2011/4/17 Gour-Gadadhara Dasa <g...@atmarama.net> > > On Sun, 17 Apr 2011 15:11:43 -0500 > Andrew Wiley <debio...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > Frankly, if your definition of "not ready" is that the compiler isn't > > packaged for you, D isn't the right community to begin with. > > First of all, there is no 64bit compiler for FreeBSD. I was > researching about gdc and Iain Buclaw told me (on IRC) that there > might be problem with dmd runtime on FreeBSD. > > Moreover, "QtD requires a patched dmd compiler.", so I simply do not > have time to fight such things. > I just want to add one thing. I am, too, trying to develop "real" open source applications in my free time, as well as practical closed source applications at work.
The problem I have been facing even since the start, and are still facing, is that even if _I_ can be motivated to overcome these hurdles, I cannot expect everyone else to feel the same motivation for a new "obscure" C-like language. * At work, I have a hard time explaining to my co-workers why they need 3 hand-rolled, "this particular version" of compilers and libraries they've never heard of, just to compile my simple 200-line Mpeg analyzer. * At my free time it's even worse. Finding people able and willing to spend some time on MY pet project for free is hard enough in itself. Explaining to them why they must first spend an afternoon dealing with dependencies drive away the few that got past the first criteria. My view, is the D community right now are thinking long and hard about their own needs, and less of the needs of their users. (For a language, the application programmer IS the user.) Maybe even rightly so, getting things language-wise right from the start IS important! However, if it is desirable to attract developers that want to use D for productivity right now, there are a lot of practical issues that needs addressing, rough edges to smoothen, and hardly any of them lie in the language itself.