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How an Engineering Company Chose to Migrate to D

dlang.org

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Re: How an Engineering Company Chose to Migrate to D

#41

Post by macintux »

david-cako wrote: post #25
detaro wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Developers can learn new languages though if a company lets them. (Edited to be less glib. bad habit)

I agree, but that costs money for the company and time for the developer. Airbnb dropping react native due to a lack of qualified candidates that were articulate in both the native and javascript realm is a great example. Something can work flawlessly with the right conditions (for instance, developers that understand and can implement the path of least resistance across native and react), yet if its prohibitive to c…

I'm skeptical about extrapolating too much from a JavaScript example. That ecosystem looks nothing like the rest of the software development world.

Erlang has been around in a niche role for >30 years and still going strong, even stronger now that Elixir has reinvigorated interest in the platform.

Re: How an Engineering Company Chose to Migrate to D

#42

Post by smt88 »

seren wrote: post #5

Maybe I am too timid, but the closing word saying that once the transpiler is ready they could switch overnight seems a bit optimistic. I feel that splitting as much as possible the project into chunks/components and then replacing them one by one sounds more realistic (with the appropriate test harness). Maybe that is the plan but it is not touched in the post. And then maybe an issue that is not that bad, but you a…

I think "a bit optimistic" doesn't go far enough. Even some excellent transpilers need manual intervention, and most transpilers I've used have weird edge cases that you can only catch through thorough unit testing.

It sounds like the author has never transpiled a large code base into D before.

Re: How an Engineering Company Chose to Migrate to D

#43

Post by mikepurvis »

codemac wrote: post #23
oconnor663 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Go also certainly supports this. Here's a playground example: https://play.golang.org/p/_BLguocGBRn

Does Go take a copy or a reference?

The captured context persists between calls to the function, as the sibling example demonstrates, or this one:

https://play.golang.org/p/drfx_3g84aE

Re: How an Engineering Company Chose to Migrate to D

#44

Post by fsloth »

philjohn wrote: post #32
Xophmeister wrote: post #7

While the article states that other languages were evaluated, it seems as though the project was motivated entirely by the author and the evaluation was just paying lip service to what was basically a foregone conclusion. Don't get me wrong, I like D from the small amount of playing I've done with it -- and maybe it is the best tool for their purposes -- but this doesn't strike me as an impartial evaluation. The need…

The biggest problem is they have engineers who have turned their hands to programming, one would expect, without the formal training and so have latched onto various antipatterns without knowing any better because Pascal allowed them to get away with it - painting themselves into a corner. He mentioned an awful lot of code that would have to be refactored, and it could be that they are just too far down the rabbit ho…

I have a hunch the majority of domain specific engineering products are at least initially implemented by engineers of the domain and not software engineers.

Re: How an Engineering Company Chose to Migrate to D

#46

Post by closeparen »

Xophmeister wrote: post #7

While the article states that other languages were evaluated, it seems as though the project was motivated entirely by the author and the evaluation was just paying lip service to what was basically a foregone conclusion. Don't get me wrong, I like D from the small amount of playing I've done with it -- and maybe it is the best tool for their purposes -- but this doesn't strike me as an impartial evaluation. The need…

Framing closures as a “requirement” is pretty strange. Depending on the context they can be an ergonomic nice-to-have, but it’s not like you can’t express a program without them.

Re: How an Engineering Company Chose to Migrate to D

#49

Post by kungtotte »

seanhunter wrote: post #34

This article seems to ignore two of the most important reasons to choose one language over another. Specifically: 1)Expressiveness in the given problem domain. Some languages are really great in particular niches. 2)Availability of devs. The ability to hire and retain a really great team makes or breaks projects, and while a smart, motivated dev can learn any language, it's definitely a factor in their choice to work…

3) Tooling, ecosystem, and library availablity. Picking language X over Y is unwise if it means spending a bunch of time writing the libraries you need, even if it's ultimately more expressive.

Re: How an Engineering Company Chose to Migrate to D

#50

Post by ssdd »

Volt wrote: post #40
Xophmeister wrote: post #7

While the article states that other languages were evaluated, it seems as though the project was motivated entirely by the author and the evaluation was just paying lip service to what was basically a foregone conclusion. Don't get me wrong, I like D from the small amount of playing I've done with it -- and maybe it is the best tool for their purposes -- but this doesn't strike me as an impartial evaluation. The need…

>While the article states that other languages were evaluated, it seems as though the project was motivated entirely by the author and the evaluation was just paying lip service to what was basically a foregone conclusion. Now you understand how all of these "How we chose this language" writeups work.

Yeah, almost all the time its the inclination of an individual towards a new language that becomes the driving factor of migration rather than the actual shortcoming of current language.
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