Here are some things I'm unhappy with currently.
1. Documentation
I find certain things, of which I will start writing down and writing
patches for, in the documentation that are unsatisfactory. Two in
particular is the current situation with memory management and CTFE.
"delete" is planned for deprecation and alternative methods for custom
de/allocators are already in place, yet most people don't even know
about them or how to use them. I see talk on IRC about things that
completely confuse me as to the state of things and I can generally find
no obvious or reliable source of information. It's completely frustrating.
Documentation is much more important than feature implementation.
2. Milestones and Organization
Despite the initiative Andrei took to get the community organized and
most people completely shutting his attitude down, D is still left in a
a rather unorganized state. I don't mind DMD using bugzilla but
extensive use of the simple milestone feature should be made and posted
somewhere on the site to be made clearly visible as a semi-roadmap to
the next release. Currently, there's no milestone for 2.058 (although
there is one for 2.059 which makes no sense) so it seems that the 2.058
release will be, once again, completely random. At this point, I'd say
the state of organization is still pathetic and/or scary.
3. FAQ
I think there was a discussion somewhere (of which I can't find now
through Thunderbird search) but the FAQ is important. When people wonder
about a feature of D, the first thing they should do is check the FAQ to
find the answer.
I think that each time a solution is provided that might or might not be
obvious, the reasoning behind that solution should be posted on the FAQ.
Nothing should be left with abstract reasoning (outside of perhaps
philisophy-based reasoning).
The FAQ is incomplete.
4. Microsoft
Windows. I cannot stand Windows. If Microsoft suddenly went bankrupt,
Windows was never updated, and people had to move to MacOS or Linux, I
would be the happiest man alive. Unfortunately, this will seemingly
never be the case and it stands that Microsoft has the highest share of
all the OS users. Thus, it should be given higher priority to attract
more users. When people complain about D not having large Windows
support (or COFF support in particular and the shitty optlink), it kills
me a little on the inside.
5. Naming
This is probably a lost cause but I've recently seen various complaints
about the name "D". It's not distinct nor is D old enough to be known
like C or C++ is. I remember a comment about the name "Mars" which I
think would have been much more distinct and clearcut, and would have
caused less issues.
It also drives me insane that dmd for D2 is not named dmd2. There's no
reason to not have it be dmd2 and you just stupidly caused
incompatibility with the D1 executable. Not that it matters anymore but
the fact that that's what happened looks incredibly dumb. Software like
DVM popped up and while I appreciate such software, I don't think such
software should be needed in the first place. Although, I do realize DVM
has other uses.
The .c extensions on C++ files... need I say more? That itself is a joke
and seems to have been ignored when complaints about it came up. I've
just recently been told that DMD was mostly implemented in C which is
false. This situation is needlessly frustrating.
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I'm not really affected by the in-language subtleties so much nor do
they bother me. I'll post a bug if I find one, it will eventually get
fixed, and I continue to use D. However, I can't help but complain about
things when they're going unnoticed or unattended. I'd like to place my
own personal emphasis on things I think need more thought put into them
each month. Most of these complaints should have greater reasoning
behind them which I will state. However, please comment on where I'm
wrong or your own opinion against mine.
I like the D language. Not so much the projects that surround D.
