse is very Java-focused, and a few times I've run into difficulties 
with the framework being built mainly around JDT. In Java, there really 
isn't much of a need for this, since in Java your targets are basically 
just a bunch of class files and you use your run configuration to decide 
which one to activate. D, C(++) and other native languages have a lot 
more use for manging a solution with many projects (or a project with 
many targets, or whatever terminology you want to use). Still, adding 
such functionality would be possible for a plugin to do, and maybe 
someday Descent will need to have something like that, but it's 
certainly a difficult problem to solve, both in design and implementation.
May 18 2008
prev sibling parent reply "Nick Sabalausky" <a a.a> writes:
"Robert Fraser" <fraserofthenight gmail.com> wrote in message 
news:g0qhir$v5v$1 digitalmars.com...

 Nick Sabalausky wrote:

 Secondly, being from the Java world, Eclipse follows the (misguided, IMO) 
 Java philosophy of marrying its self with the filesystem. "A workspace 
 contains projects and projects contain sources, therefore workspaces and 
 projects should be folders, not files." Yea, well, the problem is that's 
 forcefully imposing an arbitrary choice.

 If I want to follow a convention of projects and workspaces being 
 folders, I can already do that with VS-style projects and workspaces. I 
 make a folder for the workspace, stick a workspace file named 
 ".workspace" in there, make subfolders for the projects, stick project 
 files named ".project" in those, etc. True, in that case, projects and 
 workspaces aren't *really* folders, they're each a folder *and* a file, 
 but Eclipse already has to do that anyway.

 You can *kinda* work around this in Eclipse with "Create Project From 
 Existing Source", but there are still limitations (a project and 
 workspace can't occupy the same directory - which breaks my usual style 
 of sticking the project and workspace files next to each other in the 
 top-level of a "MyProgram" directory).


 If that's the case then you're probably misunderstanding the point of 
 workspaces and making thm too small in scope. For example, I use a single 
 workspace for all my projects (well, two; I always use Descent as an 
 Eclipse runtime).


 Plus, switching workspaces makes the entire Eclipse program reload (slow, 
 and why, for instance, should the help window close when I load a 
 different workspace?)

 Also, Eclipse seems to marry the ideas of "user settings" together with 
 that of "workspace". For instance, there are some settings, like syntax 
 coloring settings and "Open Associated Perspective: Remember my 
 decision", that are associated with a workspace, but should be treated as 
 global user settings (or at least, global within the scope of a user 
 account).

 Now if Eclipse had a notion of "Targets" (like CodeWarrior, IIRC) that 
 were children of projects, and contained the source files, then that 
 would solve most of my problems with Eclipse's workspaces, because then I 
 could treat a "Workspace" as container for user settings, and treat "A 
 project with target(s)" as alternate terminology for VS.NET's "A solution 
 with project(s)". But as far as I can tell, Eclipse doesn't seem to have 
 this.


 I think you're tying the "workspace" to the "project" too closely. Visual 
 Studio tends to associate those two concepts. In Eclipse, "workspace" and 
 "user" are tied together, as there rarely seems to be any need to have 
 multiple workspaces per user.


If that's the case then I'd argue Eclipse's concept of a "project" is too 
limited/narrow (Unless it allows nested projects?).

Many times, I'll be working on some development project (that is, a 
"project" in the everyday english sense of the word, not an IDE concept of 
"project") that consists of more than one separate but related targets. Each 
target will have its own set of sources. For example, there might be:

- "My Application"
- A tool/utility or two that are specific to "My Application"
- A library of functionality shared between the main app and the 
app-specific tools/utils
- A sample plugin to test/demonstrate "My Application"'s plugin mechanism

And there may be some other totally unrelated "My Other Application" that 
has similar complexity.

So, that means there are a few requirements (all somewhat interrelated):

------------
1.

There needs to be a three-level hierarchy that, regardless of terminology, 
boils down to:

"Group of targets"->"Target"->"Sources/Assets"

2.

If I'm working on "My Application", I don't want the workspace to distract 
me with all of the targets associated with "My Other Application" as well as 
every other little program I write using the IDE.

3.

The "My Application" and "My Other Application" might be very different. For 
instance (all hypothetical), one might be a GameBoy Advance game I'm writing 
in plain old C, and the other an opensource Win32 email client written in 
Java and Lua on which I merely contribute, and maybe a third 
program/set-of-programs that's some big enterprisey thing for work using 
every damn language imaginable.

3A: While some settings should be associated with me as a user (ex: the 
highlighting settings for a given language, or text-editing keyboard 
shortcuts)...

3B: ...other settings should be specific to either "My Application" or "My 
Other Application" (ex: auto-formatting settings, certain panels 
opened/closed, certain panels resized differently).

Eclipse's "Perspectives" sound like a potential semi-solution to this, but 
from my limited understanding of them, it sounds like they're not 
project-specific, and don't cover all the types of settings I'm talking 
about here.
------------

If Eclipse's Workspace is treated as a system-wide "user" concept, then you 
have a mere two-level hierarchy of "Project"->"Sources". So you're lacking 
the "Group of targets"/"Solution" level that ties together "My Application" 
with its associated utils/libs/etc, while assigning appropriate "Group 
Settings" to that entire group and nothing more than that group. This breaks 


You could try to counteract this by treating "Workspace" as an ad-hoc "Group 
of targets"/"Solution" concept, but then not only do you get the awkwardness 


This could all be solved with, for example, a concept of "nested classes", 
or "a project consists of targets which have sources". But, I'm not aware of 
anything like this in Eclipse.
May 19 2008
next sibling parent "Nick Sabalausky" <a a.a> writes:
"Nick Sabalausky" <a a.a> wrote in message 
news:g0rdo5$2qga$1 digitalmars.com...

 If Eclipse's Workspace is treated as a system-wide "user" concept, then 
 you have a mere two-level hierarchy of "Project"->"Sources". So you're 
 lacking the "Group of targets"/"Solution" level that ties together "My 
 Application" with its associated utils/libs/etc, while assigning 
 appropriate "Group Settings" to that entire group and nothing more than 


 You could try to counteract this by treating "Workspace" as an ad-hoc 
 "Group of targets"/"Solution" concept, but then not only do you get the 

 are broken.



second paragraph.

(It's late and my head hurts. ;) )
May 19 2008
prev sibling parent reply David Gileadi <foo bar.com> writes:
Nick Sabalausky wrote:

 "Robert Fraser" <fraserofthenight gmail.com> wrote in message 
 news:g0qhir$v5v$1 digitalmars.com...

 Nick Sabalausky wrote:

 Secondly, being from the Java world, Eclipse follows the (misguided, IMO) 
 Java philosophy of marrying its self with the filesystem. "A workspace 
 contains projects and projects contain sources, therefore workspaces and 
 projects should be folders, not files." Yea, well, the problem is that's 
 forcefully imposing an arbitrary choice.

 If I want to follow a convention of projects and workspaces being 
 folders, I can already do that with VS-style projects and workspaces. I 
 make a folder for the workspace, stick a workspace file named 
 ".workspace" in there, make subfolders for the projects, stick project 
 files named ".project" in those, etc. True, in that case, projects and 
 workspaces aren't *really* folders, they're each a folder *and* a file, 
 but Eclipse already has to do that anyway.

 You can *kinda* work around this in Eclipse with "Create Project From 
 Existing Source", but there are still limitations (a project and 
 workspace can't occupy the same directory - which breaks my usual style 
 of sticking the project and workspace files next to each other in the 
 top-level of a "MyProgram" directory).


 If that's the case then you're probably misunderstanding the point of 
 workspaces and making thm too small in scope. For example, I use a single 
 workspace for all my projects (well, two; I always use Descent as an 
 Eclipse runtime).


 Plus, switching workspaces makes the entire Eclipse program reload (slow, 
 and why, for instance, should the help window close when I load a 
 different workspace?)

 Also, Eclipse seems to marry the ideas of "user settings" together with 
 that of "workspace". For instance, there are some settings, like syntax 
 coloring settings and "Open Associated Perspective: Remember my 
 decision", that are associated with a workspace, but should be treated as 
 global user settings (or at least, global within the scope of a user 
 account).

 Now if Eclipse had a notion of "Targets" (like CodeWarrior, IIRC) that 
 were children of projects, and contained the source files, then that 
 would solve most of my problems with Eclipse's workspaces, because then I 
 could treat a "Workspace" as container for user settings, and treat "A 
 project with target(s)" as alternate terminology for VS.NET's "A solution 
 with project(s)". But as far as I can tell, Eclipse doesn't seem to have 
 this.


 I think you're tying the "workspace" to the "project" too closely. Visual 
 Studio tends to associate those two concepts. In Eclipse, "workspace" and 
 "user" are tied together, as there rarely seems to be any need to have 
 multiple workspaces per user.


 
 If that's the case then I'd argue Eclipse's concept of a "project" is too 
 limited/narrow (Unless it allows nested projects?).
 
 Many times, I'll be working on some development project (that is, a 
 "project" in the everyday english sense of the word, not an IDE concept of 
 "project") that consists of more than one separate but related targets. Each 
 target will have its own set of sources. For example, there might be:
 
 - "My Application"
 - A tool/utility or two that are specific to "My Application"
 - A library of functionality shared between the main app and the 
 app-specific tools/utils
 - A sample plugin to test/demonstrate "My Application"'s plugin mechanism
 
 And there may be some other totally unrelated "My Other Application" that 
 has similar complexity.
 
 So, that means there are a few requirements (all somewhat interrelated):
 
 ------------
 1.
 
 There needs to be a three-level hierarchy that, regardless of terminology, 
 boils down to:
 
 "Group of targets"->"Target"->"Sources/Assets"
 
 2.
 
 If I'm working on "My Application", I don't want the workspace to distract 
 me with all of the targets associated with "My Other Application" as well as 
 every other little program I write using the IDE.
 
 3.
 
 The "My Application" and "My Other Application" might be very different. For 
 instance (all hypothetical), one might be a GameBoy Advance game I'm writing 
 in plain old C, and the other an opensource Win32 email client written in 
 Java and Lua on which I merely contribute, and maybe a third 
 program/set-of-programs that's some big enterprisey thing for work using 
 every damn language imaginable.
 
 3A: While some settings should be associated with me as a user (ex: the 
 highlighting settings for a given language, or text-editing keyboard 
 shortcuts)...
 
 3B: ...other settings should be specific to either "My Application" or "My 
 Other Application" (ex: auto-formatting settings, certain panels 
 opened/closed, certain panels resized differently).
 
 Eclipse's "Perspectives" sound like a potential semi-solution to this, but 
 from my limited understanding of them, it sounds like they're not 
 project-specific, and don't cover all the types of settings I'm talking 
 about here.
 ------------
 
 If Eclipse's Workspace is treated as a system-wide "user" concept, then you 
 have a mere two-level hierarchy of "Project"->"Sources". So you're lacking 
 the "Group of targets"/"Solution" level that ties together "My Application" 
 with its associated utils/libs/etc, while assigning appropriate "Group 
 Settings" to that entire group and nothing more than that group. This breaks 

 
 You could try to counteract this by treating "Workspace" as an ad-hoc "Group 
 of targets"/"Solution" concept, but then not only do you get the awkwardness 

 
 This could all be solved with, for example, a concept of "nested classes", 
 or "a project consists of targets which have sources". But, I'm not aware of 
 anything like this in Eclipse.
 
 


I think you may be looking for the concept of Working Sets.  Basically, 
it lets you pick the projects that are currently visible at the time. 
Here's one dev's explanation (found via Google): 
http://wbeaton.blogspot.com/2005/11/leanin-on-working-sets.html

I always customize my perspective to add the Window Working Set item to 
my toolbar (right-click on the toolbar and choose Customize 
Perspective..., then select it under the Commands tab).  This lets me 
pick my active working set(s) by just checking items in a dropdown menu.
May 19 2008
parent reply "Nick Sabalausky" <a a.a> writes:
"David Gileadi" <foo bar.com> wrote in message 
news:g0s8li$27jq$1 digitalmars.com...

 Nick Sabalausky wrote:

 So, that means there are a few requirements (all somewhat interrelated):

 ------------
 1.

 There needs to be a three-level hierarchy that, regardless of 
 terminology, boils down to:

 "Group of targets"->"Target"->"Sources/Assets"

 2.

 If I'm working on "My Application", I don't want the workspace to 
 distract me with all of the targets associated with "My Other 
 Application" as well as every other little program I write using the IDE.

 3.

 The "My Application" and "My Other Application" might be very different. 
 For instance (all hypothetical), one might be a GameBoy Advance game I'm 
 writing in plain old C, and the other an opensource Win32 email client 
 written in Java and Lua on which I merely contribute, and maybe a third 
 program/set-of-programs that's some big enterprisey thing for work using 
 every damn language imaginable.

 3A: While some settings should be associated with me as a user (ex: the 
 highlighting settings for a given language, or text-editing keyboard 
 shortcuts)...

 3B: ...other settings should be specific to either "My Application" or 
 "My Other Application" (ex: auto-formatting settings, certain panels 
 opened/closed, certain panels resized differently).

 Eclipse's "Perspectives" sound like a potential semi-solution to this, 
 but from my limited understanding of them, it sounds like they're not 
 project-specific, and don't cover all the types of settings I'm talking 
 about here.
 ------------

 If Eclipse's Workspace is treated as a system-wide "user" concept, then 
 you have a mere two-level hierarchy of "Project"->"Sources". So you're 
 lacking the "Group of targets"/"Solution" level that ties together "My 
 Application" with its associated utils/libs/etc, while assigning 
 appropriate "Group Settings" to that entire group and nothing more than 


 You could try to counteract this by treating "Workspace" as an ad-hoc 
 "Group of targets"/"Solution" concept, but then not only do you get the 

 are broken.

 This could all be solved with, for example, a concept of "nested 
 classes", or "a project consists of targets which have sources". But, I'm 
 not aware of anything like this in Eclipse.


 I think you may be looking for the concept of Working Sets.  Basically, it 
 lets you pick the projects that are currently visible at the time. Here's 
 one dev's explanation (found via Google): 
 http://wbeaton.blogspot.com/2005/11/leanin-on-working-sets.html

 I always customize my perspective to add the Window Working Set item to my 
 toolbar (right-click on the toolbar and choose Customize Perspective..., 
 then select it under the Commands tab).  This lets me pick my active 
 working set(s) by just checking items in a dropdown menu.


Do Working Sets allow you to have certain settings set up differently 

have to do multiple workspaces for that? If Working Sets will do that, then 
that might very well reduce my problems with eclipse down to just 
responsiveness/bloat (I was just messing around with both Eclipse v3.3.2 and 

more responsive).
May 19 2008
parent David Gileadi <foo bar.com> writes:
Nick Sabalausky wrote:

 "David Gileadi" <foo bar.com> wrote in message 
 news:g0s8li$27jq$1 digitalmars.com...

 Nick Sabalausky wrote:

 So, that means there are a few requirements (all somewhat interrelated):

 ------------
 1.

 There needs to be a three-level hierarchy that, regardless of 
 terminology, boils down to:

 "Group of targets"->"Target"->"Sources/Assets"

 2.

 If I'm working on "My Application", I don't want the workspace to 
 distract me with all of the targets associated with "My Other 
 Application" as well as every other little program I write using the IDE.

 3.

 The "My Application" and "My Other Application" might be very different. 
 For instance (all hypothetical), one might be a GameBoy Advance game I'm 
 writing in plain old C, and the other an opensource Win32 email client 
 written in Java and Lua on which I merely contribute, and maybe a third 
 program/set-of-programs that's some big enterprisey thing for work using 
 every damn language imaginable.

 3A: While some settings should be associated with me as a user (ex: the 
 highlighting settings for a given language, or text-editing keyboard 
 shortcuts)...

 3B: ...other settings should be specific to either "My Application" or 
 "My Other Application" (ex: auto-formatting settings, certain panels 
 opened/closed, certain panels resized differently).

 Eclipse's "Perspectives" sound like a potential semi-solution to this, 
 but from my limited understanding of them, it sounds like they're not 
 project-specific, and don't cover all the types of settings I'm talking 
 about here.
 ------------

 If Eclipse's Workspace is treated as a system-wide "user" concept, then 
 you have a mere two-level hierarchy of "Project"->"Sources". So you're 
 lacking the "Group of targets"/"Solution" level that ties together "My 
 Application" with its associated utils/libs/etc, while assigning 
 appropriate "Group Settings" to that entire group and nothing more than 


 You could try to counteract this by treating "Workspace" as an ad-hoc 
 "Group of targets"/"Solution" concept, but then not only do you get the 

 are broken.

 This could all be solved with, for example, a concept of "nested 
 classes", or "a project consists of targets which have sources". But, I'm 
 not aware of anything like this in Eclipse.


 I think you may be looking for the concept of Working Sets.  Basically, it 
 lets you pick the projects that are currently visible at the time. Here's 
 one dev's explanation (found via Google): 
 http://wbeaton.blogspot.com/2005/11/leanin-on-working-sets.html

 I always customize my perspective to add the Window Working Set item to my 
 toolbar (right-click on the toolbar and choose Customize Perspective..., 
 then select it under the Commands tab).  This lets me pick my active 
 working set(s) by just checking items in a dropdown menu.


 
 Do Working Sets allow you to have certain settings set up differently 

 have to do multiple workspaces for that? If Working Sets will do that, then 
 that might very well reduce my problems with eclipse down to just 
 responsiveness/bloat (I was just messing around with both Eclipse v3.3.2 and 

 more responsive). 
 
 


No, I don't believe they do.  Maybe Working Sets aren't what you're 
looking for after all.
May 19 2008
prev sibling parent Jussi Jumppanen <jussij zeusedit.com> writes:
Nick Sabalausky Wrote:


 I've been meaning to give another try to things like Zeus 
 and Programmer's Notepad, but haven't gotten around to it.
 ..
 whatever the heck it uses instead of the nice clean "project 
 file and workspace file" mechanism of IDE's like Visual Studio 
 and CodeBlocks just doesn't seem to make any sense at all. 


FWIW Zeus uses simple XML based project/workspace structure 
similar to MSVS: 

    http://www.zeusedit.com/images/lookwork.png

The latest version of Zeus will even import MSVS solution files ;)

Jussi Jumppanen
Author: Zeus for Windows IDE
May 18 2008