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digitalmars.D.announce - dmd 1.061 and 2.046 release

reply Walter Bright <newshound1 digitalmars.com> writes:
This is to fix the spell corrector speed problems and several forward reference 
bugs.

http://www.digitalmars.com/d/1.0/changelog.html
http://ftp.digitalmars.com/dmd.1.061.zip


http://www.digitalmars.com/d/2.0/changelog.html
http://ftp.digitalmars.com/dmd.2.046.zip
May 14 2010
next sibling parent reply Ary Borenszweig <ary esperanto.org.ar> writes:
Walter Bright wrote:

 This is to fix the spell corrector speed problems and several forward 
 reference bugs.
 
 http://www.digitalmars.com/d/1.0/changelog.html
 http://ftp.digitalmars.com/dmd.1.061.zip
 
 
 http://www.digitalmars.com/d/2.0/changelog.html
 http://ftp.digitalmars.com/dmd.2.046.zip


Add hints for missing import declarations.

What does that mean?
May 14 2010
parent reply Walter Bright <newshound1 digitalmars.com> writes:
Ary Borenszweig wrote:

 Walter Bright wrote:

 This is to fix the spell corrector speed problems and several forward 
 reference bugs.

 http://www.digitalmars.com/d/1.0/changelog.html
 http://ftp.digitalmars.com/dmd.1.061.zip


 http://www.digitalmars.com/d/2.0/changelog.html
 http://ftp.digitalmars.com/dmd.2.046.zip


 
 Add hints for missing import declarations.
 
 What does that mean?


Write the following program:

-------------------
void main()
{
     writeln("hello world!");
}
-------------------

compile it and see what happens. I think it'll be clear!
May 14 2010
parent reply Leandro Lucarella <llucax gmail.com> writes:
Walter Bright, el 14 de mayo a las 14:42 me escribiste:

 Ary Borenszweig wrote:

Walter Bright wrote:

This is to fix the spell corrector speed problems and several
forward reference bugs.

http://www.digitalmars.com/d/1.0/changelog.html
http://ftp.digitalmars.com/dmd.1.061.zip


http://www.digitalmars.com/d/2.0/changelog.html
http://ftp.digitalmars.com/dmd.2.046.zip


Add hints for missing import declarations.

What does that mean?


 
 Write the following program:
 
 -------------------
 void main()
 {
     writeln("hello world!");
 }
 -------------------
 
 compile it and see what happens. I think it'll be clear!


I saw the patches, and having all hardcoded in the compiler doesn't seems
like a good idea =/

-- 
Leandro Lucarella (AKA luca)                     http://llucax.com.ar/
----------------------------------------------------------------------
GPG Key: 5F5A8D05 (F8CD F9A7 BF00 5431 4145  104C 949E BFB6 5F5A 8D05)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
驴C贸mo estais? 驴C贸mo os senteis hoy 29 del membre de 1961 d铆a en que
conmemoreramos la non茅sima setima nebulizaci贸n del martir Peperino
P贸moro junto al Rolo Puente en la ciudad de Jadad?
	-- Peperino P贸moro
May 14 2010
parent reply Walter Bright <newshound1 digitalmars.com> writes:
Leandro Lucarella wrote:

 I saw the patches, and having all hardcoded in the compiler doesn't seems
 like a good idea =/


I know the hardcoding is probably not the best, but I wanted to try it out to 
see if it was a good feature before committing a lot of work to it.

The alternative is to use some sort of configuration file for it. The problem, 
though, is that the hints are for newbies, and newbies probably aren't going to 
get a configuration file properly set up, especially if there are multiple such 
files.
May 14 2010
next sibling parent reply Don <nospam nospam.com> writes:
Walter Bright wrote:

 Leandro Lucarella wrote:

 I saw the patches, and having all hardcoded in the compiler doesn't seems
 like a good idea =/


 
 I know the hardcoding is probably not the best, but I wanted to try it 
 out to see if it was a good feature before committing a lot of work to it.
 
 The alternative is to use some sort of configuration file for it. The 
 problem, though, is that the hints are for newbies, and newbies probably 
 aren't going to get a configuration file properly set up, especially if 
 there are multiple such files.


I think the only purpose of such a feature is to increase the chance 
that a newbie's "hello world" compiles successfully. The importance of 
that can't be underestimated, I think. First impressions matter.
May 15 2010
next sibling parent reply Walter Bright <newshound1 digitalmars.com> writes:
Don wrote:

 Walter Bright wrote:

 Leandro Lucarella wrote:

 I saw the patches, and having all hardcoded in the compiler doesn't 
 seems
 like a good idea =/


 I know the hardcoding is probably not the best, but I wanted to try it 
 out to see if it was a good feature before committing a lot of work to 
 it.

 The alternative is to use some sort of configuration file for it. The 
 problem, though, is that the hints are for newbies, and newbies 
 probably aren't going to get a configuration file properly set up, 
 especially if there are multiple such files.


 
 I think the only purpose of such a feature is to increase the chance 
 that a newbie's "hello world" compiles successfully. The importance of 
 that can't be underestimated, I think. First impressions matter.


Yes, or at least have a to-the-point error message rather than just an
undefined 
identifier.

It's amazing how much information we take for granted. For example, I've been 
trying to use Apple's xcode system. I find it hard to do the most trivial 
things, like trying to figure out how to just start the thing.

Apple's web site isn't much better, it's got to be the most hard to read site 
I've ever encountered. The text is a faint grey on white, of all things, and
the 
font is so poorly rendered my eyes turn red and painful after a while reading 
it. I have to actually select the text in order to read it. I find this 
astonishing, am I doing something wrong?

It won't render at all in Explorer.

The D web site is rather pedestrian, but at least it's easy on the eyes.
May 15 2010
next sibling parent reply Jacob Carlborg <doob me.com> writes:
On 5/15/10 11:00, Walter Bright wrote:

 Don wrote:

 Walter Bright wrote:

 Leandro Lucarella wrote:

 I saw the patches, and having all hardcoded in the compiler doesn't
 seems
 like a good idea =/


 I know the hardcoding is probably not the best, but I wanted to try
 it out to see if it was a good feature before committing a lot of
 work to it.

 The alternative is to use some sort of configuration file for it. The
 problem, though, is that the hints are for newbies, and newbies
 probably aren't going to get a configuration file properly set up,
 especially if there are multiple such files.


 I think the only purpose of such a feature is to increase the chance
 that a newbie's "hello world" compiles successfully. The importance of
 that can't be underestimated, I think. First impressions matter.


 Yes, or at least have a to-the-point error message rather than just an
 undefined identifier.

 It's amazing how much information we take for granted. For example, I've
 been trying to use Apple's xcode system. I find it hard to do the most
 trivial things, like trying to figure out how to just start the thing.

 Apple's web site isn't much better, it's got to be the most hard to read
 site I've ever encountered. The text is a faint grey on white, of all
 things, and the font is so poorly rendered my eyes turn red and painful
 after a while reading it. I have to actually select the text in order to
 read it. I find this astonishing, am I doing something wrong?


Looking at Apple's developer site and the API reference, for me the body 
of the text is black using firefox, some minor parts are in gray.


 It won't render at all in Explorer.

 The D web site is rather pedestrian, but at least it's easy on the eyes.
May 15 2010
parent reply Walter Bright <newshound1 digitalmars.com> writes:
Jacob Carlborg wrote:

 On 5/15/10 11:00, Walter Bright wrote:

 Apple's web site isn't much better, it's got to be the most hard to read
 site I've ever encountered. The text is a faint grey on white, of all
 things, and the font is so poorly rendered my eyes turn red and painful
 after a while reading it. I have to actually select the text in order to
 read it. I find this astonishing, am I doing something wrong?


 
 Looking at Apple's developer site and the API reference, for me the body 
 of the text is black using firefox, some minor parts are in gray.


I'm using firefox. Even on their main developer.apple.com/iphone/index.action, 
most of the text is light grey on white.

Now click on "getting started documents", which brings you to a page that will 
not render in Explorer or Firefox, only Safari.

In the docs themselves, a very light blue font is used for links that is 
illegible. The code examples in the docs are even lighter grey on white. Couple 
this with the unusually small font used, and it's literally painful to read.

For a company that prides itself on excellent readability, I am astonished, and 
I can't believe I'm the only one with problems reading their pages.
May 15 2010
next sibling parent reply =?UTF-8?B?IkrDqXLDtG1lIE0uIEJlcmdlciI=?= <jeberger free.fr> writes:
Walter Bright wrote:

 Jacob Carlborg wrote:

 On 5/15/10 11:00, Walter Bright wrote:

 Apple's web site isn't much better, it's got to be the most hard to r=






ead

 site I've ever encountered. The text is a faint grey on white, of all=







 things, and the font is so poorly rendered my eyes turn red and painf=






ul

 after a while reading it. I have to actually select the text in order=






 to

 read it. I find this astonishing, am I doing something wrong?


 Looking at Apple's developer site and the API reference, for me the
 body of the text is black using firefox, some minor parts are in gray.=





=20
 I'm using firefox. Even on their main
 developer.apple.com/iphone/index.action, most of the text is light grey=



 on white.
=20


	Text is black here. But it is very thin, are you sure this isn't an
anti-aliasing issue?


 Now click on "getting started documents", which brings you to a page
 that will not render in Explorer or Firefox, only Safari.
=20


	Works fine here. Firefox 3.6.3 on Linux.

		Jerome
--=20
mailto:jeberger free.fr
http://jeberger.free.fr
Jabber: jeberger jabber.fr
May 15 2010
next sibling parent reply Ary Borenszweig <ary esperanto.org.ar> writes:
J茅r么me M. Berger wrote:

 Walter Bright wrote:

 Jacob Carlborg wrote:

 On 5/15/10 11:00, Walter Bright wrote:

 Apple's web site isn't much better, it's got to be the most hard to read
 site I've ever encountered. The text is a faint grey on white, of all
 things, and the font is so poorly rendered my eyes turn red and painful
 after a while reading it. I have to actually select the text in order to
 read it. I find this astonishing, am I doing something wrong?


 Looking at Apple's developer site and the API reference, for me the
 body of the text is black using firefox, some minor parts are in gray.


 I'm using firefox. Even on their main
 developer.apple.com/iphone/index.action, most of the text is light grey
 on white.


 	Text is black here. But it is very thin, are you sure this isn't an
 anti-aliasing issue?




So I would say it's grey like the one you find in a banana's stone.

...

http://blog.xkcd.com/2010/05/03/color-survey-results/
May 15 2010
parent reply =?UTF-8?B?IkrDqXLDtG1lIE0uIEJlcmdlciI=?= <jeberger free.fr> writes:
Ary Borenszweig wrote:

 J=C3=A9r=C3=B4me M. Berger wrote:

 Walter Bright wrote:

 Jacob Carlborg wrote:

 On 5/15/10 11:00, Walter Bright wrote:

 Apple's web site isn't much better, it's got to be the most hard to=











 read
 site I've ever encountered. The text is a faint grey on white, of a=










ll

 things, and the font is so poorly rendered my eyes turn red and
 painful
 after a while reading it. I have to actually select the text in
 order to
 read it. I find this astonishing, am I doing something wrong?


 Looking at Apple's developer site and the API reference, for me the
 body of the text is black using firefox, some minor parts are in gra=








y.

 I'm using firefox. Even on their main
 developer.apple.com/iphone/index.action, most of the text is light gr=






ey

 on white.


     Text is black here. But it is very thin, are you sure this isn't a=




n

 anti-aliasing issue?


=20

=20


	Well, that's dark grey, not light grey like Walter said he gets...

		Jerome
--=20
mailto:jeberger free.fr
http://jeberger.free.fr
Jabber: jeberger jabber.fr
May 16 2010
parent Stewart Gordon <smjg_1998 yahoo.com> writes:
J茅r么me M. Berger wrote:

 Ary Borenszweig wrote:

 J茅r么me M. Berger wrote:

 Walter Bright wrote:






<snip>

 I'm using firefox. Even on their main
 developer.apple.com/iphone/index.action, most of the text is light grey
 on white.


     Text is black here. But it is very thin, are you sure this isn't an
 anti-aliasing issue?






In Windows Vista at least, anti-aliasing (whether Standard or ClearType) 
clearly isn't a straight average, considering that zooming out doesn't 
cause it to fade.  AIUI, part of M$'s patent on ClearType is about how 
it differs from straight average anti-aliasing by colour stripes.  I 
don't really know how it works.  Nor do I know how the anti-aliasing in 
other OSs compares.  But there, there's also the issue of system gamma 
vs. CSS standard gamma (well, sRGB) and whether or not the browser corrects.





 	Well, that's dark grey, not light grey like Walter said he gets...


Which text?


the VisiBone naming).



(Firefox 3.6.3, examined using Firebug)

Stewart.
May 27 2010
prev sibling parent Walter Bright <newshound1 digitalmars.com> writes:
J茅r么me M. Berger wrote:

 Walter Bright wrote:

 Jacob Carlborg wrote:

 On 5/15/10 11:00, Walter Bright wrote:

 Apple's web site isn't much better, it's got to be the most hard to read
 site I've ever encountered. The text is a faint grey on white, of all
 things, and the font is so poorly rendered my eyes turn red and painful
 after a while reading it. I have to actually select the text in order to
 read it. I find this astonishing, am I doing something wrong?


 Looking at Apple's developer site and the API reference, for me the
 body of the text is black using firefox, some minor parts are in gray.


 I'm using firefox. Even on their main
 developer.apple.com/iphone/index.action, most of the text is light grey
 on white.


 	Text is black here. But it is very thin, are you sure this isn't an
 anti-aliasing issue?


Yes, because there is some legible black text on other parts of the page.



 Now click on "getting started documents", which brings you to a page
 that will not render in Explorer or Firefox, only Safari.


 	Works fine here. Firefox 3.6.3 on Linux.


3.0.18 on Ubuntu.
May 15 2010
prev sibling next sibling parent reply Andrej Mitrovic <andrej.mitrovich gmail.com> writes:
Walter Bright Wrote:


 Jacob Carlborg wrote:

 On 5/15/10 11:00, Walter Bright wrote:

 Apple's web site isn't much better, it's got to be the most hard to read
 site I've ever encountered. The text is a faint grey on white, of all
 things, and the font is so poorly rendered my eyes turn red and painful
 after a while reading it. I have to actually select the text in order to
 read it. I find this astonishing, am I doing something wrong?


 
 Looking at Apple's developer site and the API reference, for me the body 
 of the text is black using firefox, some minor parts are in gray.


 
 I'm using firefox. Even on their main developer.apple.com/iphone/index.action, 
 most of the text is light grey on white.
 
 Now click on "getting started documents", which brings you to a page that will 
 not render in Explorer or Firefox, only Safari.
 
 In the docs themselves, a very light blue font is used for links that is 
 illegible. The code examples in the docs are even lighter grey on white.
Couple 
 this with the unusually small font used, and it's literally painful to read.
 
 For a company that prides itself on excellent readability, I am astonished,
and 
 I can't believe I'm the only one with problems reading their pages.


The link works for me (The getting started page) with Firefox. I agree about
the colors, they're not the best combination, e.g. this piece of code gray on
light-blue:



There's an option in Firefox to force the rendering of text using system
defined colors. Try Tools>Options>Content tab>Colors button> and check "Use
system colors" and uncheck "Allow pages to user their own colors".

But this only works globally afaik. There's a Download button on top of those
examples for a zipped collection of the samples, which is kind of neat actually.

Maybe there's a plugin for Firefox that can force some colors on individual
websites, I'll have a look later.
May 15 2010
parent reply =?ISO-8859-15?Q?=22J=E9r=F4me_M=2E_Berger=22?= <jeberger free.fr> writes:
Andrej Mitrovic wrote:

 Maybe there's a plugin for Firefox that can force some colors on indivi=


dual websites, I'll have a look later.

=20


	There is: Stylish. It allows you to completely redefine the style
sheet on a site by site basis (always assuming that the web site
uses css of course): https://addons.mozilla.org/fr/firefox/addon/2108/

		Jerome
--=20
mailto:jeberger free.fr
http://jeberger.free.fr
Jabber: jeberger jabber.fr
May 16 2010
parent "Nick Sabalausky" <a a.a> writes:
""J閞鬽e M. Berger"" <jeberger free.fr> wrote in message 
news:hspm5b$1h9f$2 digitalmars.com...


There's also Greasemonkey. 



 May 16 2010



prev sibling  parent  Jacob Carlborg <doob me.com>  writes:


On 5/15/10 19:27, Walter Bright wrote:

 Jacob Carlborg wrote:

 On 5/15/10 11:00, Walter Bright wrote:

 Apple's web site isn't much better, it's got to be the most hard to read
 site I've ever encountered. The text is a faint grey on white, of all
 things, and the font is so poorly rendered my eyes turn red and painful
 after a while reading it. I have to actually select the text in order to
 read it. I find this astonishing, am I doing something wrong?


 Looking at Apple's developer site and the API reference, for me the
 body of the text is black using firefox, some minor parts are in gray.


 I'm using firefox. Even on their main
 developer.apple.com/iphone/index.action, most of the text is light grey
 on white.

 Now click on "getting started documents", which brings you to a page
 that will not render in Explorer or Firefox, only Safari.


It renders perfectly fine for me using firefox, looks exactly the same 
with safari and firefox.


 In the docs themselves, a very light blue font is used for links that is
 illegible. The code examples in the docs are even lighter grey on white.
 Couple this with the unusually small font used, and it's literally
 painful to read.


I can agree with you about the links, oh the code examples, yeah they 
are quite gray.


 For a company that prides itself on excellent readability, I am
 astonished, and I can't believe I'm the only one with problems reading
 their pages.





 May 15 2010



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


On 05/15/2010 02:00 AM, Walter Bright wrote:

 Don wrote:

 Walter Bright wrote:

 Leandro Lucarella wrote:

 I saw the patches, and having all hardcoded in the compiler doesn't
 seems
 like a good idea =/


 I know the hardcoding is probably not the best, but I wanted to try
 it out to see if it was a good feature before committing a lot of
 work to it.

 The alternative is to use some sort of configuration file for it. The
 problem, though, is that the hints are for newbies, and newbies
 probably aren't going to get a configuration file properly set up,
 especially if there are multiple such files.


 I think the only purpose of such a feature is to increase the chance
 that a newbie's "hello world" compiles successfully. The importance of
 that can't be underestimated, I think. First impressions matter.


 Yes, or at least have a to-the-point error message rather than just an
 undefined identifier.

 It's amazing how much information we take for granted. For example, I've
 been trying to use Apple's xcode system. I find it hard to do the most
 trivial things, like trying to figure out how to just start the thing.

 Apple's web site isn't much better, it's got to be the most hard to read
 site I've ever encountered. The text is a faint grey on white, of all
 things, and the font is so poorly rendered my eyes turn red and painful
 after a while reading it. I have to actually select the text in order to
 read it. I find this astonishing, am I doing something wrong?

 It won't render at all in Explorer.

 The D web site is rather pedestrian, but at least it's easy on the eyes.


*Pedestrian*??

The D web pages are a marvel of clarity and utility.  Compare them to 
the Python web pages, which I rate a second best.  Things are documented 
with relative clarity, one can generally find what one needs with a bit 
of searching, even if one doesn't know what it's named.  Etc.

The D web site has only two minor (*minor*!) problems
One is the search engine which doesn't work on local copies.
The other is that one needs to disable google translation on local 
copies, or everything loads too slowly.
(The first of those is probably impossible to deal with, but the second 
looks trivial.)

If by pedestrian you mean clean, clear, and easy to use, then give me 
more pedestrian.

My sole problem with D is one that's probably impossible to address: 
the lack of libraries.  When I need libraries, I usually end up using 
some other language.  But it sure isn't the web page.

(DSource is marvelous, but most of the libraries listed appear to be 
either moribund or morbid.)



 May 16 2010



 next sibling parent reply Walter Bright <newshound1 digitalmars.com>  writes:


Charles Hixson wrote:

 On 05/15/2010 02:00 AM, Walter Bright wrote:

 The D web site is rather pedestrian, but at least it's easy on the eyes.


 
 *Pedestrian*??
 
 The D web pages are a marvel of clarity and utility.  Compare them to 
 the Python web pages, which I rate a second best.  Things are documented 
 with relative clarity, one can generally find what one needs with a bit 
 of searching, even if one doesn't know what it's named.  Etc.
 
 The D web site has only two minor (*minor*!) problems
 One is the search engine which doesn't work on local copies.
 The other is that one needs to disable google translation on local 
 copies, or everything loads too slowly.
 (The first of those is probably impossible to deal with, but the second 
 looks trivial.)
 
 If by pedestrian you mean clean, clear, and easy to use, then give me 
 more pedestrian.


People often say it doesn't look professional. I agree it could probably use 
better colors, etc. But for this kind of web site, I think it's just wrong to 
use flash, javascript, or anything that takes a long time to load. I don't like 
pages that have a tiny bit of content surrounded by acres of flashy, blinky, 
hovering advertisements. I don't like websites that sacrifice readability in 
favor of a "look". I don't like web pages that refuse to reflow if the window 
size is changed. The site should print properly, and be mechanically
convertible 
to a reasonably decent looking pdf.

The site needs to be friendly to search engines, and usable by screen readers. 
Yes, there are blind programmers, and at least one blind D programmer. It's 
obnoxious to make a site they cannot use.

I'm also old, and just don't like sites that use small fonts, cute fonts,
blurry 
fonts, fonts with poor contrast, etc. They're hard, even painful, to read. When 
I was a kid writing letters to my aged relatives, my mom told me that they'd 
struggle to read typical handwriting, and that it's nice to use a typewriter 
instead. I always remembered that advice, and when I started using word 
processors for letters, the ones I'd send to them I'd always enlarge the font 
quite a bit. Web sites should avoid setting specific font sizes, so low vision 
users can enlarge it.

I recently completed a revamp of the digitalmars site that got rid of the table 
based layout in favor of using floating CSS layout. The result looks a bit 
nicer, and the printing should be much better.



 My sole problem with D is one that's probably impossible to address: the 
 lack of libraries.  When I need libraries, I usually end up using some 
 other language.  But it sure isn't the web page.
 
 (DSource is marvelous, but most of the libraries listed appear to be 
 either moribund or morbid.)


The library situation hopefully will get better over time.

And thanks for the kind words about the site (!), it is nice to hear them.



 May 16 2010



 next sibling parent reply "Nick Sabalausky" <a a.a>  writes:


"Walter Bright" <newshound1 digitalmars.com> wrote in message 
news:hspj3m$1c9b$1 digitalmars.com...

 People often say it doesn't look professional. I agree it could probably 
 use better colors, etc. But for this kind of web site, I think it's just 
 wrong to use flash, javascript, or anything that takes a long time to 
 load. I don't like pages that have a tiny bit of content surrounded by 
 acres of flashy, blinky, hovering advertisements. I don't like websites 
 that sacrifice readability in favor of a "look". I don't like web pages 
 that refuse to reflow if the window size is changed. The site should print 
 properly, and be mechanically convertible to a reasonably decent looking 
 pdf.

 The site needs to be friendly to search engines, and usable by screen 
 readers. Yes, there are blind programmers, and at least one blind D 
 programmer. It's obnoxious to make a site they cannot use.

 I'm also old, and just don't like sites that use small fonts, cute fonts, 
 blurry fonts, fonts with poor contrast, etc. They're hard, even painful, 
 to read. When I was a kid writing letters to my aged relatives, my mom 
 told me that they'd struggle to read typical handwriting, and that it's 
 nice to use a typewriter instead. I always remembered that advice, and 
 when I started using word processors for letters, the ones I'd send to 
 them I'd always enlarge the font quite a bit. Web sites should avoid 
 setting specific font sizes, so low vision users can enlarge it.


I agree a lot with most of this, but any web browser that doesn't scale 
so-called fixed-size fonts when zooming has a broken, archaic zoom function, 
period.



 I recently completed a revamp of the digitalmars site that got rid of the 
 table based layout in favor of using floating CSS layout. The result looks 
 a bit nicer, and the printing should be much better.


Speaking as a web developer, I've found that floating CSS is irritatingly 
gimped compared to tables when trying to adjust how things flow upon 
resizing. (Speaker as a web user, I've never cared one bit whether a site 
used floating CSS vs tables.)



 May 16 2010



 next sibling parent reply Walter Bright <newshound1 digitalmars.com>  writes:


Nick Sabalausky wrote:

 I recently completed a revamp of the digitalmars site that got rid of the 
 table based layout in favor of using floating CSS layout. The result looks 
 a bit nicer, and the printing should be much better.


 
 Speaking as a web developer, I've found that floating CSS is irritatingly 
 gimped compared to tables when trying to adjust how things flow upon 
 resizing. (Speaker as a web user, I've never cared one bit whether a site 
 used floating CSS vs tables.)


Doing them as floating CSS makes it possible to "nodisplay" the navigation 
sections when formatting for print.

The whole HTML/CSS design is such a horrific kludge it's a wonder it works at
all.



 May 16 2010



  parent reply "Nick Sabalausky" <a a.a>  writes:


"Walter Bright" <newshound1 digitalmars.com> wrote in message 
news:hsqhhg$fmq$1 digitalmars.com...

 Nick Sabalausky wrote:

 I recently completed a revamp of the digitalmars site that got rid of 
 the table based layout in favor of using floating CSS layout. The result 
 looks a bit nicer, and the printing should be much better.


 Speaking as a web developer, I've found that floating CSS is irritatingly 
 gimped compared to tables when trying to adjust how things flow upon 
 resizing. (Speaker as a web user, I've never cared one bit whether a site 
 used floating CSS vs tables.)


 Doing them as floating CSS makes it possible to "nodisplay" the navigation 
 sections when formatting for print.


Ahh, good point.


 The whole HTML/CSS design is such a horrific kludge it's a wonder it works 
 at all.


That's exactly how I feel about 99% of internet "technologies" (including 
HTML/CSS, of course). And they're all horrific kludges *on top* of horrific 
kludges - I almost wish I never learned how ethernet, *ahem*..."works". It's 
a wonder I have any sanity left.



 May 16 2010



  parent  Nathan Tuggy <bugzilla nathan.tuggycomputer.com>  writes:


On 2010-05-16 21:47, Nick Sabalausky wrote:

 "Walter Bright"<newshound1 digitalmars.com>  wrote in message
 news:hsqhhg$fmq$1 digitalmars.com...

 Nick Sabalausky wrote:

 I recently completed a revamp of the digitalmars site that got rid of
 the table based layout in favor of using floating CSS layout. The result
 looks a bit nicer, and the printing should be much better.


 Speaking as a web developer, I've found that floating CSS is irritatingly
 gimped compared to tables when trying to adjust how things flow upon
 resizing. (Speaker as a web user, I've never cared one bit whether a site
 used floating CSS vs tables.)


 Doing them as floating CSS makes it possible to "nodisplay" the navigation
 sections when formatting for print.


 Ahh, good point.


 The whole HTML/CSS design is such a horrific kludge it's a wonder it works
 at all.


 That's exactly how I feel about 99% of internet "technologies" (including
 HTML/CSS, of course). And they're all horrific kludges *on top* of horrific
 kludges - I almost wish I never learned how ethernet, *ahem*..."works". It's
 a wonder I have any sanity left.


There's this idea called "Worse is Better", which you've no doubt heard 
of... sometimes when I am feeling gloomy I agree with it wholeheartedly. ;-)

-- 
~ Due to cutbacks, the light at the end of the tunnel is temporarily out 
of service. ~ http://tagzilla.mozdev.org v0.066



 May 16 2010



prev sibling  parent reply Stewart Gordon <smjg_1998 yahoo.com>  writes:


Nick Sabalausky wrote:

 "Walter Bright" <newshound1 digitalmars.com> wrote in message 
 news:hspj3m$1c9b$1 digitalmars.com...


<snip>

 Web sites should avoid setting specific font sizes, so low vision 
 users can enlarge it.


 
 I agree a lot with most of this, but any web browser that doesn't 
 scale so-called fixed-size fonts when zooming has a broken, archaic 
 zoom function, period.


<snip>

Correct.  Indeed, here's a post I once made here
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2384051749
----------
"6. For partially sighted persons, there is no way to adjust text size. 
You say "wow, they are demanding", this is something really easy to do."

Yes there is a way. Just stop using Internet Exploiter and get yourself 
a real web browser. But still....
----------

But you could well ask: Is it right to punish people for using broken 
browsers?  Especially if you're going out of your way to do so by 
specifying font sizes in pt or px.  I've always told people it just 
shouldn't be done.

Moreover, some have sensibly pointed out that web authors shouldn't 
change the body text size from the default, since the user's default is 
the size the user is comfortable with.

But maybe it's acceptable if all you're doing is compensating for the 
font you've chosen looking a little bigger or smaller at the same point 
size than the default Times New Roman.  That said:
- somebody might have set a different font as default in browser 
settings or a user stylesheet
- who decreed that the factory default in all graphical browsers shall 
be Times New Roman, anyway?

Stewart.



 May 27 2010



  parent  Walter Bright <newshound1 digitalmars.com>  writes:


Stewart Gordon wrote:

 But maybe it's acceptable if all you're doing is compensating for the 
 font you've chosen looking a little bigger or smaller at the same point 
 size than the default Times New Roman.  That said:
 - somebody might have set a different font as default in browser 
 settings or a user stylesheet
 - who decreed that the factory default in all graphical browsers shall 
 be Times New Roman, anyway?


With style sheets, you can set the font size as larger or smaller than the 
default. This should be good enough. Setting fonts as pixel sizes is just wrong.



 May 27 2010



prev sibling  parent  Jacob Carlborg <doob me.com>  writes:


On 5/16/10 22:04, Walter Bright wrote:

 Charles Hixson wrote:

 On 05/15/2010 02:00 AM, Walter Bright wrote:

 The D web site is rather pedestrian, but at least it's easy on the eyes.


 *Pedestrian*??

 The D web pages are a marvel of clarity and utility. Compare them to
 the Python web pages, which I rate a second best. Things are
 documented with relative clarity, one can generally find what one
 needs with a bit of searching, even if one doesn't know what it's
 named. Etc.

 The D web site has only two minor (*minor*!) problems
 One is the search engine which doesn't work on local copies.
 The other is that one needs to disable google translation on local
 copies, or everything loads too slowly.
 (The first of those is probably impossible to deal with, but the
 second looks trivial.)

 If by pedestrian you mean clean, clear, and easy to use, then give me
 more pedestrian.


 People often say it doesn't look professional. I agree it could probably
 use better colors, etc. But for this kind of web site, I think it's just
 wrong to use flash, javascript, or anything that takes a long time to
 load. I don't like pages that have a tiny bit of content surrounded by
 acres of flashy, blinky, hovering advertisements. I don't like websites
 that sacrifice readability in favor of a "look". I don't like web pages
 that refuse to reflow if the window size is changed. The site should
 print properly, and be mechanically convertible to a reasonably decent
 looking pdf.

 The site needs to be friendly to search engines, and usable by screen
 readers. Yes, there are blind programmers, and at least one blind D
 programmer. It's obnoxious to make a site they cannot use.

 I'm also old, and just don't like sites that use small fonts, cute
 fonts, blurry fonts, fonts with poor contrast, etc. They're hard, even
 painful, to read. When I was a kid writing letters to my aged relatives,
 my mom told me that they'd struggle to read typical handwriting, and
 that it's nice to use a typewriter instead. I always remembered that
 advice, and when I started using word processors for letters, the ones
 I'd send to them I'd always enlarge the font quite a bit. Web sites
 should avoid setting specific font sizes, so low vision users can
 enlarge it.

 I recently completed a revamp of the digitalmars site that got rid of
 the table based layout in favor of using floating CSS layout. The result
 looks a bit nicer, and the printing should be much better.


About the font size, I like the font size that the D1 site uses better 
than the one that the D2 site uses.


 My sole problem with D is one that's probably impossible to address:
 the lack of libraries. When I need libraries, I usually end up using
 some other language. But it sure isn't the web page.

 (DSource is marvelous, but most of the libraries listed appear to be
 either moribund or morbid.)


 The library situation hopefully will get better over time.

 And thanks for the kind words about the site (!), it is nice to hear them.





 May 17 2010



prev sibling  parent reply Andrej Mitrovic <andrej.mitrovich gmail.com>  writes:


Charles Hixson Wrote:


 The D web pages are a marvel of clarity and utility.  Compare them to 
 the Python web pages, which I rate a second best.  


OT:

The funny thing about the Python website, is that I never managed to find a
direct link to the package repo (pypi) from the main site.

And yet if I google PyPI, and follow a link to pypi.python.org, a Package Index
tab suddenly appears on the top left. If I click on another tab, it dissapears
again. Needlessly inconsistent imo. (+ how are newbies supossed to find the
libraries if they're not linked from the main site?)



 May 17 2010



 next sibling parent reply "Steven Schveighoffer" <schveiguy yahoo.com>  writes:


On Mon, 17 May 2010 13:29:19 -0400, Andrej Mitrovic  
<andrej.mitrovich gmail.com> wrote:


 Charles Hixson Wrote:


 The D web pages are a marvel of clarity and utility.  Compare them to
 the Python web pages, which I rate a second best.


 OT:

 The funny thing about the Python website, is that I never managed to  
 find a direct link to the package repo (pypi) from the main site.

 And yet if I google PyPI, and follow a link to pypi.python.org, a  
 Package Index tab suddenly appears on the top left. If I click on  
 another tab, it dissapears again. Needlessly inconsistent imo. (+ how  
 are newbies supossed to find the libraries if they're not linked from  
 the main site?)


The D website's navigation bar suffers the same problems.

-Steve



 May 17 2010



  parent reply Walter Bright <newshound1 digitalmars.com>  writes:


Steven Schveighoffer wrote:

 On Mon, 17 May 2010 13:29:19 -0400, Andrej Mitrovic 
 <andrej.mitrovich gmail.com> wrote:
 

 Charles Hixson Wrote:


 The D web pages are a marvel of clarity and utility.  Compare them to
 the Python web pages, which I rate a second best.


 OT:

 The funny thing about the Python website, is that I never managed to 
 find a direct link to the package repo (pypi) from the main site.

 And yet if I google PyPI, and follow a link to pypi.python.org, a 
 Package Index tab suddenly appears on the top left. If I click on 
 another tab, it dissapears again. Needlessly inconsistent imo. (+ how 
 are newbies supossed to find the libraries if they're not linked from 
 the main site?)


 
 The D website's navigation bar suffers the same problems.


???? I cannot reproduce such bad behavior.



 May 17 2010



  parent reply "Steven Schveighoffer" <schveiguy yahoo.com>  writes:


On Mon, 17 May 2010 14:08:05 -0400, Walter Bright  
<newshound1 digitalmars.com> wrote:


 Steven Schveighoffer wrote:

 On Mon, 17 May 2010 13:29:19 -0400, Andrej Mitrovic  
 <andrej.mitrovich gmail.com> wrote:


 Charles Hixson Wrote:


 The D web pages are a marvel of clarity and utility.  Compare them to
 the Python web pages, which I rate a second best.


 OT:

 The funny thing about the Python website, is that I never managed to  
 find a direct link to the package repo (pypi) from the main site.

 And yet if I google PyPI, and follow a link to pypi.python.org, a  
 Package Index tab suddenly appears on the top left. If I click on  
 another tab, it dissapears again. Needlessly inconsistent imo. (+ how  
 are newbies supossed to find the libraries if they're not linked from  
 the main site?)


  The D website's navigation bar suffers the same problems.


 ???? I cannot reproduce such bad behavior.


I meant that the bar is not consistent, clicking on different items makes  
the bar change inexcusibly.

For example, from the page http://www.digitalmars.com/d/2.0/index.html,  
click on "All Forums" and see the bar change completely.  The bar should  
remain consistent throughout the section.

There are other cases, like click on 'const and immutable' from this page:  
http://www.digitalmars.com/d/2.0/lex.html

The end result is, sometimes I can't find a link I clicked on before,  
because I'm no longer on the exact right page -- the nav bar is totally  
dependent on the current page!

-Steve



 May 17 2010



  parent reply Walter Bright <newshound1 digitalmars.com>  writes:


Steven Schveighoffer wrote:

 The end result is, sometimes I can't find a link I clicked on before, 
 because I'm no longer on the exact right page -- the nav bar is totally 
 dependent on the current page!


I agree, the nav bar changes from page to page. Not sure that's a problem,
though.



 May 17 2010



  parent reply Steven Schveighoffer <schveiguy yahoo.com>  writes:


Walter Bright Wrote:


 Steven Schveighoffer wrote:

 The end result is, sometimes I can't find a link I clicked on before, 
 because I'm no longer on the exact right page -- the nav bar is totally 
 dependent on the current page!


 
 I agree, the nav bar changes from page to page. Not sure that's a problem,
though.


In theory it's not, but when links just mysteriously disappear even though
other links in the same group remain, it doesn't make any sense.

Yes, I agree that the nav bar should change to reflect the section you are in,
but that's not what I'm talking about.  It's trying to play mind tricks on me :)

-Steve



 May 17 2010



  parent reply "Robert Jacques" <sandford jhu.edu>  writes:


On Mon, 17 May 2010 21:03:02 -0400, Steven Schveighoffer  
<schveiguy yahoo.com> wrote:


 Walter Bright Wrote:


 Steven Schveighoffer wrote:

 The end result is, sometimes I can't find a link I clicked on before,
 because I'm no longer on the exact right page -- the nav bar is  


 totally

 dependent on the current page!


 I agree, the nav bar changes from page to page. Not sure that's a  
 problem, though.


 In theory it's not, but when links just mysteriously disappear even  
 though other links in the same group remain, it doesn't make any sense.

 Yes, I agree that the nav bar should change to reflect the section you  
 are in, but that's not what I'm talking about.  It's trying to play mind  
 tricks on me :)

 -Steve


I find the biggest problem with the website is the Phobos documentation  
menu. For example, core.memory is listed as std.gc. And some modules  
aren't listed at all (like std.perf).



 May 17 2010



  parent reply "Simen kjaeraas" <simen.kjaras gmail.com>  writes:


Robert Jacques <sandford jhu.edu> wrote:


 On Mon, 17 May 2010 21:03:02 -0400, Steven Schveighoffer  
 <schveiguy yahoo.com> wrote:


 Walter Bright Wrote:


 Steven Schveighoffer wrote:

 The end result is, sometimes I can't find a link I clicked on before,
 because I'm no longer on the exact right page -- the nav bar is  


 totally

 dependent on the current page!


 I agree, the nav bar changes from page to page. Not sure that's a  
 problem, though.


 In theory it's not, but when links just mysteriously disappear even  
 though other links in the same group remain, it doesn't make any sense.

 Yes, I agree that the nav bar should change to reflect the section you  
 are in, but that's not what I'm talking about.  It's trying to play  
 mind tricks on me :)

 -Steve


 I find the biggest problem with the website is the Phobos documentation  
 menu. For example, core.memory is listed as std.gc. And some modules  
 aren't listed at all (like std.perf).


There is also the issue of the Phobos documentation not having the
updated top box. "D 2.0 Home" is labeled "D", "Library Reference" is
"Phobos", etc.

Once you've gotten to the library documentation, it being labeled
Phobos is not that important, though.

-- 
Simen



 May 17 2010



  parent  "Nick Sabalausky" <a a.a>  writes:


"Simen kjaeraas" <simen.kjaras gmail.com> wrote in message 
news:op.vcvnwvmkvxi10f biotronic-pc.home...

 There is also the issue of the Phobos documentation not having the
 updated top box. "D 2.0 Home" is labeled "D", "Library Reference" is
 "Phobos", etc.

 Once you've gotten to the library documentation, it being labeled
 Phobos is not that important, though.


As long as we're on the topic of minor issues on the digital mars site, 
there seems to be a stray '>' floating around in the header of the D1 
Language Reference pages (also D1 Home and D1 Comparisons). 



 May 17 2010



prev sibling  parent reply =?ISO-8859-15?Q?=22J=E9r=F4me_M=2E_Berger=22?= <jeberger free.fr>  writes:


Andrej Mitrovic wrote:

 Charles Hixson Wrote:
=20

 The D web pages are a marvel of clarity and utility.  Compare them to =





 the Python web pages, which I rate a second best. =20


 OT:
=20
 The funny thing about the Python website, is that I never managed to fi=


nd a direct link to the package repo (pypi) from the main site.

=20


	There's a "Package Index" line in the left-hand menu on
http://python.org/ that links to http://pypi.python.org/pypi

		Jerome
--=20
mailto:jeberger free.fr
http://jeberger.free.fr
Jabber: jeberger jabber.fr



 May 17 2010



  parent  Andrej Mitrovic <andrej.mitrovich gmail.com>  writes:


J閞鬽e M. Berger Wrote:


 Andrej Mitrovic wrote:

 Charles Hixson Wrote:
 

 The D web pages are a marvel of clarity and utility.  Compare them to 
 the Python web pages, which I rate a second best.  


 OT:
 
 The funny thing about the Python website, is that I never managed to find a
direct link to the package repo (pypi) from the main site.
 


 	There's a "Package Index" line in the left-hand menu on
 http://python.org/ that links to http://pypi.python.org/pypi
 
 		Jerome
 -- 
 mailto:jeberger free.fr
 http://jeberger.free.fr
 Jabber: jeberger jabber.fr
 
 


I've no idea how I missed that. Still, I wish they added a button on the left,
it's much easier to notice.



 May 17 2010



prev sibling  parent reply Leandro Lucarella <llucax gmail.com>  writes:


Don, el 15 de mayo a las 09:47 me escribiste:

 Walter Bright wrote:

Leandro Lucarella wrote:

I saw the patches, and having all hardcoded in the compiler doesn't seems
like a good idea =/


I know the hardcoding is probably not the best, but I wanted to
try it out to see if it was a good feature before committing a lot
of work to it.

The alternative is to use some sort of configuration file for it.
The problem, though, is that the hints are for newbies, and
newbies probably aren't going to get a configuration file properly
set up, especially if there are multiple such files.


 
 I think the only purpose of such a feature is to increase the chance
 that a newbie's "hello world" compiles successfully. The importance
 of that can't be underestimated, I think. First impressions matter.


Looks OK from that POV, my fear was that we had all phobos harcoded in the
compiler to give hints.

I think the feature could be nice if it needs no configuration at all (it
searches the import path and looks for modules where a missing symbol is).
I guess that would be too slow to be practical though, but maybe the
compiler can generate a small index file (a reduced json with just
symbol->module) and that can be pre-generated for phobos and distributed
with the compiler. The good part of this is you can easily extend it for
your libraries.

-- 
Leandro Lucarella (AKA luca)                     http://llucax.com.ar/
----------------------------------------------------------------------
GPG Key: 5F5A8D05 (F8CD F9A7 BF00 5431 4145  104C 949E BFB6 5F5A 8D05)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Just because you're paranoid, don't mean they're not after you.



 May 15 2010



  parent reply Walter Bright <newshound1 digitalmars.com>  writes:


Leandro Lucarella wrote:

 I think the feature could be nice if it needs no configuration at all (it
 searches the import path and looks for modules where a missing symbol is).


The problem with that is often newbies have trouble setting up import paths.



 May 15 2010



  parent reply Leandro Lucarella <llucax gmail.com>  writes:


Walter Bright, el 15 de mayo a las 10:28 me escribiste:

 Leandro Lucarella wrote:

I think the feature could be nice if it needs no configuration at all (it
searches the import path and looks for modules where a missing symbol is).


 
 The problem with that is often newbies have trouble setting up import paths.


That's a problem with D distribution, not with the compiler. It would be
better to fix the original problem =)

In Linux you should provide distribution packages, there is now way to get
the installation wrong that way. On Windows I guess you should provide an
installer like most Windows programs do.

-- 
Leandro Lucarella (AKA luca)                     http://llucax.com.ar/
----------------------------------------------------------------------
GPG Key: 5F5A8D05 (F8CD F9A7 BF00 5431 4145  104C 949E BFB6 5F5A 8D05)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Corr铆 muchas carreras, tratando de alcanzarte a vos.
Pero corr铆a s贸lo y siempre sal铆 煤ltimo.



 May 15 2010



  parent reply Adam Ruppe <destructionator gmail.com>  writes:


On Sat, May 15, 2010 at 07:21:00PM -0300, Leandro Lucarella wrote:

 That's a problem with D distribution, not with the compiler. It would be
 better to fix the original problem =)


It amazes me that people have trouble installing D. Download, unzip, done.
It couldn't be simpler.



 May 15 2010



 next sibling parent reply Bernard Helyer <b.helyer gmail.com>  writes:


On 16/05/10 11:11, Adam Ruppe wrote:

 On Sat, May 15, 2010 at 07:21:00PM -0300, Leandro Lucarella wrote:

 That's a problem with D distribution, not with the compiler. It would be
 better to fix the original problem =)


 It amazes me that people have trouble installing D. Download, unzip,


Set executable bit, modify PATH

done.

 It couldn't be simpler.



I've a little script that copies the executables into /usr/bin, the 
manpages into manpage land, the docs into /usr/share/docs/dmd, imports 
into /usr/include/d and the libraries into /usr/lib, and so on. So the 
install process is simply

sudo installdmd dmd.whatever.zip

which is nice.



 May 15 2010



  parent reply Adam Ruppe <destructionator gmail.com>  writes:


On 5/15/10, Bernard Helyer <b.helyer gmail.com> wrote:

 Set executable bit, modify PATH


Meh, you don't have to do that. On my box, I have a wrapper script in /usr/bin
so the dmd command works from anywhere, but you can just as well run
it right out of wherever you download it too. ./dmd works just as well as dmd.


 I've a little script that copies the executables into /usr/bin, the
 manpages into manpage land, the docs into /usr/share/docs/dmd, imports
 into /usr/include/d and the libraries into /usr/lib, and so on.


Ew, why? I guess if you have a script it is ok for you, but there's
really no need to take it out of the folders where they are at the
unzip.



 May 15 2010



 next sibling parent reply BCS <none anon.com>  writes:


Hello Adam,


 On 5/15/10, Bernard Helyer <b.helyer gmail.com> wrote:
 

 Set executable bit, modify PATH
 


 Meh, you don't have to do that. On my box, I have a wrapper script in
 /usr/bin
 so the dmd command works from anywhere, but you can just as well run
 it right out of wherever you download it too. ./dmd works just as well
 as dmd.

 I've a little script that copies the executables into /usr/bin, the
 manpages into manpage land, the docs into /usr/share/docs/dmd,
 imports into /usr/include/d and the libraries into /usr/lib, and so
 on.
 


 Ew, why? I guess if you have a script it is ok for you, but there's
 really no need to take it out of the folders where they are at the
 unzip.
 


The same holds for every file in /usr/bin, I wonder what that says about 
all the other people who put stuff there. Similar thought hold for the other 
bits and places.


-- 
... <IXOYE><



 May 15 2010



 next sibling parent reply "Nick Sabalausky" <a a.a>  writes:


"BCS" <none anon.com> wrote in message 
news:a6268ff13bd08ccc2716440002a news.digitalmars.com...

 Hello Adam,


 On 5/15/10, Bernard Helyer <b.helyer gmail.com> wrote:


 Set executable bit, modify PATH


 Meh, you don't have to do that. On my box, I have a wrapper script in
 /usr/bin
 so the dmd command works from anywhere, but you can just as well run
 it right out of wherever you download it too. ./dmd works just as well
 as dmd.

 I've a little script that copies the executables into /usr/bin, the
 manpages into manpage land, the docs into /usr/share/docs/dmd,
 imports into /usr/include/d and the libraries into /usr/lib, and so
 on.


 Ew, why? I guess if you have a script it is ok for you, but there's
 really no need to take it out of the folders where they are at the
 unzip.


 The same holds for every file in /usr/bin, I wonder what that says about 
 all the other people who put stuff there. Similar thought hold for the 
 other bits and places.


Maybe it's my windows upbringing, but I've never liked the idea of having 
each of my apps spread all across the whole filesystem.



 May 15 2010



  parent reply BCS <none anon.com>  writes:


Hello Nick,


 "BCS" <none anon.com> wrote in message
 news:a6268ff13bd08ccc2716440002a news.digitalmars.com...
 

 The same holds for every file in /usr/bin, I wonder what that says
 about all the other people who put stuff there. Similar thought hold
 for the other bits and places.
 


 Maybe it's my windows upbringing, but I've never liked the idea of
 having each of my apps spread all across the whole filesystem.
 


There is something to be said for that, but at least with Linux it's *only* 
the filesystem that it gets spread across (registry).

I think this is a case where the phrase "when in Rome" is a good starting 
point.

-- 
... <IXOYE><



 May 15 2010



  parent  "Nick Sabalausky" <a a.a>  writes:


"BCS" <none anon.com> wrote in message 
news:a6268ff13be78ccc28aed90fd98 news.digitalmars.com...

 Hello Nick,


 "BCS" <none anon.com> wrote in message
 news:a6268ff13bd08ccc2716440002a news.digitalmars.com...


 The same holds for every file in /usr/bin, I wonder what that says
 about all the other people who put stuff there. Similar thought hold
 for the other bits and places.


 Maybe it's my windows upbringing, but I've never liked the idea of
 having each of my apps spread all across the whole filesystem.


 There is something to be said for that, but at least with Linux it's 
 *only* the filesystem that it gets spread across (registry).

 I think this is a case where the phrase "when in Rome" is a good starting 
 point.


True enough.

Actually, this is something I've often given thought to. The basic problem, 
really, is inherent limitations of hierarchies. There are apps, and then 
apps can have executables, helper executables, asset files, help files, 
settings files, plugins, etc. This is really a 2D matrix with "App" on one 
axis and "Type of data" on the other. So to put it into a hierarchical data 
system (ie, any modern filesystem) one must arbitrarily choose one of the 
axes to be the most significant. Unix traditionally chooses "type of data". 
Windows and the modern OSX package system choose "app" (with notable 
exceptions - registry, user settings directories). My own personal 
preference is "app", but there are certainly reasonable points to be made 
for either approach.

This also gets into why I was a bit disappointed that MS's WinFS project 
died out. I hadn't thought much about it prior to all the talk of WinFS, but 
things like that and iTunes convinced me rather quickly that hierarchical 
filesystems are a bit antiquated for modern needs, and that there are 
definite benefits to be gained from a relational approach even if it's 
nothing more than a system-wide layer on top of a traditional hierarchical 
system (hell, DBMS's abandoned hierarchies in favor of relational long ago, 
and for good reason). But of course, actually pulling that off on a 
technical level, and doing it well, is probably another matter entirely, at 
least if MS's experience is any indication.



 May 16 2010



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


On 05/15/2010 06:13 PM, BCS wrote:

 Hello Adam,


 On 5/15/10, Bernard Helyer <b.helyer gmail.com> wrote:


 Set executable bit, modify PATH


 Meh, you don't have to do that. On my box, I have a wrapper script in
 /usr/bin
 so the dmd command works from anywhere, but you can just as well run
 it right out of wherever you download it too. ./dmd works just as well
 as dmd.

 I've a little script that copies the executables into /usr/bin, the
 manpages into manpage land, the docs into /usr/share/docs/dmd,
 imports into /usr/include/d and the libraries into /usr/lib, and so
 on.


 Ew, why? I guess if you have a script it is ok for you, but there's
 really no need to take it out of the folders where they are at the
 unzip.


 The same holds for every file in /usr/bin, I wonder what that says about
 all the other people who put stuff there. Similar thought hold for the
 other bits and places.


/usr/bin is for system installed executables.  It's bad practice to put 
other things there.  I could see installing them to /usr/local/bin , 
/usr/opt/bin or /home/$USER/bin, but otherwise just leaving them where 
they're unzipped is quite reasonable.  (Each of the approaches has their 
own particular reason why they're a good idea.  E.g. /usr/local/bin is 
easy to share with other users on the system.  I'm not sure why 
/usr/opt/bin, but some have, historically, preferred it. 
/home/$USER/bin allows sharing libraries within a single user.  And just 
leaving it where you unzipped it facilitates having multiple versions of 
the same program available.)

P.S.:  Does D actually allow you to just run from the unzipped folder? 
Earlier versions required a global library installation.  It's been 
awhile since I've done the tarball installation, so I don't recall.  But 
it used to be impossible to have both D1 and D2 installed, much less 
D2.040 and D2.046.



 May 16 2010



 next sibling parent  Jacob Carlborg <doob me.com>  writes:


On 5/16/10 22:02, Charles Hixson wrote:

 On 05/15/2010 06:13 PM, BCS wrote:

 Hello Adam,


 On 5/15/10, Bernard Helyer <b.helyer gmail.com> wrote:


 Set executable bit, modify PATH


 Meh, you don't have to do that. On my box, I have a wrapper script in
 /usr/bin
 so the dmd command works from anywhere, but you can just as well run
 it right out of wherever you download it too. ./dmd works just as well
 as dmd.

 I've a little script that copies the executables into /usr/bin, the
 manpages into manpage land, the docs into /usr/share/docs/dmd,
 imports into /usr/include/d and the libraries into /usr/lib, and so
 on.


 Ew, why? I guess if you have a script it is ok for you, but there's
 really no need to take it out of the folders where they are at the
 unzip.


 The same holds for every file in /usr/bin, I wonder what that says about
 all the other people who put stuff there. Similar thought hold for the
 other bits and places.


 /usr/bin is for system installed executables. It's bad practice to put
 other things there. I could see installing them to /usr/local/bin ,
 /usr/opt/bin or /home/$USER/bin, but otherwise just leaving them where
 they're unzipped is quite reasonable. (Each of the approaches has their
 own particular reason why they're a good idea. E.g. /usr/local/bin is
 easy to share with other users on the system. I'm not sure why
 /usr/opt/bin, but some have, historically, preferred it. /home/$USER/bin
 allows sharing libraries within a single user. And just leaving it where
 you unzipped it facilitates having multiple versions of the same program
 available.)

 P.S.: Does D actually allow you to just run from the unzipped folder?
 Earlier versions required a global library installation. It's been
 awhile since I've done the tarball installation, so I don't recall. But
 it used to be impossible to have both D1 and D2 installed, much less
 D2.040 and D2.046.


Yes you can use D straight out of the unzipped folder. DMD looks for 
dmd.conf/ini in the same directory as the binary first, before it looks 
at the system level. I have both D1 and D2 installed, it works fine.



 May 16 2010



prev sibling next sibling parent  BCS <none anon.com>  writes:


Hello Charles,


 On 05/15/2010 06:13 PM, BCS wrote:
 

 The same holds for every file in /usr/bin, I wonder what that says
 about all the other people who put stuff there. Similar thought hold
 for the other bits and places.
 


 /usr/bin is for system installed executables.  It's bad practice to
 put other things there.  I could see installing them to /usr/local/bin
 , /usr/opt/bin or /home/$USER/bin, but otherwise just leaving them
 where they're unzipped is quite reasonable.  (Each of the approaches
 has their own particular reason why they're a good idea.  E.g.
 /usr/local/bin is easy to share with other users on the system.


#if you are assuming DMD is being installed by an un privileged user

By all means, run it from where it got unziped. In fact if I were admin on 
the system I'd discourage anyone from running binaries owned by another user. 
If they want it but can't talk me into installing it for everyone, then build 
your own. I think there might be security problems with doing it the other 
way.

#else

Follow the lead of most every other program out there and put things where 
they belong.

#endif



 I'm
 not sure why /usr/opt/bin, but some have, historically, preferred it.
 /home/$USER/bin allows sharing libraries within a single user.  And
 just leaving it where you unzipped it facilitates having multiple
 versions of the same program available.)
 


-- 
... <IXOYE><



 May 16 2010



prev sibling  parent  Jesse Phillips <jessekphillips+D gmail.com>  writes:


Charles Hixson wrote:


 /usr/bin is for system installed executables.  It's bad practice to put 
 other things there. 


Actually that is not the case. /usr/bin is for system installations and
general practice when using a system with package management is to leave
it for packages installed by the package manager. But is intended as the
programs shared by all systems on the network and /usr/local/bin are the
programs that are installed to the local machine.

That is /usr would be mounted to a network drive, possibly read only,
and administered by the main administrators. And /usr/local would be
mounted to a harddrive in the machine /dev/sda1 allowing access to those
using the system but not everyone on the network.

It is not bad practice. If the setup works and you have a reason for
doing it different from the norm all is well.



 May 18 2010



prev sibling  parent  Bernard Helyer <b.helyer gmail.com>  writes:


On 16/05/10 13:06, Adam Ruppe wrote:

 Ew, why? I guess if you have a script it is ok for you, but there's
 really no need to take it out of the folders where they are at the
 unzip.


Because certain tools expect dmd to be on the PATH. I could edit 
/etc/environment, but this is simpler.



 May 15 2010



prev sibling  parent reply linux user <nospam for.me>  writes:


Adam Ruppe Wrote:


 On Sat, May 15, 2010 at 07:21:00PM -0300, Leandro Lucarella wrote:

 That's a problem with D distribution, not with the compiler. It would be
 better to fix the original problem =)


 
 It amazes me that people have trouble installing D. Download, unzip, done.
 It couldn't be simpler.


I have a script that does this:

unzip dmd.1.0xx.zip
chmod +x dmd/linux/bin/{dmd,dumpobj,obj2asm,rdmd,shell}
zip -r dmd.1.0xx.zip dmd

The standard distribution is rather amateurish. Zip supports the executable
flag but for some reason the compiler has negative attitude towards Linux
users. Maybe it's supposed to boost the sales of the Windows port?

Charles Hixson wrote:


 The D web pages are a marvel of clarity and utility.  Compare them to
 the Python web pages, which I rate a second best.  Things are documented
 with relative clarity, one can generally find what one needs with a bit
 of searching, even if one doesn't know what it's named.


The site looks like it was created using some generic boring documentation tool
with a basic minimalistic style template. It might attract some developers who
think that javadoc or doxygen looks a bit too artistic for their taste and
their largest goal in life is to win the international dryness competition. The
content of the documentation is a bit too grammar oriented. Hopefully the
coming book will solve this issue. 



 May 16 2010



 next sibling parent  BCS <none anon.com>  writes:


Hello linux,



 The site looks like it was created using some generic boring
 documentation tool with a basic minimalistic style template. It might
 attract some developers who think that javadoc or doxygen looks a bit
 too artistic for their taste and their largest goal in life is to win
 the international dryness competition. The content of the
 documentation is a bit too grammar oriented. Hopefully the coming book
 will solve this issue.


For documentation, my primary requirements are that it be clear, correct 
and informative. A fair distance after that comes nice prose and that it 
be at least as visually readable as a simple text file in a text editor. 
A *long* ways after that comes any style goals. I'll take an understandable 
document, done as a plain default HTML file over the best presentation anyone 
can do if it gets me even a moderate improvement in the first three points.

-- 
... <IXOYE><



 May 16 2010



prev sibling next sibling parent reply bearophile <bearophileHUGS lycos.com>  writes:


linux user:

Zip supports the executable flag but for some reason the compiler has negative
attitude towards Linux users. Maybe it's supposed to boost the sales of the
Windows port?<


The situation is different. It's for LLVM and GCC that Windows users look like
third-class citizens. What you are seeing is just DMD being a bit more fair.

Bye,
bearophile



 May 17 2010



 next sibling parent  bearophile <bearophileHUGS lycos.com>  writes:


But it seems true that the Linux version of dmd has come after the Windows
one... So the situation is not perfectly balanced.

Bye,
bearophile



 May 17 2010



prev sibling  parent  "Nick Sabalausky" <a a.a>  writes:


"bearophile" <bearophileHUGS lycos.com> wrote in message 
news:hsqv52$18c0$1 digitalmars.com...

 linux user:

Zip supports the executable flag but for some reason the compiler has 
negative attitude towards Linux users. Maybe it's supposed to boost the 
sales of the Windows port?<


 The situation is different. It's for LLVM and GCC that Windows users look 
 like third-class citizens. What you are seeing is just DMD being a bit 
 more fair.


I'm of the firm optinion that any app that requires MSYS or MinGW to work on 
Windows is no more cross-platform than an app that requires Wine to run on 
Linux. Less so, in fact, since MSYS and MinGW are a royal f*&*&^% pain in 
the ass, and Wine isn't (not to the same degree, anyway).

And then with LLVM, it goes another step further what with Windows 
exceptions continuing to be ignored. <paranoia and fud>Well, it *is* backed 
by Apple...</paranoia and fud>



 May 17 2010



prev sibling next sibling parent  Bernard Helyer <b.helyer gmail.com>  writes:


On 17/05/10 15:16, linux user wrote:

 for some reason the compiler has negative attitude towards Linux
 Maybe it's supposed to boost the sales of the Windows port?


hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah

*gasp*

hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaahahahahah


As bearophile says, the experience we get with DMD on Linux is by _far_ 
the best out of {Windows,Mac,Linux}.



 May 17 2010



prev sibling  parent  "Nick Sabalausky" <a a.a>  writes:


"linux user" <nospam for.me> wrote in message 
news:hsqcdg$4cn$1 digitalmars.com...

 Maybe it's supposed to boost the sales of the Windows port?


...sales?
...of DMD?
...???



 May 17 2010



prev sibling next sibling parent  Jacob Carlborg <doob me.com>  writes:


On 5/15/10 05:46, Walter Bright wrote:

 Leandro Lucarella wrote:

 I saw the patches, and having all hardcoded in the compiler doesn't seems
 like a good idea =/


 I know the hardcoding is probably not the best, but I wanted to try it
 out to see if it was a good feature before committing a lot of work to it.

 The alternative is to use some sort of configuration file for it. The
 problem, though, is that the hints are for newbies, and newbies probably
 aren't going to get a configuration file properly set up, especially if
 there are multiple such files.


How about generating a file with all imports of Phobos, ship the file 
with the compiler and then read from the file. Something like having a 
configuration file that is set up to work with everything from Phobos to 
start with, then the user can add more things if he/she likes to.



 May 15 2010



prev sibling  parent reply bearophile <bearophileHUGS lycos.com>  writes:


Walter Bright:

 I know the hardcoding is probably not the best, but I wanted to try it out to 
 see if it was a good feature before committing a lot of work to it.


In general I approve the idea of doing similar experiments. Often you have
enough information to choose well only when you try a feature.

Regarding the stack trace, I don't like the idea of having it only in debug
mode. I like to always (on default) have a stack trace when there is an error,
but when the code is compiled in release mode. So you tell the compiler when
you don't want the stack trace, instead of the opposite.

Bye,
bearophile



 May 15 2010



  parent reply Sean Kelly <sean invisibleduck.org>  writes:


bearophile <bearophileHUGS lycos.com> wrote:

 Walter Bright:

 I know the hardcoding is probably not the best, but I wanted to try
 it out to 
 see if it was a good feature before committing a lot of work to it.


 
 In general I approve the idea of doing similar experiments. Often you
 have enough information to choose well only when you try a feature.
 
 Regarding the stack trace, I don't like the idea of having it only in
 debug mode. I like to always (on default) have a stack trace when
 there is an error, but when the code is compiled in release mode. So
 you tell the compiler when you don't want the stack trace, instead of
 the opposite.
 


I made this change a few days ago, after Brad suggested the same thing.
It was just a tad late for 2.046.  With luck I'll have stack tracing
sorted out on Windows before 2.047 as well.



 May 15 2010



  parent  bearophile <bearophileHUGS lycos.com>  writes:


Sean Kelly:

 I made this change a few days ago, after Brad suggested the same thing.
 It was just a tad late for 2.046.  With luck I'll have stack tracing
 sorted out on Windows before 2.047 as well.


Sometimes I complain, but I am very grateful for all the work you and others
put in D and its libs.

Thank you,
bye,
bearophile



 May 15 2010



prev sibling next sibling parent  bearophile <bearophileHUGS lycos.com>  writes:


This release seems to work, thank you.


Bugzilla 1001: print stack trace (in debug mode) when program die<


Can you or someone else show me an example of how to activate stack tracing?

For example on Windows I have written this small program:

import std.c.stdlib: atoi;
void main() {
    int x = atoi("0.0");
    int y = 10 / x;
}


I compile it with:
dmd -debug test.d

If I run it it prints:
object.Error: Integer Divide by Zero


This other program gives the same output:
import std.c.stdlib: atoi;
import core.runtime;
void main() {
    Runtime.traceHandler = &defaultTraceHandler;
    int x = atoi("0.0");
    int y = 10 / x;
}


Is this a Linux feature only for now, as Sean says in bug 1001? If so, then the
changelog can specify it's a linux thing only.

Bye,
bearophile



 May 14 2010



prev sibling  parent  bearophile <bearophileHUGS lycos.com>  writes:


 Regarding the stack trace, I don't like the idea of having it only in debug
mode...


After battling with huge stack traces, there's another related feature that I'd
like to have on default: stack trace compression. If a recursive function keeps
calling itself, or two functions keep calling each other (other possibilities
exist, but those two cover most cases), the stack trace can become too much
long to print and read.

So just looking at the latest stack frame printed and penultimate stack frame
printed it can compress it, reporting only how many time the last one or the
last two ones are repeated (the uncompressed stack trace can be obtained on
request, that shows all the line numbers too).

Bye,
bearophile



 May 22 2010