Seems like as good a time as any to say how awesome I think D is, and
how much the world needs it! Where I work, we have a monstrosity of a
project using all of Java, C++ and Lua, with all three interoperating in
all directions. We've been asked to write all new code in C++ for
reasons of portability. Having used Java extensively and D a little, I.
Cannot. Stand. The. Pain. Of. Need for header files, lack of automatic
memory initialisation, lack of decent IDE support because the language
is just that bad... So while they're right about Java not being
portable, I'm holding out and continuing to write in Java anyway. :)
So I absolutely want D to grow and get the support it needs to be able
to replace C++, and the sooner the better! Go D! :)
(Normally I'd worry how many people I just offended, but probably not
here :D)
On 25/09/2012 23:10, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
Hello all,
There's quite a few changes that we're very excited about, that I'd love
to share to the extent possible.
First, we have decided to extend commit rights to Daniel Murphy and
Martin Nowak, two heavyweight dmd contributors better known under their
noms de plume: yebblies and dawgfoto, respectively. Please join me in
congratulating them for this token of appreciation for their talent and
hard work.
We want to move dmd forward faster, and we're encouraging committers to
be more aggressive about reviewing and merging patches. Language changes
will still have to get through Scylla and Charybdis (that's Walter and
yours truly), but bug fixes and other non-controversial work can be
safely parallelized.
Here's a small draft to guide contributors to the compiler proper:
http://www.prowiki.org/wiki4d/wiki.cgi?Contributing_To_The_D_Compiler.
It's mostly authored by Don, and we should all add to it sections and
topics that we consider relevant. At a later point we'll link to the
document from the website, or integrate it there.
We also want to formalize and automate our processes, including building
the compiler and its libraries, testing it all, contributing, website,
and so on. We believe that's a prerequisite to handle (and indeed
condition) the projected growth of the language. To that end, we'll try
to define and use a build and release procedure. There's been talk about
a git workflow; if anyone wants to volunteer creating a detailed
document describing the steps done, that would be awesome.
Last but not least, we're in talks with a professional conference
organizer about setting up a D conference. We're looking at some quite
interesting approaches, but one invariant is that community
participation and drive is key. We'll get back to you as details firm
up; for now, lightly hash the months of April and May with a pencil.
Thanks,
Andrei
P.S. Speaking only for myself: there's been robust community growth and
increase in participation in the past twelve months. It's also clear to
me that although the resources we have now are fine for today's user
base, we need to scale well in advance to what we project. By my
estimates the community size is in the five digits now. To go 1-2 orders
of magnitude higher, I estimate that continuing to do what we do today
is far from enough, so we'll need to do some radical changes. Some may
be risky, and some may be painful. But the as the guy in "Die Hard 2"
said: no guts, no glory. Let's do this together.
