On Friday, 3 November 2017 at 14:29:27 UTC, jmh530 wrote:
On Friday, 3 November 2017 at 14:12:56 UTC, Joakim wrote:
[snip]
But that established PC userbase shrinking is not what you
should be worried about. I've talked to multiple middle-class
consumers in developing markets- they would be considered poor
in the US if you converted their income to dollars- who tell
me that they recently got their first smartphone for $150-200
and that it is the first time they ever used the internet,
with cheap 3G/4G plans that are only now springing up. They
don't use the web, only mobile chat or social apps.
Now, do you think these billions of new users of computing and
the internet are more likely to buy a cheap laptop shell or
dock for their smartphone when they someday need to do some
"lean forward" work, as you call it, or spend much more on a
Windows PC? I know where my bet is.
It's pretty clear from this and some of the other posts that
your primary focus is computer users. The work you've done in
getting LDC to compile programs for Android is a good example.
You want to be able to compile D programs that go on a smart
phone because that's where the growth of computer users is
coming from. I get that. 100%.
Yes, D should aim for the largest platforms first- that includes
Android, iOS, and Windows- because that's where programmers want
to use D to create software for the most users.
I think a source of pushback on the Windows subject is that
programmers are a mere subset of all computer users. Maybe the
billions might buy a cheap laptop shell or dock, but that
doesn't mean they will be programmers. Thus, it's good to be
able to compile programs for that platform, but it doesn't mean
that work done to improve the experience of programmers on
other platforms is a waste of time.
Of course those mobile users will be programmers too, why do you
think I've built ldc to be used _on_ Android itself?
http://forum.dlang.org/thread/antajtnvmavswjvcd...@forum.dlang.org
Most programmers will one day be coding on mobile devices, though
I admit I'm in a small, early-adopting minority now:
http://bergie.iki.fi/blog/six-weeks-working-android/
For the majority of devs still using PCs to write code, my point
was better to invest in improving the experience with D for those
targeting mobile, rather than more marginal effort to make
VisualD and others targeting Windows even better, because of the
different sizes and trajectories of those OS platforms.
