However i find it extremely alarming that there is a casual disregard for any sort of consistency of the D brand.
Yes logo changes do occur but they can be incredibly hurtful for companies and products if they don't get it exactly right. All logo changes of established entities should be managed with utmost care and respect. Simply by changing the icon for which you are recognised internationally, you pay an immediate cost of non recognition but it's the perception of users that create the biggest fallout.
I understand and sympathize where you're coming from, but I think it's less important than one might think. Golang's logo is a stupid-looking gopher that looks like it was drawn by a 4-year-old. Python also has IMO an ugly, amateurish logo (but better than the truly hideous one it had until 2005). Julia has a non-logo (three colored dots over the word "Julia"). R's logo is just horrid. AFAIK, C++ doesn't even have a logo or any branding whatsoever.
Developers are a very different customer than the mass market -- they just want to know, "what can it do for me? In particular, how can this programming language make my life easier and land me a six-figure job offer?"
D's community & recognition is still very small, comparatively. If anything, now or near-future is the perfect time to rebrand & relaunch.
* D is a brand, whether you like it or not
Yes, but frankly not yet widely recognized.
* The logo is the essence of that brand
Disagree. The essence of a brand is the customers' history and experience of interactions with the entity behind it -- the value they find in it (or not). In other words, the brand value of D is precisely how pleasant it makes software development for professional programmers, such that they can convince their PHBs of its corresponding value to the business. Yes, a sketchy website will scare off a lot of people from trying the language, but basically in this domain there's a *very low bar* for marketing -- you just have to be *not* sketchy-looking.
* D has a history of poorly managed change
Hmmm... perhaps, but it can afford to "break stuff" still since there likely aren't more than a couple dozen companies with large, critical D projects in production.
* D's community has been destroyed once before (Tango)
For substantive reasons, not branding.
* D has the preception of unreliability * D is not seen as a professional offering * D is perceved as half finished
Then those underlying problems (usability, reliability, general quality) insofar as they are real issues need to be to be fixed, and current D users need to evangelize -- otherwise any branding efforts will be ineffective. Again, languages have a pretty low bar from a marketing perspective -- the big hurdles are elsewhere. I agree that some basic aura of professionalism and stability are necessary.
We need to design a robust, user focused site that nurtures the brand but also focused on giving people information quickly. A site that is immediately recognisable to users, that exudes professionalism and stabiliy.
Again, this point is mainly about usability (search, navigation, quality of content). Branding really has a minimal role -- it just has to stay in the background and *not* scare people off.
Ideally a "Design & Web Czar" would just make behind-the-scenes executive decisions about all this stuff, no NG discussion needed.
