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digitalmars.D.announce - Build It And They Will Not Come

reply Walter Bright <newshound2 digitalmars.com> writes:
I hate the movie "Field of Dreams" where they push the idiotic idea of "Build
it 
and they will come." No, they won't. There's a blizzard of stuff competing for 
their attention out there, why should they invest the time looking at your 
stuff? You need to tell them why!

Here's the frustrating typical pattern I've seen here for years:

1. spend hundreds if not thousands of hours developing something really cool
2. spend 2 minutes posting a link to the repository on D.announce
3. someone posts it to reddit. Ignore it
4. get frustrated that nobody looks at it
5. get bitter and quit

Here's the pattern that works a lot better:

1. spend hundreds if not thousands of hours developing something really cool
2. spend 10 minutes writing the announcement to D.announce. Be sure to include:
    who, what, where, when, why, and how
3. someone posts it to reddit
4. post the who, what, where, when, why and how on reddit AS SOON AS POSSIBLE 
after the reddit link appears. Stuff on reddit has a VERY SHORT shelf life. If 
it doesn't get action within a couple hours, it fades into oblivion. Identify 
yourself as the author, say AMA. The first one to post a comment tends to spark 
and set the tone for the discussion.
5. check back on reddit once an hour or so for the next day, answer questions
6. *****
7. profit!
Aug 18 2015
next sibling parent Rikki Cattermole <alphaglosined gmail.com> writes:
On 19/08/2015 7:35 a.m., Walter Bright wrote:

 I hate the movie "Field of Dreams" where they push the idiotic idea of
 "Build it and they will come." No, they won't. There's a blizzard of
 stuff competing for their attention out there, why should they invest
 the time looking at your stuff? You need to tell them why!

 Here's the frustrating typical pattern I've seen here for years:

 1. spend hundreds if not thousands of hours developing something really
 cool
 2. spend 2 minutes posting a link to the repository on D.announce
 3. someone posts it to reddit. Ignore it
 4. get frustrated that nobody looks at it
 5. get bitter and quit

 Here's the pattern that works a lot better:

 1. spend hundreds if not thousands of hours developing something really
 cool
 2. spend 10 minutes writing the announcement to D.announce. Be sure to
 include:
     who, what, where, when, why, and how
 3. someone posts it to reddit
 4. post the who, what, where, when, why and how on reddit AS SOON AS
 POSSIBLE after the reddit link appears. Stuff on reddit has a VERY SHORT
 shelf life. If it doesn't get action within a couple hours, it fades
 into oblivion. Identify yourself as the author, say AMA. The first one
 to post a comment tends to spark and set the tone for the discussion.
 5. check back on reddit once an hour or so for the next day, answer
 questions
 6. *****
 7. profit!


+1

We also need to get e.g. websites and web presence better for these 
projects. Better and good websites to represent will make it easier to 
find on Google.

Hum, not sure how to do that just yet.
Aug 18 2015
prev sibling next sibling parent reply "Laeeth Isharc" <Laeeth.nospam nospam-laeeth.com> writes:
Sage words quickly forgotten, so:
http://wiki.dlang.org/How_You_Can_Help

Feel free too move somewhere more fitting.
Aug 19 2015
parent Walter Bright <newshound2 digitalmars.com> writes:
On 8/19/2015 12:59 AM, Laeeth Isharc wrote:

 Sage words quickly forgotten, so:
 http://wiki.dlang.org/How_You_Can_Help

 Feel free too move somewhere more fitting.


Thanks! Now I can just regularly point to that.
Aug 19 2015
prev sibling next sibling parent reply "Mike" <none none.com> writes:
On Tuesday, 18 August 2015 at 19:35:02 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:

 I hate the movie "Field of Dreams" where they push the idiotic 
 idea of "Build it and they will come." No, they won't. There's 
 a blizzard of stuff competing for their attention out there, 
 why should they invest the time looking at your stuff? You need 
 to tell them why!

 Here's the frustrating typical pattern I've seen here for years:

 1. spend hundreds if not thousands of hours developing 
 something really cool
 2. spend 2 minutes posting a link to the repository on 
 D.announce
 3. someone posts it to reddit. Ignore it
 4. get frustrated that nobody looks at it
 5. get bitter and quit


I have a number of projects I'd love to blog about, but I'm 
currently held back by  
https://issues.dlang.org/show_bug.cgi?id=14758.  Perhaps now is 
not the right time with the transition DDMD on the horizon, but 
14758 is currently holding me back, and recently kept me from 
soliciting D for my employer's most recent venture.  I have 
defaulted back to C/C++, unfortunately.

If I could get some support on that issue, I really think I could 
make a major contribution to D, and perhaps bring an industry 
with me.  Please just bring me the baton, and I will run.

Mike
Aug 19 2015
parent reply Rikki Cattermole <alphaglosined gmail.com> writes:
On 8/20/2015 6:25 PM, Mike wrote:

 On Tuesday, 18 August 2015 at 19:35:02 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:

 I hate the movie "Field of Dreams" where they push the idiotic idea of
 "Build it and they will come." No, they won't. There's a blizzard of
 stuff competing for their attention out there, why should they invest
 the time looking at your stuff? You need to tell them why!

 Here's the frustrating typical pattern I've seen here for years:

 1. spend hundreds if not thousands of hours developing something
 really cool
 2. spend 2 minutes posting a link to the repository on D.announce
 3. someone posts it to reddit. Ignore it
 4. get frustrated that nobody looks at it
 5. get bitter and quit


 I have a number of projects I'd love to blog about, but I'm currently
 held back by https://issues.dlang.org/show_bug.cgi?id=14758.  Perhaps
 now is not the right time with the transition DDMD on the horizon, but
 14758 is currently holding me back, and recently kept me from soliciting
 D for my employer's most recent venture.  I have defaulted back to
 C/C++, unfortunately.

 If I could get some support on that issue, I really think I could make a
 major contribution to D, and perhaps bring an industry with me.  Please
 just bring me the baton, and I will run.

 Mike


Humm, I wonder if we could strip it out before the final link.
Aug 19 2015
parent "Mike" <none none.com> writes:
On Thursday, 20 August 2015 at 06:50:51 UTC, Rikki Cattermole 
wrote:


 Humm, I wonder if we could strip it out before the final link.


I tried a number of things, all discussed on the D.gnu forum 
(http://forum.dlang.org/post/quemhwpgijwmqtpxukiv forum.dlang.org).  The only
hack that worked some of the time was to compile to assembly, use a sed script
to modify the assembly, and then compile the modified assembly.  That's pretty
ridiculous.  I can't go to my employer with that and I don't think anyone will
take me seriously if my projects contain such things.

A few compiler devs threw me a bone with an -fno-rtti 
implementation.  I am very grateful to those who worked on that 
and I think it has great value, but it forces me to compromise on 
slicing, postblit, and a few others, and that severely diminished 
its appeal. This specific issue, TypeInfo bloat, is just a 
symptom of a more general problem in the D toolchain, namely, 
dead code elimination.

This is not an opportunity to find clever hacks and workarounds, 
its an opportunity to improve the compiler and linker.

Mike
Aug 20 2015
prev sibling next sibling parent reply "Daniel" <daniel.alves descomplica.com.br> writes:
On Tuesday, 18 August 2015 at 19:35:02 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:

 I hate the movie "Field of Dreams" where they push the idiotic 
 idea of "Build it and they will come." No, they won't. There's 
 a blizzard of stuff competing for their attention out there, 
 why should they invest the time looking at your stuff? You need 
 to tell them why!

 Here's the frustrating typical pattern I've seen here for years:

 1. spend hundreds if not thousands of hours developing 
 something really cool
 2. spend 2 minutes posting a link to the repository on 
 D.announce
 3. someone posts it to reddit. Ignore it
 4. get frustrated that nobody looks at it
 5. get bitter and quit

 Here's the pattern that works a lot better:

 1. spend hundreds if not thousands of hours developing 
 something really cool
 2. spend 10 minutes writing the announcement to D.announce. Be 
 sure to include:
    who, what, where, when, why, and how
 3. someone posts it to reddit
 4. post the who, what, where, when, why and how on reddit AS 
 SOON AS POSSIBLE after the reddit link appears. Stuff on reddit 
 has a VERY SHORT shelf life. If it doesn't get action within a 
 couple hours, it fades into oblivion. Identify yourself as the 
 author, say AMA. The first one to post a comment tends to spark 
 and set the tone for the discussion.
 5. check back on reddit once an hour or so for the next day, 
 answer questions
 6. *****
 7. profit!


One thing that always comes to mind is that D does not have a 
free, extensive, structured good reference as Go 
(https://www.golang-book.com/books/intro) and Rust 
(https://doc.rust-lang.org/book/index.html) do. I mean, compare 
D's learn section (http://forum.dlang.org/group/learn) to those 
other links. It's kind of frustrating to newcomers. I've read 
Andrei's book and its awesome. Couldn't you guys consider making 
it open and the official book?

For the web guys, you should really consider committing something 
with vibe.d to TechEmpower 
(https://www.techempower.com/benchmarks/). A lot of web 
programmers look at that.

Finally, a good comparison between D's GC and the Go's 1.5 GC 
would be great. The latter has been making a lot of impact 
recently.
Aug 20 2015
parent reply "bachmeier" <no spam.com> writes:
On Thursday, 20 August 2015 at 14:45:24 UTC, Daniel wrote:

 One thing that always comes to mind is that D does not have a 
 free, extensive, structured good reference as Go 
 (https://www.golang-book.com/books/intro) and Rust 
 (https://doc.rust-lang.org/book/index.html) do. I mean, compare 
 D's learn section (http://forum.dlang.org/group/learn) to those 
 other links. It's kind of frustrating to newcomers. I've read 
 Andrei's book and its awesome. Couldn't you guys consider 
 making it open and the official book?


Can you give some examples of things provided by those books that 
are not provided by Ali's book? I ignore any project for which 
you have to pay to get basic documentation, but I don't see how 
that applies with D.
Aug 20 2015
parent reply "Daniel" <daniel.alves descomplica.com.br> writes:
On Thursday, 20 August 2015 at 14:59:33 UTC, bachmeier wrote:

 On Thursday, 20 August 2015 at 14:45:24 UTC, Daniel wrote:

 One thing that always comes to mind is that D does not have a 
 free, extensive, structured good reference as Go 
 (https://www.golang-book.com/books/intro) and Rust 
 (https://doc.rust-lang.org/book/index.html) do. I mean, 
 compare D's learn section (http://forum.dlang.org/group/learn) 
 to those other links. It's kind of frustrating to newcomers. 
 I've read Andrei's book and its awesome. Couldn't you guys 
 consider making it open and the official book?


 Can you give some examples of things provided by those books 
 that are not provided by Ali's book? I ignore any project for 
 which you have to pay to get basic documentation, but I don't 
 see how that applies with D.


It's not about having free docs, it's about having an official 
and good to use free doc. Yes, I'm also talking about ux here 
(although being a programmer), not only content - compare Rust's 
experience (https://doc.rust-lang.org/stable/book/) to Ali's 
(http://ddili.org/ders/d.en/). Ali, I mean no offense, of course. 
Anyway, I didn't know about Ali's book. Maybe it could be linked 
at dlang.org's left menu?
Aug 20 2015
parent anonymous <anonymous example.com> writes:
On Thursday 20 August 2015 17:18, Daniel wrote:


 Anyway, I didn't know about Ali's book. Maybe it could be linked
 at dlang.org's left menu?


It's the first link on the "Getting Started" page (added somewhat recently). 
And it's the first link in the "Books & Articles" section. I wouldn't oppose 
a link on the top level, but I'm not sure if it's a good idea.
Aug 20 2015
prev sibling next sibling parent reply "Daniel" <daniel.alves descomplica.com.br> writes:
On Tuesday, 18 August 2015 at 19:35:02 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:

 I hate the movie "Field of Dreams" where they push the idiotic 
 idea of "Build it and they will come." No, they won't. There's 
 a blizzard of stuff competing for their attention out there, 
 why should they invest the time looking at your stuff? You need 
 to tell them why!


Oh, an official Docker image would also help. Look at Go's: 
https://hub.docker.com/_/golang/
Aug 20 2015
parent Russel Winder via Digitalmars-d-announce writes:
On Thu, 2015-08-20 at 14:59 +0000, Daniel via Digitalmars-d-announce
wrote:

 [=E2=80=A6]
=20
 Oh, an official Docker image would also help. Look at Go's:=20
 https://hub.docker.com/_/golang/


Go 1.3, how appallingly out of date, it's 1.5 now.

--=20
Russel.
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=
=3D=3D
Dr Russel Winder      t: +44 20 7585 2200   voip: sip:russel.winder ekiga.n=
et
41 Buckmaster Road    m: +44 7770 465 077   xmpp: russel winder.org.uk
London SW11 1EN, UK   w: www.russel.org.uk  skype: russel_winder
Aug 20 2015
prev sibling next sibling parent "Lars T. Kyllingstad" <public kyllingen.net> writes:
On Tuesday, 18 August 2015 at 19:35:02 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:

 Here's the pattern that works a lot better:

 1. spend hundreds if not thousands of hours developing 
 something really cool


Check!


 2. spend 10 minutes writing the announcement to D.announce. Be 
 sure to include:
    who, what, where, when, why, and how


Check!


 3. someone posts it to reddit


Wait, what?  They did?


 4. post the who, what, where, when, why and how on reddit AS 
 SOON AS POSSIBLE after the reddit link appears. Stuff on reddit 
 has a VERY SHORT shelf life. If it doesn't get action within a 
 couple hours, it fades into oblivion. Identify yourself as the 
 author, say AMA. The first one to post a comment tends to spark 
 and set the tone for the discussion.


Oh man, I'm like two days too late for that.
goto 7?


 5. check back on reddit once an hour or so for the next day, 
 answer questions


Whoa.  I don't have time for that!


 6. *****


???


 7. profit!


Fingers crossed!

-Lars
Aug 20 2015
prev sibling parent reply "Chris" <wendlec tcd.ie> writes:
On Tuesday, 18 August 2015 at 19:35:02 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:

 I hate the movie "Field of Dreams" where they push the idiotic 
 idea of "Build it and they will come." No, they won't. There's 
 a blizzard of stuff competing for their attention out there, 
 why should they invest the time looking at your stuff? You need 
 to tell them why!


I've never seen that film but I remember a guy who would use this 
line when we were trying to revive a pub that was in dire 
straits. The truth is "No, they won't come, unless you have 
something really good to offer!"

The line is only true of TV, as they said in Seinfeld

"Well, why am I watching it? - Because it's on TV."

Yes, because people sit on their ar*es and consume it passively. 
But if you want them to actually do something, it's not enough to 
just build it.
Sep 11 2015
parent reply Bill Baxter via Digitalmars-d-announce writes:
To be fair, wasn't the movie talking about dead baseball player ghosts
coming? For people to take that example and apply it to other endeavors in
life is a bit ridiculous.

But maybe I'm misremembering. Saw it a long time ago.
On Sep 11, 2015 4:00 AM, "Chris via Digitalmars-d-announce" <
digitalmars-d-announce puremagic.com> wrote:


 On Tuesday, 18 August 2015 at 19:35:02 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:


 I hate the movie "Field of Dreams" where they push the idiotic idea of
 "Build it and they will come." No, they won't. There's a blizzard of stuff
 competing for their attention out there, why should they invest the time
 looking at your stuff? You need to tell them why!


 I've never seen that film but I remember a guy who would use this line
 when we were trying to revive a pub that was in dire straits. The truth is
 "No, they won't come, unless you have something really good to offer!"

 The line is only true of TV, as they said in Seinfeld

 "Well, why am I watching it? - Because it's on TV."

 Yes, because people sit on their ar*es and consume it passively. But if
 you want them to actually do something, it's not enough to just build it.
Sep 11 2015
parent reply Nick Sabalausky <SeeWebsiteToContactMe semitwist.com> writes:
On 09/11/2015 01:59 PM, Bill Baxter via Digitalmars-d-announce wrote:

 To be fair, wasn't the movie talking about dead baseball player ghosts
 coming? For people to take that example and apply it to other endeavors in
 life is a bit ridiculous.


That's pretty similar to how I felt about Doom3: People complained how 
"unrealistic" it was to not be able to duct tape the flashlight to the 
gun, but...For crap's sake, it's a game about a demon invasion from hell 
and one guy single-handedly holding them all off. Realism and 
believability were obviously never the point. :)

'Course, that game had other issues, but realism (or lack of) was never 
one of them.


 But maybe I'm misremembering. Saw it a long time ago.


Never saw it myself, but that's what I'd heard it was about.
Sep 12 2015
parent reply Meta <jared771 gmail.com> writes:
On Saturday, 12 September 2015 at 14:25:46 UTC, Nick Sabalausky 
wrote:

 That's pretty similar to how I felt about Doom3: People 
 complained how "unrealistic" it was to not be able to duct tape 
 the flashlight to the gun, but...For crap's sake, it's a game 
 about a demon invasion from hell and one guy single-handedly 
 holding them all off. Realism and believability were obviously 
 never the point. :)

 'Course, that game had other issues, but realism (or lack of) 
 was never one of them.


 But maybe I'm misremembering. Saw it a long time ago.


 Never saw it myself, but that's what I'd heard it was about.


It's funny, people are willing to suspend their disbelief for 
demons from hell, but not for the lack of a flashlight and duct 
tape. It's probably because it was an annoying game mechanic, and 
taping a flashlight to a gun is something so simple and mundane 
that you *can't* suspend your disbelief at Doom Guy being unable 
to find a way to use both at once somehow.
Sep 12 2015
parent Bahman Movaqar <Bahman BahmanM.com> writes:
On 09/13/2015 08:51 AM, Meta wrote:

 It's funny, people are willing to suspend their disbelief for demons
 from hell, but not for the lack of a flashlight and duct tape. It's
 probably because it was an annoying game mechanic, and taping a
 flashlight to a gun is something so simple and mundane that you *can't*=



 suspend your disbelief at Doom Guy being unable to find a way to use
 both at once somehow.


Have you ever tried taping 8 different flashlights to 8 different
weapons ranging from a pistol to a badass BFG while carrying a
light-tank-load of ammunition?  I'm not even talking about finding tapes
in that demon-infested compound with those jammed office doors that once
you open them an imp (in the best case) tries to plasma-whack you!

Cut the doom guy some slack!  We owe him our very existence!

:-)

--=20
Bahman Movaqar
Sep 12 2015