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digitalmars.D.announce - D's commercial weaknesses?

reply Dave <Dave_member pathlink.com> writes:
In article <dpci28$nq$1 digitaldaemon.com>, Kris says...


(Was: Re: Implementation-hiding clarification)

All points well taken Kris; implementation hiding is an important topic, but I
just don't have anything worthwhile to add. (Not trying to change or confuse the
subject, just start a new thread because you brought up another vital point.)

<snip>


 We should all understand that there's a lot of inertia against change in IT. 


Ain't that the truth.

I could use the features of D as an improvement over ksh/perl/C/++ for quite a
bit of what I happen to be doing right now, but I don't think it would fly...
Even if they would let me re-compile GCC with D built-in (dmd won't run on this
platform), I don't think I could develop anything but throw-away code right now
just because of the potential need for someone else to maintain it, and because
there is not any sort of formal training offered for D, which is a big thing
where I'm at right now.

Somehow D has to achieve that "buzz-word" status. How to do that? Writing
articles is one way to help - what else?


To get a foot into the commercial segment, D needs as much help as it can 
possibly get in order to avoid being marginalized ~ even just keeping the 
darned lawyers out of the way. Implementation-hiding is one such aspect that 


I agree (not that I'm any more clear on how to actually accommodate mechanical
implementation-hiding).

"To get a foot into the commercial segment..." is one of the big reasons I'm a
stickler about RT perf. "out of the box" if you will (meaning both good
optimization and a language that doesn't get in the way). Everything I've been
doing the last 5 years has demanded good performance and alot of time is spent
on that. This is not a D weak point by any stretch, but I submit that D needs to
stand-out in that area to get noticed.


helps. I can tell you that D is /not/ being considered where I work. Hence, 
I have a beef with certain weak attributes of the language and tools.


What else is stopping the adoption of D where you work (Kris and anyone else)?

- Dave



 Jan 02 2006



 next sibling parent reply Fredrik Olsson <peylow treyst.se>  writes:


Dave skrev:

 What else is stopping the adoption of D where you work (Kris and anyone else)?
 


Not much, for in house stuff I already use it. That could be a "we" if 
there was an easy way to install GDC on Debian Linux.

For stuff to out clients not, for these reasons;
* Not easy enough to make libraries with header files that can be used 
from C
* Phobos not quite as mature.

In general I think D as a language is good to go as it is, but a 

nothing without the .NET libraries, Java needs the 10.000+ classes in 
java.*, and Objective-C is quite useless without Cocoa/OpenStep.

There are allot of project that are meant to "replace" or "merge into" 
Phobos. But perhaps what is needed is for Phobos to become an open 
project with many commiters, responsible for their parts. And a clear 
idea of what Phobos should be, if there where a clear goal I am sure I 
could make my company dedicate some resources to work towards it.

// Fredrik Olsson



 Jan 03 2006



  parent reply Fredrik Olsson <peylow treyst.se>  writes:


Fredrik Olsson skrev:

 Dave skrev:

 What else is stopping the adoption of D where you work (Kris and 
 anyone else)?




<snip>

 There are allot of project that are meant to "replace" or "merge into" 
 Phobos. But perhaps what is needed is for Phobos to become an open 
 project with many commiters, responsible for their parts. And a clear 
 idea of what Phobos should be, if there where a clear goal I am sure I 
 could make my company dedicate some resources to work towards it.
 


Thought it over, we could dedicate one person full time (40 hours/week) 
from the beginning of April and then for about ten weeks for the task of 
writing and fixing code in Phobos.

But before we do, the big question is, where should the effort be made, 
and how so the time is not wasted?

// Fredrik Olsson



 Jan 05 2006



  parent  Lars Ivar Igesund <larsivar igesund.net>  writes:


Fredrik Olsson wrote:


 Fredrik Olsson skrev:

 Dave skrev:

 What else is stopping the adoption of D where you work (Kris and
 anyone else)?




 <snip>

 There are allot of project that are meant to "replace" or "merge into"
 Phobos. But perhaps what is needed is for Phobos to become an open
 project with many commiters, responsible for their parts. And a clear
 idea of what Phobos should be, if there where a clear goal I am sure I
 could make my company dedicate some resources to work towards it.
 


 
 Thought it over, we could dedicate one person full time (40 hours/week)
 from the beginning of April and then for about ten weeks for the task of
 writing and fixing code in Phobos.
 
 But before we do, the big question is, where should the effort be made,
 and how so the time is not wasted?
 
 // Fredrik Olsson


This sounds really great! Although IMO, you should target Ares and not
Phobos. Sean DO seem to have a plan, but not enough time. In any case, your
time frame give us some time to plan.

I can see that working on the "official" standard library might be a better
choice politically from your company, but I think that the development
processes used in Phobos today, makes it hard to make fulltime
contributions.

You should in any case take this question to the Ares forum over at dsource.

Other tasks that could be considered, involves working with the
infrastructure, improving tools, e.g. debugger.

Lars Ivar Igesund



 Jan 05 2006



prev sibling next sibling parent  "Craig Black" <cblack ara.com>  writes:


The reason that I don't use D is because it doesn't mesh with my C++ source 
code.  If only there was a good way of doing this.  It would be easier if 
there was link compatibility with VC++.  This would allow interop between 
existing code and D code through a C interface.  Code could be ported to D 
gradually.

I use Qt for cross platform C++ work and as far as I can tell, it doesn't 
compile with Digital Mars C++.  Thus, I simply cannot use D.

-Craig 



 Jan 03 2006



prev sibling next sibling parent reply "Kris" <fu bar.com>  writes:


"Dave" <Dave_member pathlink.com> wrote

 What else is stopping the adoption of D where you work (Kris and anyone 
 else)?


Do you have a private address to reply on? 



 Jan 03 2006



  parent reply Dave <Dave_member pathlink.com>  writes:


In article <dpf5bq$1def$1 digitaldaemon.com>, Kris says...

"Dave" <Dave_member pathlink.com> wrote

 What else is stopping the adoption of D where you work (Kris and anyone 
 else)?


Do you have a private address to reply on? 


Sure: godaves yahoo.com

- Dave



 Jan 03 2006



 next sibling parent reply "Kris" <fu bar.com>  writes:


"Dave" <Dave_member pathlink.com> wrote

 Sure:


Thx



 Jan 03 2006



  parent reply "Charles" <noone nowhere.com>  writes:


Why not share here where all can benefit ?  I'd personally like to know :).

Charlie


"Kris" <fu bar.com> wrote in message news:dpf797$1hg7$1 digitaldaemon.com...

 "Dave" <Dave_member pathlink.com> wrote

 Sure:


 Thx





 Jan 09 2006



  parent reply Lars Ivar Igesund <larsivar igesund.net>  writes:


Charles wrote:


 Why not share here where all can benefit ?  I'd personally like to know
 :).
 
 Charlie
 
 
 "Kris" <fu bar.com> wrote in message
 news:dpf797$1hg7$1 digitaldaemon.com...

 "Dave" <Dave_member pathlink.com> wrote

 Sure:


 Thx




I suppose either Kris' or his company's opinions on the subject shouldn't be
exposed in the public.

Lars Ivar Igesund



 Jan 09 2006



  parent reply "Kris" <fu bar.com>  writes:


"Lars Ivar Igesund" <larsivar igesund.net> wrote ...

 Charles wrote:


 Why not share here where all can benefit ?  I'd personally like to know
 :).

 Charlie


 "Kris" <fu bar.com> wrote in message
 news:dpf797$1hg7$1 digitaldaemon.com...

 "Dave" <Dave_member pathlink.com> wrote

 Sure:


 Thx




 I suppose either Kris' or his company's opinions on the subject shouldn't 
 be
 exposed in the public.


The latter ~ I'm quite generous with my own opinion :)

Sorry, Charlie. 



 Jan 09 2006



  parent  Lars Ivar Igesund <larsivar igesund.net>  writes:


Kris wrote:


 
 "Lars Ivar Igesund" <larsivar igesund.net> wrote ...

 Charles wrote:


 Why not share here where all can benefit ?  I'd personally like to know
 :).

 Charlie


 "Kris" <fu bar.com> wrote in message
 news:dpf797$1hg7$1 digitaldaemon.com...

 "Dave" <Dave_member pathlink.com> wrote

 Sure:


 Thx




 I suppose either Kris' or his company's opinions on the subject shouldn't
 be
 exposed in the public.


 
 The latter ~ I'm quite generous with my own opinion :)
 
 Sorry, Charlie.


I was sortof thinking of your opinion on your company's opinion ;)



 Jan 09 2006



prev sibling  parent  pragma <pragma_member pathlink.com>  writes:


In article <dpf6cf$1fh0$1 digitaldaemon.com>, Dave says...

In article <dpf5bq$1def$1 digitaldaemon.com>, Kris says...

"Dave" <Dave_member pathlink.com> wrote

 What else is stopping the adoption of D where you work (Kris and anyone 
 else)?






I'll bite. :)

At my workplace, we're primarily a ColdFusion web shop with growing inclination
toward Java.  Java is gaining a larger and larger foothold since we got it for
free on our webservers since we upgraded to CFMX.  Since we have so much riding
on this platform already, its unlikely that we'd ever switch unless there was
some break-through technology that did stuff nobody's ever seen before.  The
same goes for any internal utils, as those will eventually have to be maintianed
by other developers: so languages outside everyone's core skill set are further
discouraged at this level too.

D would have to replace the following technologies:
- CFMX
- Java
- J2EE

I think most of us here can fill in the blanks on the above, its just going to
take more engineering on D/DSP/DDL/Mango/Whatever.  D would also have to address
the following business concerns as well or you'll never get such an entrenched
institution to budge:

- Training
- Certification
- Producivity Gains
- Performance Gains
- Installation and Maintainence Costs*
- FOSS Licensing**

Sadly, the confidence of this group can only go so far to address these points.
The work simply has to look good on paper, and in a format suitable for
non-technical types at that.  Its an uphill battle, and it will take
considerable effort to breach the current level of understanding for this new
crop of technology.

* Free, as in beer, still costs employee time.  It is a common assumption that
"free software" simply forwards the savings at the POS ($0) to the setup and
maintanence costs due to it being an "inferior product".  This leads to the
conclusion that the net gain in savings is an illusion, and could indeed cost
you more than a COTS product.  Add to that the (sometimes false) security
blanket of getting vendor support when purchasing a non-free product and you get
a strong institutional opposition to free software.  D's saving grace here is
Mr. Bright and DigitalMars.com.  Sadly, in non C-shops, neither are even close
to familiar names.

** - With respect to FOSS, sometimes closed source shops can get the impression
that *everything* open-source is GPL.  While the GPL is a noble cause, the
stigma it has placed on all FOSS (viral licensing) is the single biggest problem
(IMO) to the adoption of BSD and Artistic License products -- non OSS-saavy
people simply don't know the difference.

- EricAnderton at yahoo



 Jan 04 2006



prev sibling next sibling parent  Carlos Santander <csantander619 gmail.com>  writes:


Dave escribió:

 What else is stopping the adoption of D where you work (Kris and anyone else)?
 
 - Dave
 
 


At my work, there'd be three different answers.


not 
taking part of that, so I couldn't tell for sure). So if there was a somewhat 
similar (windowing) library for D with so many third-party controls as there
are 
in .Net, then it could be considered. It's not so likely, though, because my 
company has some sort of agreement with Microsoft.

For the backend, we're using WebSphere MQ/Message Broker/etc. That's were I'm 
working now. What's missing for D would be, well, all that's offered by those 
applications, which is basically message queues and the awful loads of 
integration easiness provided by it. Surely DDL is a step in that direction. 
But, again, my company has businesses with IBM.

The final part would be some assorted programs written in C but need to be 
really high performant. What's needed for D here would be a 100% working 
compiler for AIX, HP-UX, Solaris, and many other Unices.

So, that's it for getting D in my workplace.

-- 
Carlos Santander Bernal



 Jan 04 2006



prev sibling next sibling parent reply Don Clugston <dac nospam.com.au>  writes:


Dave wrote:

 What else is stopping the adoption of D where you work (Kris and anyone else)?


The fact that D cannot use third party DLLs that only come with COFF 
import libs. No kidding. It's an absolute show stopper.
Walters last post to this newsgroup has changed this situation 
completely. Bye-bye C++.

(But I'm not really a programmer, it's only a small part of what I do. 
I'm employed for my knowledge of semiconductor device physics. My choice 
of programming language doesn't get much more attention than my choice 
of soldering iron. Noone has looked at any of my source code for about 
five years).



 Jan 04 2006



  parent reply James Dunne <james.jdunne gmail.com>  writes:


Don Clugston wrote:

 Dave wrote:
 

 What else is stopping the adoption of D where you work (Kris and 
 anyone else)?


 
 
 The fact that D cannot use third party DLLs that only come with COFF 
 import libs. No kidding. It's an absolute show stopper.
 Walters last post to this newsgroup has changed this situation 
 completely. Bye-bye C++.
 
 (But I'm not really a programmer, it's only a small part of what I do. 
 I'm employed for my knowledge of semiconductor device physics. My choice 
 of programming language doesn't get much more attention than my choice 
 of soldering iron. Noone has looked at any of my source code for about 
 five years).


No wonder you're a mathematical template-programming freak! =P  (This is 
a good thing).  We need someone knowledgeable about numerical analysis 
to come in and fix the implementation and usage of floating point. 
Walter's already got a great start by separating real and ireal; now we 
need to propogate that down the line through the standard library/ies.



 Jan 09 2006



  parent reply John Reimer <terminal.node gmail.com>  writes:


James Dunne wrote:

 Don Clugston wrote:

 Dave wrote:


 What else is stopping the adoption of D where you work (Kris and 
 anyone else)?



 The fact that D cannot use third party DLLs that only come with COFF 
 import libs. No kidding. It's an absolute show stopper.
 Walters last post to this newsgroup has changed this situation 
 completely. Bye-bye C++.

 (But I'm not really a programmer, it's only a small part of what I do. 
 I'm employed for my knowledge of semiconductor device physics. My 
 choice of programming language doesn't get much more attention than my 
 choice of soldering iron. Noone has looked at any of my source code 
 for about five years).


 
 No wonder you're a mathematical template-programming freak! =P  (This is 
 a good thing).  We need someone knowledgeable about numerical analysis 
 to come in and fix the implementation and usage of floating point. 
 Walter's already got a great start by separating real and ireal; now we 
 need to propogate that down the line through the standard library/ies.



Ben Hinkle has been around for awhile too... Mathematics seems to be his 
background training (he has some Phd degree or something... you know, 
"Post-hole digger"?) ;).  But I don't know how much involvement he had 
in working on these things although he's contributed much to D.

-JJR



 Jan 09 2006



 next sibling parent reply James Dunne <james.jdunne gmail.com>  writes:


John Reimer wrote:

 James Dunne wrote:
 

 Don Clugston wrote:


 Dave wrote:


 What else is stopping the adoption of D where you work (Kris and 
 anyone else)?




 The fact that D cannot use third party DLLs that only come with COFF 
 import libs. No kidding. It's an absolute show stopper.
 Walters last post to this newsgroup has changed this situation 
 completely. Bye-bye C++.

 (But I'm not really a programmer, it's only a small part of what I 
 do. I'm employed for my knowledge of semiconductor device physics. My 
 choice of programming language doesn't get much more attention than 
 my choice of soldering iron. Noone has looked at any of my source 
 code for about five years).



 No wonder you're a mathematical template-programming freak! =P  (This 
 is a good thing).  We need someone knowledgeable about numerical 
 analysis to come in and fix the implementation and usage of floating 
 point. Walter's already got a great start by separating real and 
 ireal; now we need to propogate that down the line through the 
 standard library/ies.


 
 
 
 Ben Hinkle has been around for awhile too... Mathematics seems to be his 
 background training (he has some Phd degree or something... you know, 
 "Post-hole digger"?) ;).  But I don't know how much involvement he had 
 in working on these things although he's contributed much to D.
 
 -JJR


Didn't mean to single anybody out.  Yes, Ben Hinkle is also quite the 
contributor, but as of the last month or so, Don has really gotten quite 
excited about template meta-programming.  Just an observation :)



 Jan 09 2006



  parent reply Don Clugston <dac nospam.com.au>  writes:


James Dunne wrote:

 John Reimer wrote:
 

 James Dunne wrote:


 Don Clugston wrote:


 Dave wrote:


 What else is stopping the adoption of D where you work (Kris and 
 anyone else)?





 The fact that D cannot use third party DLLs that only come with COFF 
 import libs. No kidding. It's an absolute show stopper.
 Walters last post to this newsgroup has changed this situation 
 completely. Bye-bye C++.

 (But I'm not really a programmer, it's only a small part of what I 
 do. I'm employed for my knowledge of semiconductor device physics. 
 My choice of programming language doesn't get much more attention 
 than my choice of soldering iron. Noone has looked at any of my 
 source code for about five years).




 No wonder you're a mathematical template-programming freak! =P  (This 
 is a good thing).






By a freak combination of events, I was in the local newspapers last 
week (has never happened before, will probably never happen again), so
you can get an idea of what I look like and what I do:

http://www.mz-web.de/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=ksta/page&atype=ksArtikel&aid=1135666230139&calledPageId=987490165154

Does that look like a computer scientist to you?? Does it even look like
a mathematician???

The only subjects I failed at university were optics and electronics, so
solar cells was the obvious career path  :-)


 We need someone knowledgeable about numerical 
 analysis to come in and fix the implementation and usage of floating 
 point. Walter's already got a great start by separating real and 
 ireal; now we need to propogate that down the line through the 
 standard library/ies.






It's the real.nan, real.infinity and the NCEG operators that got me 
interested in D. Walter's done an amazing job at exposing the full glory 
of IEEE mathematics (better than asm, even!)
It deserves *much* better library support. I would like to see the D 
standard libraries providing at least as good mathematical support as 
VBA does in Excel...

There's a work-in-progress in dsource/mathextra. Some will be in DMD 
0.143. The elementary functions sin(), exp(), etc for complex arguments 
are probably a necessity for D 1.0, and will be moved into Phobos as 
soon as D gets rid of the problematic implicit conversions real->creal, 
etc.


 Ben Hinkle has been around for awhile too... Mathematics seems to be 
 his background training (he has some Phd degree or something... you 
 know, "Post-hole digger"?) ;).  But I don't know how much involvement 
 he had in working on these things although he's contributed much to D.




I always thought that PhD stood for "permanent head damage".
Ben seems to be almost completely occupied with Cx now, unfortunately.


 Didn't mean to single anybody out.  Yes, Ben Hinkle is also quite the 
 contributor, but as of the last month or so, Don has really gotten quite 
 excited about template meta-programming.  Just an observation :)



much less powerful than C++ templates. I have entirely abandoned that 
belief :-). I think that if there were a few solid metaprogramming 
examples in the spec, hardcore C++ programmers wouldn't dismiss D as 
readily.



 Jan 10 2006



  parent reply "Walter Bright" <newshound digitalmars.com>  writes:


"Don Clugston" <dac nospam.com.au> wrote in message 
news:dq0can$234k$1 digitaldaemon.com...

 It's the real.nan, real.infinity and the NCEG operators that got me 
 interested in D. Walter's done an amazing job at exposing the full glory 
 of IEEE mathematics (better than asm, even!)


Back when I worked at Boeing, I wrote numerical analysis programs in 
FORTRAN. It's what made me interested in having good floating point support. 
Interestingly, about all this stuff was proposed for C at one time around 
1990, but it fizzled for reasons I don't understand.


 It deserves *much* better library support. I would like to see the D 
 standard libraries providing at least as good mathematical support as VBA 
 does in Excel...


I agree.


 There's a work-in-progress in dsource/mathextra. Some will be in DMD 
 0.143. The elementary functions sin(), exp(), etc for complex arguments 
 are probably a necessity for D 1.0, and will be moved into Phobos as soon 
 as D gets rid of the problematic implicit conversions real->creal, etc.


Ok <g>.



 less powerful than C++ templates. I have entirely abandoned that belief 
 :-). I think that if there were a few solid metaprogramming examples in 
 the spec, hardcore C++ programmers wouldn't dismiss D as readily.


I still think there's a killer magazine article here you should write!



 Jan 10 2006



  parent reply rko <rko_member pathlink.com>  writes:


In article <dq10vh$2n82$1 digitaldaemon.com>, Walter Bright says...

"Don Clugston" <dac nospam.com.au> wrote in message 
news:dq0can$234k$1 digitaldaemon.com...

 It's the real.nan, real.infinity and the NCEG operators that got me 
 interested in D. Walter's done an amazing job at exposing the full glory 
 of IEEE mathematics (better than asm, even!)


Back when I worked at Boeing, I wrote numerical analysis programs in 
FORTRAN. It's what made me interested in having good floating point support. 
Interestingly, about all this stuff was proposed for C at one time around 
1990, but it fizzled for reasons I don't understand.


 It deserves *much* better library support. I would like to see the D 
 standard libraries providing at least as good mathematical support as VBA 
 does in Excel...


I agree.


 There's a work-in-progress in dsource/mathextra. Some will be in DMD 
 0.143. The elementary functions sin(), exp(), etc for complex arguments 
 are probably a necessity for D 1.0, and will be moved into Phobos as soon 
 as D gets rid of the problematic implicit conversions real->creal, etc.


Ok <g>.



 less powerful than C++ templates. I have entirely abandoned that belief 
 :-). I think that if there were a few solid metaprogramming examples in 
 the spec, hardcore C++ programmers wouldn't dismiss D as readily.


I still think there's a killer magazine article here you should write!



well i am glad that you guys have something to share. how about something usable

for the rest of the world.
a debugger,
gui developer,
and a lib for the all of us who do not specialize in math

???

rko


rko



 Jan 10 2006



 next sibling parent  Lars Ivar Igesund <larsivar igesund.net>  writes:


rko wrote:


 In article <dq10vh$2n82$1 digitaldaemon.com>, Walter Bright says...

"Don Clugston" <dac nospam.com.au> wrote in message
news:dq0can$234k$1 digitaldaemon.com...

 It's the real.nan, real.infinity and the NCEG operators that got me
 interested in D. Walter's done an amazing job at exposing the full glory
 of IEEE mathematics (better than asm, even!)


Back when I worked at Boeing, I wrote numerical analysis programs in
FORTRAN. It's what made me interested in having good floating point
support. Interestingly, about all this stuff was proposed for C at one
time around 1990, but it fizzled for reasons I don't understand.


 It deserves *much* better library support. I would like to see the D
 standard libraries providing at least as good mathematical support as
 VBA does in Excel...


I agree.


 There's a work-in-progress in dsource/mathextra. Some will be in DMD
 0.143. The elementary functions sin(), exp(), etc for complex arguments
 are probably a necessity for D 1.0, and will be moved into Phobos as
 soon as D gets rid of the problematic implicit conversions real->creal,
 etc.


Ok <g>.



 much less powerful than C++ templates. I have entirely abandoned that
 belief
 :-). I think that if there were a few solid metaprogramming examples in
 the spec, hardcore C++ programmers wouldn't dismiss D as readily.


I still think there's a killer magazine article here you should write!


 
 
 well i am glad that you guys have something to share. how about something
 usable
 
 for the rest of the world.
 a debugger,
 gui developer,
 and a lib for the all of us who do not specialize in math
 
 ???
 
 rko
 
 
 rko


I don't specialize in maths and find what's already present in the D realm
highly usable. If I miss something, I either asks politely someone that
seems to be into said subject, or try to fix it myself. As is pointed ut
millions of times, Walter has only to arms, even though he has 50 fingers
on each.

Lars Ivar Igesund



 Jan 10 2006



prev sibling  parent  "Walter Bright" <newshound digitalmars.com>  writes:


"rko" <rko_member pathlink.com> wrote in message 
news:dq193m$2uvo$1 digitaldaemon.com...

 how about something usable

 for the rest of the world.
 a debugger,
 gui developer,
 and a lib for the all of us who do not specialize in math

 ???


There's plenty of room for contributions! 



 Jan 10 2006



prev sibling  parent reply Dave <Dave_member pathlink.com>  writes:


In article <dpulrv$eo1$1 digitaldaemon.com>, John Reimer says...

Ben Hinkle has been around for awhile too... Mathematics seems to be his 
background training (he has some Phd degree or something... you know, 
"Post-hole digger"?) ;).  But I don't know how much involvement he had 
in working on these things although he's contributed much to D.


"Post-hole digger", LOL.

I've always been told it /really/ means "Piled higher and Deeper". <g>

B.S. - just that
M.S. - More of the Same
PhD. - Piled higher and Deeper


-JJR





 Jan 09 2006



 next sibling parent  James Dunne <james.jdunne gmail.com>  writes:


Dave wrote:

 In article <dpulrv$eo1$1 digitaldaemon.com>, John Reimer says...
 

Ben Hinkle has been around for awhile too... Mathematics seems to be his 
background training (he has some Phd degree or something... you know, 
"Post-hole digger"?) ;).  But I don't know how much involvement he had 
in working on these things although he's contributed much to D.


 
 
 "Post-hole digger", LOL.
 


LOL!  I totally missed that in my reply... Long day of work... urgh


 I've always been told it /really/ means "Piled higher and Deeper". <g>
 
 B.S. - just that
 M.S. - More of the Same
 PhD. - Piled higher and Deeper
 
 

-JJR


 


This brings back memories of one professor in particular who just 
thought that being a Systems Analyst with a PhD was about the best job 
you could get.  He had this horrible 
cirlce-enclosing-circle-enclosing-circle diagram that he used to "prove" 
the difference between a technician, an engineer, and a PhD - want to 
strangle myself already just recalling it...



 Jan 09 2006



prev sibling  parent  John Reimer <terminal.node gmail.com>  writes:


Dave wrote:

 In article <dpulrv$eo1$1 digitaldaemon.com>, John Reimer says...

 Ben Hinkle has been around for awhile too... Mathematics seems to be his 
 background training (he has some Phd degree or something... you know, 
 "Post-hole digger"?) ;).  But I don't know how much involvement he had 
 in working on these things although he's contributed much to D.


 
 "Post-hole digger", LOL.
 
 I've always been told it /really/ means "Piled higher and Deeper". <g>
 
 B.S. - just that
 M.S. - More of the Same
 PhD. - Piled higher and Deeper
 

 -JJR


 
 



:-D

I've heard of the "Piled higher and Deeper" one too.  Maybe "Post hole 
Digger" sticks more readily for me because that's exactly what I used to 
do, in the real sense of the phrase, in my younger days. Hey, there's 
nothing wrong with post hole digging! We all find purpose somewhere. :-)

That list,above, is priceless, Dave.  I don't think I've ever seen it 
summarized quite like that.

-JJR



 Jan 09 2006



prev sibling next sibling parent reply John Reimer <terminal.node gmail.com>  writes:


Dave wrote:


 What else is stopping the adoption of D where you work (Kris and anyone else)?
 


Ummm... Microsoft?



 Jan 04 2006



  parent  James Dunne <james.jdunne gmail.com>  writes:


John Reimer wrote:

 Dave wrote:
 

 What else is stopping the adoption of D where you work (Kris and 
 anyone else)?


 
 Ummm... Microsoft?
 
 


Same here too.  I've inquired about the reasons for the choice of 
platform (.NET).  The answer boiled down to:

1) It's cheap through MSDN.

work together with minimal pain.

This is not MY opinion, mind you... ;)



 Jan 09 2006



prev sibling next sibling parent  =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Anders_F_Bj=F6rklund?= <afb algonet.se>  writes:


Dave wrote:


 What else is stopping the adoption of D where you work (Kris and anyone else)?


"const"    (as in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Const_correctness, etc.)

Or maybe the C++ aficionados are just hiding behind such similar issues.
(like Multiple Inheritance or whatever else C++ has that D doesn't have)

--anders



 Jan 05 2006



prev sibling next sibling parent reply Sean Kelly <sean f4.ca>  writes:


Dave wrote:

 
 What else is stopping the adoption of D where you work (Kris and anyone else)?


On the Windows side, that would be Microsoft.  We've got a relationship 
with the company and there was a big push to move to .NET a few years 
back.  That aside, it would be a tremendous task to convince the build 
team to maintain a server with software on it that had no support 
license and that they knew nothing about.  I had a hard enough time 
getting them to allow public library code--adding the need for new build 
scripts into the mix would give them fits.

On the Unix side, things are a bit more complex, but the real 
showstopper is that no D compilers currently target
64-bit machines.  Other issues would be compatibility with a fairly 
massive codebase in C++ and potentially the memory overhead required by 
GC bookkeeping as well.  Training is also a concern, though this may not 
be a huge problem as we have no official policy here.


Sean



 Jan 05 2006



  parent reply antonio <antonio abrevia.net>  writes:


Sean Kelly wrote:

 Dave wrote:

 What else is stopping the adoption of D where you work (Kris and 
 anyone else)?


 
 On the Windows side, that would be Microsoft.  We've got a relationship 
 with the company and there was a big push to move to .NET a few years 
 back.  That aside, it would be a tremendous task to convince the build 
 team to maintain a server with software on it that had no support 
 license and that they knew nothing about.  I had a hard enough time 
 getting them to allow public library code--adding the need for new build 
 scripts into the mix would give them fits.
 
 On the Unix side, things are a bit more complex, but the real 
 showstopper is that no D compilers currently target
 64-bit machines.  Other issues would be compatibility with a fairly 
 massive codebase in C++ and potentially the memory overhead required by 
 GC bookkeeping as well.  Training is also a concern, though this may not 
 be a huge problem as we have no official policy here.
 
 
 Sean


Where is the real prof support?

   Standard good framework (libraries).

   Debugger... why there is not a good standard debugger?... I Can't 
think in a compiler without debugger... and D is producing complex 
structures that need some specific good debugger.

Antonio



 Jan 06 2006



  parent reply "Walter Bright" <newshound digitalmars.com>  writes:


"antonio" <antonio abrevia.net> wrote in message 
news:dpmrjv$1tm1$1 digitaldaemon.com...

   Debugger... why there is not a good standard debugger?...


There is, it comes on the Digital Mars CD. 



 Jan 06 2006



  parent reply antonio <antonio abrevia.net>  writes:


Walter Bright wrote:

 "antonio" <antonio abrevia.net> wrote in message 
 news:dpmrjv$1tm1$1 digitaldaemon.com...

   Debugger... why there is not a good standard debugger?...


 
 There is, it comes on the Digital Mars CD. 
 
 


For the D language? with classes inspection and so on?  is there any 
reference about in http://www.digitalmars.com/d/ ?

Sorry then.
Antonio



 Jan 06 2006



  parent reply "Walter Bright" <newshound digitalmars.com>  writes:


"antonio" <antonio abrevia.net> wrote in message 
news:dpn5cl$24jc$1 digitaldaemon.com...

 Walter Bright wrote:

 "antonio" <antonio abrevia.net> wrote in message 
 news:dpmrjv$1tm1$1 digitaldaemon.com...

   Debugger... why there is not a good standard debugger?...


 There is, it comes on the Digital Mars CD.


 For the D language? with classes inspection and so on?


Yes, you can look at class members and locals with it. It's still a C 
debugger, but it does work. 



 Jan 06 2006



 next sibling parent  Hasan Aljudy <hasan.aljudy gmail.com>  writes:


Walter Bright wrote:

 "antonio" <antonio abrevia.net> wrote in message 
 news:dpn5cl$24jc$1 digitaldaemon.com...
 

Walter Bright wrote:


"antonio" <antonio abrevia.net> wrote in message 
news:dpmrjv$1tm1$1 digitaldaemon.com...


  Debugger... why there is not a good standard debugger?...


There is, it comes on the Digital Mars CD.


For the D language? with classes inspection and so on?


 
 
 Yes, you can look at class members and locals with it. It's still a C 
 debugger, but it does work. 
 
 


I think that's another "commercial weakness."



 Jan 06 2006



prev sibling  parent reply "Kris" <fu bar.com>  writes:


"Walter Bright" <newshound digitalmars.com> wrote ...

 For the D language? with classes inspection and so on?


 Yes, you can look at class members and locals with it. It's still a C 
 debugger, but it does work.


That's good news. Does it know about (and can therefore display) array 
contents? Delegates? Can it follow the correct source-file for all 
templates? Is there anything specific for D that it does not handle 
correctly? 



 Jan 06 2006



  parent reply John Reimer <terminal.node gmail.com>  writes:


Kris wrote:

 "Walter Bright" <newshound digitalmars.com> wrote ...

 For the D language? with classes inspection and so on?


 Yes, you can look at class members and locals with it. It's still a C 
 debugger, but it does work.


 
 That's good news. Does it know about (and can therefore display) array 
 contents? Delegates? Can it follow the correct source-file for all 
 templates? Is there anything specific for D that it does not handle 
 correctly? 
 
 


Ahem... I have to agree with Kris.

Walter, this is a little bit of false advertising or providing a "shade" 
of truth.  It's a debugger that works with D, but nobody that is new to 
this newsgroup would deduce from your above statement that the debugger 
doesn't support the debugging of several critical D features.

Providing that statement without specific qualifications isn't fair.

-JJR



 Jan 06 2006



 next sibling parent reply Kyle Furlong <kylefurlong gmail.com>  writes:


John Reimer wrote:

 Kris wrote:
 

 "Walter Bright" <newshound digitalmars.com> wrote ...


 For the D language? with classes inspection and so on?


 Yes, you can look at class members and locals with it. It's still a C 
 debugger, but it does work.



 That's good news. Does it know about (and can therefore display) array 
 contents? Delegates? Can it follow the correct source-file for all 
 templates? Is there anything specific for D that it does not handle 
 correctly?


 
 Ahem... I have to agree with Kris.
 
 Walter, this is a little bit of false advertising or providing a "shade" 
 of truth.  It's a debugger that works with D, but nobody that is new to 
 this newsgroup would deduce from your above statement that the debugger 
 doesn't support the debugging of several critical D features.
 
 Providing that statement without specific qualifications isn't fair.
 
 -JJR


Agreed. People are looking for a solution for D, not a hack for D pulled 
from your work with C/C++



 Jan 07 2006



  parent  antonio <antonio abrevia.net>  writes:


Kyle Furlong wrote:

 John Reimer wrote:

 Kris wrote:


 "Walter Bright" <newshound digitalmars.com> wrote ...


 For the D language? with classes inspection and so on?


 Yes, you can look at class members and locals with it. It's still a 
 C debugger, but it does work.



 That's good news. Does it know about (and can therefore display) 
 array contents? Delegates? Can it follow the correct source-file for 
 all templates? Is there anything specific for D that it does not 
 handle correctly?


 Ahem... I have to agree with Kris.

 Walter, this is a little bit of false advertising or providing a 
 "shade" of truth.  It's a debugger that works with D, but nobody that 
 is new to this newsgroup would deduce from your above statement that 
 the debugger doesn't support the debugging of several critical D 
 features.

 Providing that statement without specific qualifications isn't fair.

 -JJR


 
 Agreed. People are looking for a solution for D, not a hack for D pulled 
 from your work with C/C++


I agree.
Antonio



 Jan 07 2006



prev sibling  parent reply kris <fu bar.org>  writes:


John Reimer wrote:

 Kris wrote:
 

 "Walter Bright" <newshound digitalmars.com> wrote ...


 For the D language? with classes inspection and so on?


 Yes, you can look at class members and locals with it. It's still a C 
 debugger, but it does work.



 That's good news. Does it know about (and can therefore display) array 
 contents? Delegates? Can it follow the correct source-file for all 
 templates? Is there anything specific for D that it does not handle 
 correctly?


 
 Ahem... I have to agree with Kris.
 
 Walter, this is a little bit of false advertising or providing a "shade" 
 of truth.  It's a debugger that works with D, but nobody that is new to 
 this newsgroup would deduce from your above statement that the debugger 
 doesn't support the debugging of several critical D features.
 
 Providing that statement without specific qualifications isn't fair.
 
 -JJR


Hold on there <g>

That was a question; not an assertion :)

It may be that Walter's debugger does all the right things?



 Jan 07 2006



  parent  John Reimer <terminal.node gmail.com>  writes:


kris wrote:


 Ahem... I have to agree with Kris.

 Walter, this is a little bit of false advertising or providing a 
 "shade" of truth.  It's a debugger that works with D, but nobody that 
 is new to this newsgroup would deduce from your above statement that 
 the debugger doesn't support the debugging of several critical D 
 features.

 Providing that statement without specific qualifications isn't fair.

 -JJR


 
 Hold on there <g>
 
 That was a question; not an assertion :)
 
 It may be that Walter's debugger does all the right things?


You think so?

:)

Oh okay, maybe the querying style of getting to the root of the matter 
shows less aggression.  Gentle is good... if that's the true intent.

I apologize; I should have spoken for myself rather than appeared to be 
reinterpreting you.

-JJR



 Jan 07 2006



prev sibling next sibling parent reply Nick <Nick_member pathlink.com>  writes:


In article <dpcvfn$19g6$1 digitaldaemon.com>, Dave says...

What else is stopping the adoption of D where you work (Kris and anyone else)?

- Dave


I currently "work" at a university (I'm taking a master degree in physics, but
will hopefully be a Ph.D. student by the end of this year.) The situation here
is probably a lot different from a "normal" workplace.

Computer programming at my faculty is almost exclusively used for nummerical
calculations and simulations, in everything from weather simulation to pure
mathematics. Most simulation programs are relatively short, and designed
specifically for solving exactly one task. That means that new, fresh programs
are written all the time, and most people here aren't that good on code reuse.
This means that the threshold for new languages should be low, since backward
compatability and "baggage" isn't much of a problem. So I would say the main
hindrance to D here is that nobody knows it, or has even heard about it.

The people here are not really that computer litterate, and not that "into"
learning new languages and computer skills. Most people stick to the language
they once learned to program in for the rest of their lives. The profs still use
Fortran, new students mostly use C++, or Matlab for smaller tasks. (And I will
probably use D for the rest of my life :-)

Another barrier is the lack of a preinstalled D compiler on university
computers, although this can change if enough people demand it. (We would need a
stable dmd 1.0 branch first, though.)

However, I think D is perfectly suited for nummerical programming: gc (don't
have to worry (that much) about memory management), "safe" and easy to use
dynamic arrays, modules, more sensible operator overloading, native complex
numbers, writefln (easier than both printf and cout, we do a lot of text
output), and it's as fast as C++. These are all features that make the language
easier to use for an audience that's not really interested in learning the more
complex aspects of programming. The only things that are lacking, in my opinion,
are ports of the large math libraries like blitz++.

In conclusion, I think D might have a bright (no pun intended) future in
nummerical computing, it only has to become more common and accepted first. The
usual chicken-and-egg situation that all new inventions face at some point.

Nick



 Jan 06 2006



 next sibling parent reply Dave <Dave_member pathlink.com>  writes:


In article <dplmt0$10c1$1 digitaldaemon.com>, Nick says...

In article <dpcvfn$19g6$1 digitaldaemon.com>, Dave says...

What else is stopping the adoption of D where you work (Kris and anyone else)?

- Dave


I currently "work" at a university (I'm taking a master degree in physics, but
will hopefully be a Ph.D. student by the end of this year.) The situation here
is probably a lot different from a "normal" workplace.

Computer programming at my faculty is almost exclusively used for nummerical
calculations and simulations, in everything from weather simulation to pure
mathematics. Most simulation programs are relatively short, and designed
specifically for solving exactly one task. That means that new, fresh programs
are written all the time, and most people here aren't that good on code reuse.
This means that the threshold for new languages should be low, since backward
compatability and "baggage" isn't much of a problem. So I would say the main
hindrance to D here is that nobody knows it, or has even heard about it.

The people here are not really that computer litterate, and not that "into"
learning new languages and computer skills. Most people stick to the language
they once learned to program in for the rest of their lives. The profs still use
Fortran, new students mostly use C++, or Matlab for smaller tasks. (And I will
probably use D for the rest of my life :-)

Another barrier is the lack of a preinstalled D compiler on university
computers, although this can change if enough people demand it. (We would need a
stable dmd 1.0 branch first, though.)

However, I think D is perfectly suited for nummerical programming: gc (don't
have to worry (that much) about memory management), "safe" and easy to use
dynamic arrays, modules, more sensible operator overloading, native complex
numbers, writefln (easier than both printf and cout, we do a lot of text
output), and it's as fast as C++. These are all features that make the language
easier to use for an audience that's not really interested in learning the more
complex aspects of programming. The only things that are lacking, in my opinion,
are ports of the large math libraries like blitz++.

In conclusion, I think D might have a bright (no pun intended) future in
nummerical computing, it only has to become more common and accepted first. The
usual chicken-and-egg situation that all new inventions face at some point.

Nick


Do you also think it would be a big help to have an easy-to-use installation
package for Windows and Linux for the compiler, linker and base libs.?

I don't know if you've seen the posts on these topics or not, but some things
for "version next" that may be of interest for numerical computing have been
discussions on:

- Array operations. Besides the coding advantages, these should also allow for
optimizations like out-of-order execution, vectorization and avoiding aliasing
'de-optimizations'.
- Compilers (and libraries) may be able to use D first class arrays to better
optimize code. The current compilers are based on backends optimized for C/++.
- D GC's could perhaps be built to help provide better locality of reference
than malloc/free for things like large arrays allocated on the heap.
- Native machine precision for the real datatype (this is already part of the
language but the compiler backends don't take advantage of it right now,
optimization-wise).



 Jan 06 2006



  parent reply Charles Hixson <charleshixsn earthlink.net>  writes:


Dave wrote:


 In article <dplmt0$10c1$1 digitaldaemon.com>, Nick says...

In article <dpcvfn$19g6$1 digitaldaemon.com>, Dave says...

What else is stopping the adoption of D where you work (Kris and anyone
else)?

- Dave


I currently "work" at a university (I'm taking a master degree in physics,
but will hopefully be a Ph.D. student by the end of this year.) The
situation here is probably a lot different from a "normal" workplace.
...

In conclusion, I think D might have a bright (no pun intended) future in
nummerical computing, it only has to become more common and accepted
first. The usual chicken-and-egg situation that all new inventions face at
some point.

Nick


 
 Do you also think it would be a big help to have an easy-to-use
 installation package for Windows and Linux for the compiler, linker and
 base libs.?
 
 I don't know if you've seen the posts on these topics or not, but some
 things for "version next" that may be of interest for numerical computing
 have been discussions on:
 
 - Array operations. Besides the coding advantages, these should also allow
 for optimizations like out-of-order execution, vectorization and avoiding
 aliasing 'de-optimizations'.
 - Compilers (and libraries) may be able to use D first class arrays to
 better optimize code. The current compilers are based on backends
 optimized for C/++. - D GC's could perhaps be built to help provide better
 locality of reference than malloc/free for things like large arrays
 allocated on the heap. - Native machine precision for the real datatype
 (this is already part of the language but the compiler backends don't take
 advantage of it right now, optimization-wise).


While a better installer would help, it's not a major concern.  Just
continue to ensure that an individual can run it within his own home
directory (in case of an obstinate sysadmin).  What's needed more is a
better way to import C header files.  Or a better way to link with C++
code.  Or even a better way to smoosh an assemblage of several of the above
together.

It's good that people are working on native D libraries, but face it...there
is a truly immense number of pre-existing libraries that will need to be
linked to, and many of them depend on header files that include things like
functions specified by macros, and other atrocities.  Currently the only
reasonable way to handle this is to write a chunk of C code with a nice
interface that you call from D and which can handle the calls, but this is
often a severe impedance mismatch, and with C++ it gets even worse.  I
don't know that this needs to be dealt with as a part of the language...and
it clearly shouldn't happen before 1.0, but it is VERY important.

-- 
Work in progress



 Jan 08 2006



  parent reply rko <rko_member pathlink.com>  writes:


problems
debugging !!!
c lib reuse !!
easy gui development !!!
phobos should be developed to something like .net or java frameworks !!!!!
reuse of c++ libs !!!

those are the killer at my end, where i can only be boss and yell DO. probably
that will kill me in our project using D.

rko



 Jan 09 2006



  parent  Hasan Aljudy <hasan.aljudy gmail.com>  writes:


rko wrote:

 problems
 debugging !!!
 c lib reuse !!
 easy gui development !!!
 phobos should be developed to something like .net or java frameworks !!!!!
 reuse of c++ libs !!!
 
 those are the killer at my end, where i can only be boss and yell DO. probably
 that will kill me in our project using D.
 
 rko
 
 



I completly agree with this line:
phobos should be developed to something like .net or java frameworks !!!!!



 Jan 09 2006



prev sibling  parent  Sean Kelly <sean f4.ca>  writes:


Nick wrote:

 
 In conclusion, I think D might have a bright (no pun intended) future in
 nummerical computing, it only has to become more common and accepted first. The
 usual chicken-and-egg situation that all new inventions face at some point.


I very much agree.  And I've always said that D would make an excellent 
teaching language, though getting it into the classroom might require a 
good book or two on D.


Sean



 Jan 06 2006



prev sibling  parent  antonio <antonio abrevia.net>  writes:


Dave wrote:

 In article <dpci28$nq$1 digitaldaemon.com>, Kris says...
 
 (Was: Re: Implementation-hiding clarification)
 
 All points well taken Kris; implementation hiding is an important topic, but I
 just don't have anything worthwhile to add. (Not trying to change or confuse
the
 subject, just start a new thread because you brought up another vital point.)
 
 <snip>
 

 We should all understand that there's a lot of inertia against change in IT. 


 
 Ain't that the truth.
 
 I could use the features of D as an improvement over ksh/perl/C/++ for quite a
 bit of what I happen to be doing right now, but I don't think it would fly...
 Even if they would let me re-compile GCC with D built-in (dmd won't run on this
 platform), I don't think I could develop anything but throw-away code right now
 just because of the potential need for someone else to maintain it, and because
 there is not any sort of formal training offered for D, which is a big thing
 where I'm at right now.
 
 Somehow D has to achieve that "buzz-word" status. How to do that? Writing
 articles is one way to help - what else?
 

 To get a foot into the commercial segment, D needs as much help as it can 
 possibly get in order to avoid being marginalized ~ even just keeping the 
 darned lawyers out of the way. Implementation-hiding is one such aspect that 


 
 I agree (not that I'm any more clear on how to actually accommodate mechanical
 implementation-hiding).
 
 "To get a foot into the commercial segment..." is one of the big reasons I'm a
 stickler about RT perf. "out of the box" if you will (meaning both good
 optimization and a language that doesn't get in the way). Everything I've been
 doing the last 5 years has demanded good performance and alot of time is spent
 on that. This is not a D weak point by any stretch, but I submit that D needs
to
 stand-out in that area to get noticed.
 

 helps. I can tell you that D is /not/ being considered where I work. Hence, 
 I have a beef with certain weak attributes of the language and tools.


 
 What else is stopping the adoption of D where you work (Kris and anyone else)?
 
 - Dave
 
 


Main Conclusion (in my opinion):
	Debugger
	Framework (multi platform)

Who

	D fundation or similar with A unique project and a lot of participants 
(D people working in a unique library... framework... the name is not 
important)... And Walter working in a real debugger...

	Something similar to "Mono project producing an alternative .Net platform"

When

	As son as possible.

Why

	Because there is a lot of languages produced as "the best one" that 
offers this 2 main features... and it is the best beginning for 
professional developments.
	Actually, I have to use Delphi or c++ for productivity reasons and it's 
impossible to convince that D is better... because this is false 90%... 
it could be different when only 50% is false :-)

thanks and sorry



 Jan 10 2006