The D Programming Language has a long way to go for wider adoption despite it isn’t exactly new. As I mentioned in the initial post C/C++ will dominate the native language arena for general purpose programming. The reasons are not as much theoretical than technical and historical ones.
I launched this blog with the very intention to promote D and this way contribute to the process of raise this programming language to the arena where C++ has no really competition at the moment. Unfortunately, for doing this, we need to employ some PR too. As a coder, all I need to be impressed is lines of code, simple, but straightforward text to identify the “beauty” of a programming language but I’m also aware that for spreading the word, the packaging matters a lot.
Digital Mars does a very poor job on this. When I first tried the D programming language I navigated to the Digital Mars’ website and… I almost dropped my idea of getting familiar with D. At the very moment you look the home page of D you will realise that poor people at DM have no web designer around who would keep that website in some humanly tolerable shape. Coder geeks tend to ignore the power of consumable outlook, but this is even worse. The whole site looks as it was the first attempt of some 14 years old kid to create website from a set of HTML code in notepad adding some incredibly lame graphics hacked together in MS Paint.
As a result, the structure is almost completely missing, the forums are rather counter-intuitive, honestly, it’s rather embarrassing. If I wasn’t so busy with my life, I would donate a useful website design with a comprehensive structure. I’m not a web designer by any means, but I can do better than that. So, if anyone out there could spend a little time on this and contribute to this majestic cause, please go for it ASAP!
There’s a sharp contrast between the D’s inner beauty and the way it’s treated. How can someone possibly hope for building a community around a language which has a completely repellent website?
Fortunately, later on a new website appeared which is trying to make it up for this shocking experience. Well, it looks a bit better, but I have no idea why is it a separate one which is pointing to the old one at plenty occasion. Where a community could be fostered it’s still sucks. But at least the logo worth to look at. Many people before me stated already, but I can’t emphasise the following: the name “D” was a terrible choice. Perhaps, if things get really serious, as a beginning of a new life Water would re-baptise it, though this looks quite unlikely, pity for many.
Oh, and please consider this as a good advice anywhere you need to use some iconic graphics for D, forget the following images:
Too childish, too amateur for a language that should conquer the world. You can find better ones:
The images above can be also found on this worthy, but quite hidden site. With this, I stop my rant for a while…