3 ms·

Pragmatic D Tutorial

94 points by andralex 13y ago

breckinloggins 13y ago
It's great to see this. The D front page doesn't really do a good job of giving you a feel for the language. Even worse, the important-looking "D Book" link is actually just a teaser to buy the product. To see what I'm talking about with "fresh eyes", imagine that today you overheard your coworkers talking about two great new languages: one called "D" and another called "Elixir". You decide you want to learn a new language but you only have time to learn one. First you visit http://dlang.org/ http://dlang.org/ and then you visit http://elixir-lang.org/ http://elixir-lang.org/. Staying within a small "link radius" of the main page, which one are you more likely to get a feel for and get excited about? My guess is Elixir, and I have no dog in this fight whatsoever.
- andralex 13y ago
  Thanks for the insight. Ali Çehreli has a free book in the works, and once that's ready it'll be visibly featured on the front page. Also, obviously we will add a link to this very tutorial. Thanks again!
agrona 13y ago
Is there some way I can submit corrections? I've found a few typos/grammar mistakes on the first few pages, but can't seem to find any contact information.
- andralex 13y ago
  Thanks! Hop on here, the author is around: http://forum.dlang.org/thread/l3h5pg$1ol$1@digitalmars.com http://forum.dlang.org/thread/l3h5pg$1ol$1@digitalmars.com
- qznc 13y ago
  Author here. Append @web.de to my username. Thanks for any suggestions. :)
shared4you 13y ago
I got interested in D, so I borrowed Andrei's book from the library. The talk is that the publication of TDPL marked the stabilization of D version 2. I tried out the examples in the first few pages of that book. An example in Chapter 1 itself didn't compile (page 8). Well, is that what you call a stable language? I don't want to waste time when the API is still changing so much. I thought, I'll come back may be for D version 3. [edit] Oh BTW, the Pragmatic D tutorial is awesome. Thanks for sharing.
- eco 13y ago
  http://erdani.com/tdpl/errata/ http://erdani.com/tdpl/errata/ is helpful here.
tonyplee 13y ago
What are the most complex programs/projects that are written in D? Has anyone tried to port any of real world open source projects such: Nginx, Apache, make, VLC, VNC, XBMC, eclipse, wireshark, etc into D and write up the +/- of those project in C/C++, etc v.s. "D"?
- joshbaptiste 13y ago
  I seriously doubt it.. A language usually takes off (business wise) once a major player starts using it in production, so developers can now tell their managers "Look XYZ is using it". Now that D got the Facebook plug it will now get more promotion and push to be used more widely.
picomancer 13y ago
For those who missed it, a recent HN headline: "Facebook using D in production starting today" [1]. I'm pretty sure it made the front page. I'm planning to put type inference in a new programming language I'm creating [2], so I looked up the Wikipedia article on type inference [3]. So the parent headline is the third mention of D I've run across this week! [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6532322 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6532322 [2] http://picomancer.com/blog/foil-compiler-tech-preview/ http://picomancer.com/blog/foil-compiler-tech-preview/ [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_inference http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_inference

94 points by andralex 13y ago

It's great to see this. The D front page doesn't really do a good job of giving you a feel for the language. Even worse, the important-looking "D Book" link is actually just a teaser to buy the product. To see what I'm talking about with "fresh eyes", imagine that today you overheard your coworkers talking about two great new languages: one called "D" and another called "Elixir". You decide you want to learn a new language but you only have time to learn one. First you visit http://dlang.org/ http://dlang.org/ and then you visit http://elixir-lang.org/ http://elixir-lang.org/. Staying within a small "link radius" of the main page, which one are you more likely to get a feel for and get excited about? My guess is Elixir, and I have no dog in this fight whatsoever.

andralex 13y ago
Thanks for the insight. Ali Çehreli has a free book in the works, and once that's ready it'll be visibly featured on the front page. Also, obviously we will add a link to this very tutorial. Thanks again!

agrona 13y ago

Is there some way I can submit corrections? I've found a few typos/grammar mistakes on the first few pages, but can't seem to find any contact information.

andralex 13y ago
Thanks! Hop on here, the author is around: http://forum.dlang.org/thread/l3h5pg$1ol$1@digitalmars.com http://forum.dlang.org/thread/l3h5pg$1ol$1@digitalmars.com
qznc 13y ago
Author here. Append @web.de to my username. Thanks for any suggestions. :)

shared4you 13y ago

I got interested in D, so I borrowed Andrei's book from the library. The talk is that the publication of TDPL marked the stabilization of D version 2. I tried out the examples in the first few pages of that book. An example in Chapter 1 itself didn't compile (page 8). Well, is that what you call a stable language? I don't want to waste time when the API is still changing so much. I thought, I'll come back may be for D version 3. [edit] Oh BTW, the Pragmatic D tutorial is awesome. Thanks for sharing.

eco 13y ago
http://erdani.com/tdpl/errata/ http://erdani.com/tdpl/errata/ is helpful here.

tonyplee 13y ago

What are the most complex programs/projects that are written in D? Has anyone tried to port any of real world open source projects such: Nginx, Apache, make, VLC, VNC, XBMC, eclipse, wireshark, etc into D and write up the +/- of those project in C/C++, etc v.s. "D"?

joshbaptiste 13y ago
I seriously doubt it.. A language usually takes off (business wise) once a major player starts using it in production, so developers can now tell their managers "Look XYZ is using it". Now that D got the Facebook plug it will now get more promotion and push to be used more widely.

picomancer 13y ago

For those who missed it, a recent HN headline: "Facebook using D in production starting today" [1]. I'm pretty sure it made the front page. I'm planning to put type inference in a new programming language I'm creating [2], so I looked up the Wikipedia article on type inference [3]. So the parent headline is the third mention of D I've run across this week! [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6532322 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6532322 [2] http://picomancer.com/blog/foil-compiler-tech-preview/ http://picomancer.com/blog/foil-compiler-tech-preview/ [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_inference http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_inference