On Tuesday, 20 December 2016 at 16:22:43 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:
D is quite a bit less formal, but still, if you want action
consider that you aren't going to get it with any organization
unless you're willing to:
1. pay others to do it
2. convince others that your important issues are more
important than everyone else's important issues that they are
already working on
3. put some effort into it yourself
This includes C, C++, Java, Go, Rust, basically every language
in existence.
---
Note that pretty much every day in the D forums, people post
lists of their most important issues they want other people to
work on. And the lists are always different.
When people invest time into solving the problems they complain
about, that's evidence that those issues are more important.
It's the same in C++ land - a common sentiment among the C++
stars is that if someone isn't willing to make an effort to
write a proposal to the C++ Committee, it isn't an issue worth
their time, either.
It really can't be any other way.
What about the first way in your list ("pay others to do it")?
From what I gather, this was one of the reasons for founding the
D Foundation.
There are many "boring" tasks that few people seem interested in
doing: improving the documentation, maintaining the website,
improving the forum system (it lacks many important features
IMHO), improving IDE support for D (I have no idea how one would
go about doing this but it's important), etc. (The vision
document in the D wiki contains many more such "boring" tasks).
And the few people that do work on the "boring" stuff seem to be
the "wrong" people. One does not need to be a compiler expert or
a metaprogramming guru to work on the tasks mentioned. That would
be a bad use of that person's time - his/her skills lie
elsewhere. If no one is interested in doing this stuff then maybe
it's a good idea for the D Foundation to hire some people who'll
dedicate their time to these issues. I do not think that this
would be a bad use of the foundation's funds.
