View source for Vision/2016H2

== Meta ==

This document discusses the high-level vision for D. It is revised every six months (January and July).

Note: This document focuses on goals the D leadership will personally enable or make happen, or strongly believes are important for the success of the D language. Other contributions are always welcome and do not need to be necessarily aligned with this document.

== H1 2016 Review ==

;The D Language Foundation

:We failed to apply for nonprofit status before the end of H1. Currently the application has been drafted and is under review by a CPA and an attorney.

;Raising participation

:Participation during 2016H1 has been steady but has been below expectations. Of the 2000 PRs planned for H1 we achieved [https://github.com/pulls?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=is%3Apr+user%3Adlang+created%3A2016-01-01..2016-06-30 1711].

;Foster brand awareness

:We have had good results in this area. DConf 2016 has been a success with over 140 participants, a solid program, and an enthusiastic atmosphere. D has been featured in talks at ACCU and NDC Oslo. A number of local meetups (Bay Area, Boston, Berlin etc) took place.

:The official D Blog has been created under the care of Michael Parker and already has good content.

:A formalization of the DIP process has been initiated by Dicebot.

;Tooling

DUB will be deployed with dmd starting with the next release.

;Other

Other topics from H1 underwent only little development and will be copied as ongoing topics for H2: safety, memory management, tooling, improve language stability and specification, C++ and Objective C integration, library additions, smartphone support.

== H2 2016 Priorities ==

;The D Language Foundation

:The plan is to file for non-profit status before September 1, 2016

:The Foundation has initiated collaboration with [http://tech-lounge.ro Tech Lounge], an organization that helps finishing students and fresh graduates accumulate industrial experience working on high-impact projects

:The Foundation has in working a number of speaking engagements that will add funds to its coffers

:Initiate and advertise sponsorship and membership programs

:Pursue academic collaborations

:Create online swag store

:Foster articles, books, talks on D

;Improve organization

:More stable release model, better integration of fixes, maintaining LTS releases for professional users. Regressions should be paid utmost attention.

:Better management of language and phobos development, consensus on strategies, basic project management for bigger features, better administration of DIPs and module review queue.

;Raising participation

:More automation: bot for pinging reviewers (mention-both, highfive), automatic linting of pull requests, dfmt, automatically build dub packages to assess regression impact.

:We continue to actively look for "promoting" contributors into top, heavy-hitting ranks: owners of important projects and responsibilities, code reviewers, designers, technical leaders.

:Foster newcomer experience: installation (first five minutes), documentation, articles, error messages (e.g. DIP83), debugging.

;Safety and Memory Management

:Safety and making the GC optional remain important concerns through the end of this year. We are putting them together because the GC alternatives we endorse must address safety.

:Fix all errors in language design and implementation that allow unsafe behavior in <tt>@safe</tt> code.

:Usable/useful escape reference analysis (finished DIP25, scope methods to avoid escaping of this, in = const scope, D variadic arguments) to enable more efficient resource management (see [http://forum.dlang.org/post/vtvtukooicwspxzzoxtt@forum.dlang.org example])

:Improve the GC.

:Flesh out and solidify <tt>std.experimental.allocator</tt>

:Improve compiler support so ref counting can be done <tt>@safe</tt>ly.

;Interoperability

:Improve C++ inter-operability: struct mangling, Windows exceptions. Improve Objective-C interoperability.

;Tooling

:Improve integration of dub, take advantage of its presence in the standard distribution

:Continue work on modularizing compiler-front-end as a library, which will enable many other tools

:Keep an eye for collaboration on large tooling projects: IDEs, debuggers, editors, etc.

;Quality

:Improve CTFE
:Fix problems with excessively long mangled names
:Improve internal memory management of compiler
:Continue improving DMD front end internals

;Standard Library

:Eliminate Phobos dependency on GC (in other words, make GC opt out a viable and simple option).
:Review all Phobos modules for compatibility with ranges - std.zip, for example, was done before ranges and does not work with them
:Replace modules that are lacking in quality: json, xml
:Strengthen definition of ranges, possibly improve API
:New modules such as: containers, SI units, rational numbers, fixed-point numbers, big decimals, unit testing framework, benchmarking, linear algebra.
:Use -cov to improve code coverage of Phobos modules
:Make sure every function in Phobos has an example
:Make sure every function in Phobos has Params: and Returns: sections http://www.digitalmars.com/d/archives/digitalmars/D/Phobos_Documentation_-_call_to_action_258777.html
:Take inspiration from popular modules in other languages for adding modules to Phobos
:Improve green threads/fiber support
:Create a module that enables code to be run on GPUs
:Create the interface code to the C++ STL
:Review all of Phobos for @safe compatibility
:Remove dependency on autodecode from Phobos
:


[[Category:Vision Statements]]