On 18-ott-10, at 18:14, Denis Koroskin wrote:
On Mon, 18 Oct 2010 19:07:38 +0400, Don <nos...@nospam.com> wrote:
Jeff Nowakowski wrote:
On 10/18/2010 04:59 AM, Jonathan M Davis wrote:
Java was big long before it was open-sourced, and C# is big in
spite of the fact
that its main compiler isn't open source and the one that is
(Mono) is so far
behind the main one that many people totally discount it.
Java and C# were pushed by big companies. Pretty much any other
popular language these days is open source.
I really don't understand the complaints about the lack of an
open source
compiler for D, but then again, I've always been pro-open source
and anti-free
software (I think that the FSF is nuts, personally), so that may
be why.
I really don't understand why you say you don't understand. You
list the reasons why open source is good. Not everybody has the
luxury of plopping down a $1000 for a compiler. People don't want
vendor lock-in. Open source is a popular movement, and you say
you're pro-open source, and you don't understand why D gets
knocked for not being so?
The problem is that D is getting attacked _as if it were closed
source_, which is completely untrue! The source code for ALL D
compilers is freely available at no charge. closed source != !open.
There are many, very strong disadvantages of closed source vs Open
Source, but most don't apply to D.
I see only two disadvantages with the DMD backend vs Open Source:
(1) we carry the risk that something happens to Walter;
(2) DMD cannot be included in Linux distributions.
But since the front-end is GPLed, these apply only to the backend.
It really seems to be a philosophical objection rather than a
practical one. Or else based on a misunderstanding.
Those who complain about dmd not being open-sourced are those who
didn't try programming in D. Those who tried complain about dmd bugs.
We've just tried programming with a friend in pair in D, and after
spending about an hour trying to figure out the program misbehavior
we understood it was a dmd codegen bug (I'll submit a report
shortly). He was very angry and said "After so many years being in
development this is still a b.s. I will never touch this language
again". I had nothing to say other than I'll submit a bug-report and
it will hopefully get fixed.
D2 I imagine :(, with D1 I had my share of ugly bugs, but normally
things work.
Fawzi
