Vision/2015H2

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This document discusses the high-level vision for D. It is revised every six months (January and July of every year). This (2015H2) instance is four months late.

Note: This document focuses on goals the D leadership will personally enable or make happen. Other contributions that don't require their help are always welcome.

Progress in H1 2015

Progress is discussed and measured in comparison with the goals established in the H1 2015 vision document.

Improve the brand

DConf 2015 held at Utah Valley University has been a success. However attendance rate (about 50) has been stagnating compared to previous years.

"This Week in D" has become a community staple.

Regional meetups have slowly moved along: London, Berlin, Silicon Valley.

Improve the brand

We aim to improve the brand of the D programming language. Part of that is raising the quality of all D-related materials: website, documentation, tutorials, reference, wiki, forums, etc. "This Week in D" is a related new initiative we plan to continue promoting. DConf 2015 is the premier event of the community. Regional meetups are also important for branding: London, Berlin, Silicon Valley.

Adoption has been growing year over year, with seasonal fluctuations (summer is slower). The 28-day trailing average of daily downloads was 1081 on June 30 2015, compared to 701 exactly one year prior (54.2% increase). See chart.

Raise participation

1871 pull requests have been created in H1 2015 (1796 closed, 71 open). This falls a bit shy off the projected 2000 pull requests, but marks a 21.7% growth over H2 2014 (1538 pull requests) and a 31.8% growth year-over-year compared to H1 2014 (1419 pull requests).

Create a D Language Foundation

Work on the D Language Foundation has proceeded. We secured an attorney and drafted the documentation.

Improve language stability

Language definition has not improved significantly (e.g. shared semantics, @property). We became more conservative about making language changes.

Switch to self-hosting (ddmd)

Porting the D compiler to D has been making good progress.

Emphasize vibe.d

No significant progress. There has been pushback regarding merging vibe.d into the standard distribution.

Memory Management

There has been progress on memory management in the standard library. Several functions that allocated memory now have lazy equivalents that do not require allocation.

Safety

There has been slow progress toward improvement language and standard library safety.

C++ integration

Progress has been slow.

Quality

There has been appropriate improvement of quality across the board.

Foster additions to the standard library and third-party libraries

Progress has been slow.

Alternative compilers

gdc and ldc have made good progress and are keeping up with the current front-end.

H2 2015 Priorities

Because of delays in drafting this document, some items are past work (as noted) instead of intended work.

The D Language Foundation

The Foundation has been incorporated during H2 with the state of Washington, USA. The employer ID is 47-5352856. The plan is to file for non-profit status by the end of H2 (approval takes up to 6 months).

Porting the reference compiler to D

The front-end has been ported. There is work on porting the backend as well.

Continue fostering brand awareness

This remains a priority going forward. "This Week in D" has become a community staple, but we currently have no viewership statistics. DConf 2016 in Berlin is slated to be a larger event than before. Regional meetups are also important for branding: London, Berlin, Silicon Valley.