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digitalmars.D - Will D continu to live after walter death?

reply moechofe <art oui.la> writes:
What is the wanted lifetime of the project?
Is D will manage to pass through time?
It is valuable to start a 40 years old project using D?
Oct 12 2017
next sibling parent reply Andrea Fontana <nospam example.com> writes:
On Thursday, 12 October 2017 at 15:04:57 UTC, moechofe wrote:

 What is the wanted lifetime of the project?
 Is D will manage to pass through time?
 It is valuable to start a 40 years old project using D?


Of course. In 40years Walter will be alive.
Oct 12 2017
parent aberba <karabutaworld gmail.com> writes:
On Thursday, 12 October 2017 at 16:02:31 UTC, Andrea Fontana 
wrote:

 On Thursday, 12 October 2017 at 15:04:57 UTC, moechofe wrote:

 What is the wanted lifetime of the project?
 Is D will manage to pass through time?
 It is valuable to start a 40 years old project using D?


 Of course. In 40years Walter will be alive.


Ha ha. We will be running things by then. Ha ha.
Oct 13 2017
prev sibling next sibling parent Andrew Edwards <edwards.ac gmail.com> writes:
On Thursday, 12 October 2017 at 15:04:57 UTC, moechofe wrote:

 What is the wanted lifetime of the project?
 Is D will manage to pass through time?
 It is valuable to start a 40 years old project using D?


DMD, LDC, and GDC are all open source. So I guess the question 
would be: If everyone else perished and left you with the torch, 
just long would you be willing to carry it?
Oct 12 2017
prev sibling next sibling parent bauss <jj_1337 live.dk> writes:
On Thursday, 12 October 2017 at 15:04:57 UTC, moechofe wrote:

 What is the wanted lifetime of the project?
 Is D will manage to pass through time?
 It is valuable to start a 40 years old project using D?


Yes, because the project belongs to the D Foundation and not just 
Walter himself.
Oct 12 2017
prev sibling next sibling parent reply Walter Bright <newshound2 digitalmars.com> writes:
On 10/12/2017 8:04 AM, moechofe wrote:

 What is the wanted lifetime of the project?
 Is D will manage to pass through time?
 It is valuable to start a 40 years old project using D?


Just download my engrams into the D-9000 computer.
Oct 13 2017
next sibling parent bitwise <bitwise.pvt gmail.com> writes:
On Friday, 13 October 2017 at 10:07:39 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:

 On 10/12/2017 8:04 AM, moechofe wrote:

 What is the wanted lifetime of the project?
 Is D will manage to pass through time?
 It is valuable to start a 40 years old project using D?


 Just download my engrams into the D-9000 computer.


I was going to write a DIP - maybe I should just make a pull 
request directly to the D-9000 ;)
Oct 14 2017
prev sibling parent codephantom <me noyb.com> writes:
On Friday, 13 October 2017 at 10:07:39 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:

 On 10/12/2017 8:04 AM, moechofe wrote:

 What is the wanted lifetime of the project?
 Is D will manage to pass through time?
 It is valuable to start a 40 years old project using D?


 Just download my engrams into the D-9000 computer.


you're engrams have already been downloaded...into your 
code...(isn't that the whole point of code anyway?) ... and the 
code lives on...(well...until it doesn't).
Oct 15 2017
prev sibling next sibling parent Guillaume Piolat <contact spam.com> writes:
On Thursday, 12 October 2017 at 15:04:57 UTC, moechofe wrote:

 What is the wanted lifetime of the project?
 Is D will manage to pass through time?
 It is valuable to start a 40 years old project using D?


The Walter you known is already a clone, brought back to life for 
the good of the D empire.
Oct 13 2017
prev sibling next sibling parent Fra Mecca <me francescomecca.eu> writes:
On Thursday, 12 October 2017 at 15:04:57 UTC, moechofe wrote:

 What is the wanted lifetime of the project?
 Is D will manage to pass through time?
 It is valuable to start a 40 years old project using D?


I thought D was already Walter shoot at reaching immortality 
through singularity
Oct 13 2017
prev sibling next sibling parent reply inspecta-deck <inspecta deck.com> writes:
On Thursday, 12 October 2017 at 15:04:57 UTC, moechofe wrote:

 What is the wanted lifetime of the project?
 Is D will manage to pass through time?
 It is valuable to start a 40 years old project using D?


Wo ist Walter?
Oct 15 2017
parent Walter Bright <newshound2 digitalmars.com> writes:
On 10/15/2017 2:36 PM, inspecta-deck wrote:

 Wo ist Walter?


In das Machinen mit der Blinkenlights und Sparken Spitzen.
Oct 15 2017
prev sibling next sibling parent reply Rion <Rion Rion.com> writes:
On Thursday, 12 October 2017 at 15:04:57 UTC, moechofe wrote:

 What is the wanted lifetime of the project?
 Is D will manage to pass through time?
 It is valuable to start a 40 years old project using D?


Its a serious topic but that gets way too much joking.

While D is part of the foundation, that is not the issue. It is 
leadership, focus, goals, long term vision ... There are not that 
many people that can take over that task successfullly.

I noticed its all a joke to people. Posted in a other topic about 
the fragmented nature of D and the high focus on solo developers. 
And the issue of what happens if a main developer of a extension 
has no more time or god forbids dies. That same applies to D as a 
language.

That D is in a Foundation means nothing. Apple without Jobs is 
still Apple but you can see the difference in there products 
after his dead.
Oct 16 2017
next sibling parent Joakim <dlang joakim.fea.st> writes:
On Monday, 16 October 2017 at 09:03:56 UTC, Rion wrote:

 On Thursday, 12 October 2017 at 15:04:57 UTC, moechofe wrote:

 What is the wanted lifetime of the project?
 Is D will manage to pass through time?
 It is valuable to start a 40 years old project using D?


 Its a serious topic but that gets way too much joking.

 While D is part of the foundation, that is not the issue. It is 
 leadership, focus, goals, long term vision ... There are not 
 that many people that can take over that task successfullly.

 I noticed its all a joke to people. Posted in a other topic 
 about the fragmented nature of D and the high focus on solo 
 developers. And the issue of what happens if a main developer 
 of a extension has no more time or god forbids dies. That same 
 applies to D as a language.

 That D is in a Foundation means nothing. Apple without Jobs is 
 still Apple but you can see the difference in there products 
 after his dead.


You're right that it's a valid question for the project, as the 
main D frontend is largely developed by Walter:

https://github.com/dlang/dmd/graphs/contributors

Kenji did a lot for 5 years, adding more lines of code than even 
Walter during that time, but appears to have bowed out since 
early last year.

Walter really should be mentoring dmd contributors, and actively 
looking for more. Druntime and phobos, on the other hand, seem to 
be developed by others, and don't depend as much on one person.

To answer the original question, it is almost impossible to plan 
for a 40 year-old project, given how fast tech changes.  You have 
to be prepared to maintain ancient toolchains yourself for such a 
long time horizon, like I imagine COBOL devs do today.

In that case, one of the main criteria should be that the entire 
toolchain is open-source and fairly understandable, because you 
will almost certainly have to maintain it yourself.  I don't 
think you can depend on even mainstream languages like C, C++, or 
Swift being around and having good support in 40 years.
Oct 16 2017
prev sibling next sibling parent codephantom <me noyb.com> writes:
On Monday, 16 October 2017 at 09:03:56 UTC, Rion wrote:

 On Thursday, 12 October 2017 at 15:04:57 UTC, moechofe wrote:

 What is the wanted lifetime of the project?
 Is D will manage to pass through time?
 It is valuable to start a 40 years old project using D?


 Its a serious topic but that gets way too much joking.

 While D is part of the foundation, that is not the issue. It is 
 leadership, focus, goals, long term vision ... There are not 
 that many people that can take over that task successfullly.

 I noticed its all a joke to people. Posted in a other topic 
 about the fragmented nature of D and the high focus on solo 
 developers. And the issue of what happens if a main developer 
 of a extension has no more time or god forbids dies. That same 
 applies to D as a language.

 That D is in a Foundation means nothing. Apple without Jobs is 
 still Apple but you can see the difference in there products 
 after his dead.


People can joke about an issue, and still take it as being 
serious.
Consider the poor comedians if that were not the case.

And btw. you can't compare Apple(s) with oranges ;-)

Also, what happens to all the Windows users, if Microsoft goes 
out of business?

There is no such thing as 'risk free' software development?

Being open-source, having a growing (volunteer) community, and 
encouraging that community to grow further, is the open-source 
way of managing those risks. And that is *exactly* what the 
'Foundation' is focused on.

It's all fairly new... be patient and give it time to grow.
Oct 16 2017
prev sibling parent Walter Bright <newshound2 digitalmars.com> writes:
On 10/16/2017 2:03 AM, Rion wrote:

 Its a serious topic but that gets way too much joking.


It is a serious topic. One of the reasons for making it all Boost licensed was 
to make sure there'd be no legal problems for whoever wanted to pick up the
torch.

The other thing is to make the user base as large as possible, as the more need 
there is, the more pressure to get involved to continue it.

As for me, I have no interest in retiring, and plan on working on D until they 
carry me out in a box or y'all fire me.
Oct 17 2017
prev sibling parent reply Iain Buclaw <ibuclaw gdcproject.org> writes:
On 12 October 2017 at 17:04, moechofe via Digitalmars-d
<digitalmars-d puremagic.com> wrote:

 What is the wanted lifetime of the project?
 Is D will manage to pass through time?
 It is valuable to start a 40 years old project using D?


I would be a lot more worried if something happened to me, if I were you.

Iain.
Oct 16 2017
next sibling parent Frank Fuente <wibble wabble.com> writes:
On Monday, 16 October 2017 at 09:09:03 UTC, Iain Buclaw wrote:

 On 12 October 2017 at 17:04, moechofe via Digitalmars-d 
 <digitalmars-d puremagic.com> wrote:

 What is the wanted lifetime of the project?
 Is D will manage to pass through time?
 It is valuable to start a 40 years old project using D?


 I would be a lot more worried if something happened to me, if I 
 were you.

 Iain.


A Bridge Too Far...

Field Marshal Model's aide: Field Marshal, thousands of 
paratroops have landed in this area, three kilometres from here.

Field Marshal Model: What? Why? There is nothing important 
here... me! I'm important! They must've landed here just to 
capture me.

[stands from his lunch and moves to the door]
Field Marshal Model: Get my car ready.

[makes to leave]
Field Marshal Model's aide: Yes, sir!

[about to leave himself]
Field Marshal Model: [pops back in and shouts] And don't forget 
my cigars!
Oct 16 2017
prev sibling next sibling parent Adam D. Ruppe <destructionator gmail.com> writes:
On Monday, 16 October 2017 at 09:09:03 UTC, Iain Buclaw wrote:

 I would be a lot more worried if something happened to me, if I 
 were you.


No kidding.

The foundation is irrelevant... it is accumulated knowledge that 
we'd lose with someone going away. Walter has a lot of it... but 
so do a lot of other people. Many of us work on the frontend. 
Backend less so, but even there we'd be ok.

But Iain's knowledge and connections with gdc is stuff I have no 
clue about... and given that he does basically everything alone, 
I don't think anyone else does either.
Oct 16 2017
prev sibling parent reply Walter Bright <newshound2 digitalmars.com> writes:
On 10/16/2017 2:09 AM, Iain Buclaw wrote:

 I would be a lot more worried if something happened to me, if I were you.


You're right, you're a heluva amazing one man show with gdc.
Oct 17 2017
parent reply Mattcoder <presidentof myself.com> writes:
On Tuesday, 17 October 2017 at 08:40:18 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:

 On 10/16/2017 2:09 AM, Iain Buclaw wrote:

 I would be a lot more worried if something happened to me, if 
 I were you.


 You're right, you're a heluva amazing one man show with gdc.


Deserves a patreon. I'd contribute.

Matheus.
Oct 17 2017
parent reply jmh530 <john.michael.hall gmail.com> writes:
On Wednesday, 18 October 2017 at 01:17:36 UTC, Mattcoder wrote:

 Deserves a patreon. I'd contribute.

 Matheus.


The nice thing about donating to the D Foundation is that my 
company can match my donations (200%, cha-ching!). They wouldn't 
do it for a random patreon.
Oct 17 2017
parent reply moechofe <truc moechofe.com> writes:
Thank you all for those answers.

For me, open source is not a sufficient reason. Look at any 
random open source github project that has 1 contributor, 10 
commits, and dead since 3 years. (like mine)

Look at this crapy PHP thing. It as 22 years old, and not ready 
to be dead yet.
Look at that brillant D language. It as 15 years old, but almost 
unknown and unused.
Look at that Go language that deem whitespace-only line is an 
error. It as 7 years old, and everybody in the office ask me to 
code with it.

That remind me Tokyo Tyrant and Kyoto Tycoon, excellent key-value 
database that I used in the past. Completly forgotten.
That remind me Rebol. This language just blow-up my mind every 
times I return to it. RIP.


 Joakim wrote:
 You have to be prepared to maintain ancient toolchains yourself


Joakim: Your are right about the toolchain. I'm always using DMD, 
but I probably should concider start working with GCD and LCD, 
too.


 Iain Buclaw wrote:
 I would be a lot more worried if something happened to me, if I 
 were you.



 Ruppe wrote:
 But Iain's knowledge and connections with gdc is stuff I have 
 no clue about.


Iain, Adam: Can I concider working with GCD, knowing that only 1 
guy knows everything about the project?


 Rion wrote:
 Apple without Jobs is still Apple


Rion: Apple is not a good example to compare with. They make 
money, not coding during jogs for the pleasure, or for yearly 
conference for 3k viewers.


 codephantom wrote:
 It's all fairly new... be patient and give it time to grow.


codephantom: If every other people wait for D language to grow 
before using it, it will never grow.

For me, the whole univers of D is talking, working and coding 
arround the language itself. D needs high level realisations, 
releases and success. They are so few.

What can make D successful enough to stay alive like C and cross 
the ages?
I would pay my company to let work with D. (...no, but you get 
the idea)

I'm soo frustated.
Have a nice day anyway. :)

(sorry for my bad english)
Oct 18 2017
parent Eugene Wissner <belka caraus.de> writes:
On Wednesday, 18 October 2017 at 09:54:41 UTC, moechofe wrote:

 Iain, Adam: Can I concider working with GCD, knowing that only 
 1 guy knows everything about the project?


There are two people behind GDC, don't forget about Johannes 
Pfau. And don't forget that they are responsible only for the 
glue code between D and GCC. D frontend is developed by a core D 
team and the GCC backend has a large amount of contributors and 
maintainers.
Oct 18 2017