On Thursday, 23 August 2018 at 09:16:23 UTC, Mihails wrote:
Didn't intend to chime in, but no, that was not what I have
meant at all. My stance is that as long as current leadership
remains in charge and keep sames attitude, no amount of money
or developer time will fix D.
What is the point in hiring someone to manage things if Walter
still can do stuff like -dip1000? For me moment of
understanding this was exact point of no return.
Just as power is not something to be grasped or abolished,
leadership is not something you can consider as an attribute or
property of the D endeavour or its community. You criticise the
leadership as if them being leaders is part of the problem,
leaving no event or cause to credit for why their stewardship is
bad! You think -dip1000 is disadvisable? What grounds are those
on? How does that tie into the leadership at hand here? When I
ask about leadership I ask not about leaders, but rather the
actions leaders take, since those count for everything in
evaluating their skill.
On Thursday, 23 August 2018 at 14:29:23 UTC, bachmeier wrote:
Weka is an awesome project, but I don't know that most people
considering D should use your experience as the basis of their
decision. At least in my areas, I expect considerable growth in
the usage of D over the next 10 years. Maybe it won't see much
traction as a C++ replacement for large projects like Weka.
It’s as much to consider as any other project, in that you
shouldn’t base your opinions or decisions on it alone. There are
other aspects of this I will comment on later.
On Thursday, 23 August 2018 at 13:22:45 UTC, Shachar Shemesh
wrote:
What I did mean by that is that the enthusiasm from D has
*greatly* diminished. Many (but not all) developer will
definitely not choose D for our next project, should the choice
be ours to make.
Like I said in my original post, it is not even in consensus
whether picking D to begin with had been a mistake. Some think
it was, some think, even in hind sight and after being more or
less disillusioned, that it was still better than picking
another language. As such, it is not even universally true that
engineers at Weka regret going with D.
Perhaps your team’s mistake is deciding from their enthusiasm
instead of a solid analysis of what the language will demand from
your team. It is no secret that D is not as ready for production
as C++, so why did they not evaluate the shortcomings of the
ecosystem beforehand? Was the honest consensus that D would carry
your project as well as Go, Rust, or C++? A cursory examination
shows the former two languages have a corporate backbone absent
from D, and C++ is self-explanatory with ISO and OS code.
On Thursday, 23 August 2018 at 13:22:45 UTC, Shachar Shemesh
wrote:
To summarize: Weka isn't ditching D, and people aren't even
particularly angry about it. It has problems, and we've learned
to live with them, and that's that. The general consensus,
however, is that these problems will not be resolved (we used
to file bugs in Bugzilla. We stopped doing that because we saw
nothing happens with them), and as far as the future of the
language goes, that's bad news.
Shachar
Imagine you are on a state-of-the-art boat in the bronze age that
needs many many people to move it by oar. You aren’t the crew of
the ship, but you have cargo that needs pulled for trade. This
boat is short-staffed, and by freemen to boot, and your
merchantry has insisted on going with this boat over the bigger
boats, because maybe they use slave drivers, or they’re really
old and the sea won’t take them well, or whathaveyou. Can you, in
reasonable conscience, expect this noble new boat to carry your
load the same as older, rustier, or more backwards ships? It may
be able to, but at a greatly reduced speed, or split into
multiple trips or some other serious concession. But you are a
merchant, you roll the nickels in the mediterranean and if you
really wanted to you could push to hire more oarmen and have it
both ways. In a way, this is the decision your team needed to
make with a language like this, and it puzzles me why you haven’t
mentioned a discussion of this sort yet. And it is even more
bemusing that, somehow, you find the people running the boat to
be at fault for not meeting your expectations. Were you hoping to
find the holy grail aboard this ship?
On Thursday, 23 August 2018 at 17:19:41 UTC, Ali wrote:
On Thursday, 23 August 2018 at 16:22:54 UTC, Shachar Shemesh
wrote:
On 23/08/18 17:01, Steven Schveighoffer wrote:
My main job is to develop for Weka, not develop D itself.
Weka, at some point, made the strategic decision to use a non
mainstream language
I dont think Weka, have a choice, they have to invest in the
development of D itself
Arguably, this should have been an expectation from the start. I
have not spent a lot of time here, yet I am plenty prepared to
fork over a lot of my own resources to make things happen in D
for my company because of what I’ve seen of the ecosystem so far.
I don’t know of Weka’s leadership at all, but since I lead my
company I can say that it will almost certainly transition from
my time as a developer into my money as I make more things and
make more money. It’s no small favour to ask, but it’s the only
realistic expectation to have besides the current state of
affairs that result when you do nothing or sit idly hoping for
things to come to you. They say Rome was not built in a day, but
what they don’t tell you is Rome was not built from anything less
than a global fortune either. It’s paramount to really know what
you’re up to task for.
On Thursday, 23 August 2018 at 16:22:54 UTC, Shachar Shemesh
wrote:
I'm reminded of a friend of mine, who kept hoping to win the
lottery despite never buying a ticket. His reasoning was that
the chances of winning are not much changed by buying a ticket.
Shachar
Is using D tantamount to a lottery for you? What did you expect
in your original enthusiasm if not this?
On Thursday, 23 August 2018 at 18:27:27 UTC, Abdulhaq wrote:
On Thursday, 23 August 2018 at 09:51:43 UTC, rikki cattermole
wrote:
Good luck getting W&A to agree to it, especially when there
is yet another "critical D opportunity" on the table ;)
No. They have power for as long as we the community say that
they do.
We are at the point where they need a check and balance to
keep everybody going smoothly. And I do hope that they listen
to us before somebody decides its forkin' time.
No fork of D can be successful, it won't have the manpower,
skills or willpower to draw on. Even with W and A it's already
short.
'Threatening' W and A with a fork is an empty threat that just
p***es them off. Bad move on your part.
The solution is obviously not hard power, then. Ever wonder why
the US has unquestioned global military dominance? It’s all in
soft power. Most of the military isn’t tasked with punching down
everyone on earth, but rather protecting all of the trade routes
on the planet with the concessions countries give in exchange for
that. You have a much better time doing what you want if you
convince people to go along with you instead of forcing them into
your will, and it’s true at every scale from global geopolitics
to programming language communities. Funding the D foundation
with solid, clear expectations is an easy example of this, but
there are lots of ways to go about it that makes everyone happy.
On Thursday, 23 August 2018 at 23:06:03 UTC, Everlast wrote:
I agree with this. I no longer program in D, except for minor
things, because of this type of approach. D, as a language, is
the best. D as an actual practical tool is a deadly pit of
snakes... anyone of which can bite you, and that won't stop the
others. Of course, in the pit is where all the gold is at...
So then, you need a snake charmer to distract them all as you run
the gold. See below for a more concise explanation of this.
On Thursday, 23 August 2018 at 23:06:03 UTC, Everlast wrote:
My feeling is D is and will stay stagnate for the majority of
the world. It doesn't seem to have enough momentum to break out
and the "leaders" don't seem to know much about actually
leading... programming? Yes, but leading? No, not
really...(obviously they know something but I'm talking about
what is required... a bill gate like character, say, not that
we want another one of those!)
It’s interesting you mention Bill Gates! Like Steve Jobs, one
thing he was notoriously brilliant for doing was in leadership.
In the joint interview they did together (I believe it was some
time in 2007), both of them mentioned how critical it was that
they had so many people around them to make their companies
happen, and how lucky they were for it. They kept it simple, but
luck doesn’t earn you workmates - leadership does. It’s one of
the most thankless jobs around and there are more people than
many programmers can imagine who grossly overestimate their
aptitude at it.
On Thursday, 23 August 2018 at 23:06:03 UTC, Everlast wrote:
Since time is money, you know these types of issues will stop
businesses from adopting D. The typical answer from the D
community is "Implement it in a library!" or "It has bindings!"
as if these are the solutions someone trying to get shit done
wants to hear. Usually the libraries are defunct in some
way(bit rot, version issues, shitty design, some deal
breaker(e.g., uses gc), shitty documentation, etc).
The default modus operandum for businesses is total indifference.
If they shy away from D for these issues it is almost always
because they didn’t care much at all in the first place and were
likely eyeing it to see what it even is because they haven’t
heard of it before. “Time is money” is not wrong but there’s a
much less confusing way to put it: priorities. They usually don’t
care, and in that case, what did you expect them to do? I’d see
them taking a vacation to Greenland before they adopt D in that
case.
On Friday, 24 August 2018 at 21:53:18 UTC, H. S. Teoh wrote:
I think it's clear by now that most of D's woes are not really
technical in nature, but managerial. I'm not sure how to
improve this situation, since I'm no manager type either. It's
a known problem among techies that we tend to see all problems
as technical in nature, or solvable via technical solutions,
when in reality what's actually needed is someone with real
management skills. Hammer and nail, and all that, y'know.
Unfortunately, we techies also tend to resist non-technical
"interference", especially from non-techies (like manager
types). I used to have that attitude too (and probably still do
to some extent), and only with age did I begin realizing this
about myself. It's not an easy problem to fix in practice,
especially in a place like here, where we're driven primarily
by the technical aspects of D, and for the most part outside of
any financial or other motivations that might have served to
moderate things a little.
Yes, yes. As I said before, management is very valuable and the
time is nigh for more of it because it is apparent D has plenty
of technical rigour in its alumni. The most critical thing in
management is that it needs to be from people who are technically
rigourous, because an incompetent manager is, in D’s case at
least, worse for everyone than a competent non-manager. It’s
basically a matter of the folks who already kick ass + take names
stepping up to bat together as a team, bringing more cohesion
into things. This is anything but easy, but if accomplished it
would make D shine a lot for enterprise onlookers, particularly
the kinds of wealthy interests that do very much care about
things even when it doesn’t really make them money (think Gabe
Newell with his insistence on opening PC gaming up for linux).
On Monday, 27 August 2018 at 01:15:49 UTC, Laeeth Isharc wrote:
I definitely think a stable version with backfixes ported would
be great if feasible.
Agreed as well. once I have the ability I will see to this myself
with LDC if it hasn’t happened already.
On Monday, 27 August 2018 at 01:15:49 UTC, Laeeth Isharc wrote:
I wonder if we are approaching the point where enterprise
crowd-funding of missing features or capabilities in the
ecosystem could make sense. If you look at how Liran managed
to find David Nadlinger to help him, it could just be in part a
matter of lacking social organisation preventing the market
addressing unfulfilled mutual coincidences of wants. Lots of
capable people would like to work full time programming in D.
Enough firms would like some improvements made. If takes work
to organise these things. If I were a student I might be
trying to see if there was an opportunity there.
We’re well into the timeframe where it makes sense, imo. the
problem is actually getting that to happen, which the community
does not have many cards to play to influence the outcome of,
many of which can easily backfire anyways. the best strategy is
to maintain cohesion and mend divides, avoiding sentiments that
sow them in the first place. I’m sure pretty much no one here
sees anything less than great potential if not an outright great
language in front of us here, so it’s in everyone’s interest to
keep one’s head straight and grounded in reality on things.
there’s plenty of concrete problems to solve as it is ;)
-----
all things considered here, I see a lot of valid concerns from
several angles here. the company aspect of the discussion seems
misguided as to why expectations weren’t met, and as far as D
itself is concerned stronger + smarter leadership is in the
biggest demand from what I see.
another thing I want to mention about corporate involvement and
sponsorship dynamics: as a company your involvement is totally
elastic. Really you can dictate and harmoniously fulfill any
level of involvement you desire, and the only question is if your
negotiation skills are decent enough and whether your
expectations from others are grounded in reality. You can fund
the foundation, pay developers of your choosing who are already
vets in the ecosystem, hire your own IOI-style squadron of FOSS
mercenaries, or get down-and-dirty and literally do it yourself.
they don’t call head honchos ‘executives’ for nothing! ;)
