• p.shkadzko (12/12) Mar 27 2020 I decided to write a small blog post about multidimensional
• WebFreak001 (14/30) Mar 27 2020 A static array doesn't really fall under this imo, because it
• p.shkadzko (4/9) Mar 27 2020 Ok, looks like I need to reread the slices topic. It always
• jmh530 (11/24) Mar 27 2020 Thanks for doing this.
• p.shkadzko (10/37) Mar 27 2020 I agree. I was planning to do several follow-ups after this first
• Jan =?UTF-8?B?SMO2bmln?= (10/19) Mar 30 2020 I am excited about your blog. Exactly what i have been waiting

p.shkadzko <p.shkadzko gmail.com> writes:

I decided to write a small blog post about multidimensional 
arrays in D on what I learnt so far. It should serve as a brief 
introduction to Mir slices and how to do basic manipulations with 
them. It started with a small file with snippets for personal use 
but then kind of escalated into an idea of a blog post.

However, given the limited about of time I spent in Mir docs and 
their conciseness, it would be great if anyone had a second look 
and tell me what is wrong or missing because I have a feeling a 
lot of things might. It would be a great opportunity for me to 
learn and also improve it or rewrite some parts.

All is here: 
https://github.com/tastyminerals/tasty-blog/blob/master/_posts/2020-03-22-multidimensional_arrays_in_d.md

WebFreak001 <d.forum webfreak.org> writes:

On Friday, 27 March 2020 at 10:57:10 UTC, p.shkadzko wrote:
 I decided to write a small blog post about multidimensional 
 arrays in D on what I learnt so far. It should serve as a brief 
 introduction to Mir slices and how to do basic manipulations 
 with them. It started with a small file with snippets for 
 personal use but then kind of escalated into an idea of a blog 
 post.

 However, given the limited about of time I spent in Mir docs 
 and their conciseness, it would be great if anyone had a second 
 look and tell me what is wrong or missing because I have a 
 feeling a lot of things might. It would be a great opportunity 
 for me to learn and also improve it or rewrite some parts.

 All is here: 
 https://github.com/tastyminerals/tasty-blog/blob/master/_posts/2020-03-22-multidimensional_arrays_in_d.md

I don't really know mir myself, but for the start of the content:

 Both array types represent a structure with a length and ptr (a 
 pointer to the first element) properties

A static array doesn't really fall under this imo, because it 
doesn't have any length field at runtime and is literally just 
the elements repeated N times.


 Dynamic arrays are also called slices in D

meh, all dynamic arrays are also slices, but not all slices are 
dynamic arrays. You can take a slice from a static array or from 
a pointer and once you try to append to it or resize it, it will 
duplicate the data using the GC and create a new dynamic array. 
This is true every time you take a slice of any array or memory 
and then try to resize it. If the slice was originally from a 
dynamic array (checked using runtime magic) and you use 
assumeSafeAppend, it will actually try to resize the existing 
array in-place.

p.shkadzko <p.shkadzko gmail.com> writes:

On Friday, 27 March 2020 at 11:19:06 UTC, WebFreak001 wrote:
 On Friday, 27 March 2020 at 10:57:10 UTC, p.shkadzko wrote:
 [...]

 I don't really know mir myself, but for the start of the 
 content:

 [...]

Ok, looks like I need to reread the slices topic. It always 
confused me especially when it comes to function parameters but I 
just swallowed it and continued on. Thank you.

jmh530 <john.michael.hall gmail.com> writes:

On Friday, 27 March 2020 at 10:57:10 UTC, p.shkadzko wrote:
 I decided to write a small blog post about multidimensional 
 arrays in D on what I learnt so far. It should serve as a brief 
 introduction to Mir slices and how to do basic manipulations 
 with them. It started with a small file with snippets for 
 personal use but then kind of escalated into an idea of a blog 
 post.

 However, given the limited about of time I spent in Mir docs 
 and their conciseness, it would be great if anyone had a second 
 look and tell me what is wrong or missing because I have a 
 feeling a lot of things might. It would be a great opportunity 
 for me to learn and also improve it or rewrite some parts.

 All is here: 
 https://github.com/tastyminerals/tasty-blog/blob/master/_posts/2020-03-22-multidimensional_arrays_in_d.md

Thanks for doing this.

A small typo on this line
a.byDim1;

I think there would be a lot of value in doing another blogpost 
to cover some more advanced topics. For instance, mir supports 
three different SliceKinds and the documentation explaining the 
difference has never been very clear. I don't really feel like 
I've ever had a clear understanding of the low-level differences 
between them. The pack/ipack/unpack functions are also pretty 
hard to understand from the documentation.

p.shkadzko <p.shkadzko gmail.com> writes:

On Friday, 27 March 2020 at 13:10:00 UTC, jmh530 wrote:
 On Friday, 27 March 2020 at 10:57:10 UTC, p.shkadzko wrote:
 I decided to write a small blog post about multidimensional 
 arrays in D on what I learnt so far. It should serve as a 
 brief introduction to Mir slices and how to do basic 
 manipulations with them. It started with a small file with 
 snippets for personal use but then kind of escalated into an 
 idea of a blog post.

 However, given the limited about of time I spent in Mir docs 
 and their conciseness, it would be great if anyone had a 
 second look and tell me what is wrong or missing because I 
 have a feeling a lot of things might. It would be a great 
 opportunity for me to learn and also improve it or rewrite 
 some parts.

 All is here: 
 https://github.com/tastyminerals/tasty-blog/blob/master/_posts/2020-03-22-multidimensional_arrays_in_d.md

 Thanks for doing this.

 A small typo on this line
 a.byDim1;

 I think there would be a lot of value in doing another blogpost 
 to cover some more advanced topics. For instance, mir supports 
 three different SliceKinds and the documentation explaining the 
 difference has never been very clear. I don't really feel like 
 I've ever had a clear understanding of the low-level 
 differences between them. The pack/ipack/unpack functions are 
 also pretty hard to understand from the documentation.

I agree. I was planning to do several follow-ups after this first 
brief overview. For example, looks like just one "byDim" requires 
a separate post.

The goal was just to show ppl who know nothing or a little about 
D and Mir that Mir exists and is usable. Because what I am 
lacking is not the API docs but introductory examples how to do 
mundane tasks like creating matrices and reshaping. Treat the 
first post as such and if you have suggestions on what is 
redundant or good to have I shall update it accordingly.

Jan =?UTF-8?B?SMO2bmln?= <hrominium gmail.com> writes:

On Friday, 27 March 2020 at 14:18:13 UTC, p.shkadzko wrote:
 I agree. I was planning to do several follow-ups after this 
 first brief overview. For example, looks like just one "byDim" 
 requires a separate post.

 The goal was just to show ppl who know nothing or a little 
 about D and Mir that Mir exists and is usable. Because what I 
 am lacking is not the API docs but introductory examples how to 
 do mundane tasks like creating matrices and reshaping. Treat 
 the first post as such and if you have suggestions on what is 
 redundant or good to have I shall update it accordingly.

I am excited about your blog. Exactly what i have been waiting 
for.
If you plan to do more blog posts, please announce it in the 
"Announce" group and also on reddit (like Ron, e.g. 
https://forum.dlang.org/thread/gmqqkfzejicevkbaihqt forum.dlang.org).
It really helps to "catch" it.
Also, since you put so much work into it, you should put it 
somewhere (a link) on wiki.dlang.org
(https://forum.dlang.org/post/orlwvfedaixnwiekqutx forum.dlang.org)