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Another year has gone and the D Blog keeps trucking along. That means it\u2019s time once again to look in the rearview, dig into some blog stats, and talk about plans for the coming year.<\/p>\nAnother year has gone and the D Blog keeps trucking along. That means it\u2019s time once again to look in the rearview, dig into some blog stats, and talk about plans for the coming year.<\/p>\n
The truck did get a bit low on fuel along the way. I\u2019m the world\u2019s worst manager of time and, thanks to an increased workload, that impacted the blog in different ways. I also suffered a severe bout of writer\u2019s block for several weeks. That affected not just the blog, but also my regular job and my hobby. As someone who writes every day, suddenly being unable to find any words was both unsettling and frustrating. I did eventually get through it, but with a much-reduced output level. Where once I could crank out a near-final draft of a blog post in one sitting, I found myself requiring several sessions over several days and multiple revisions.<\/p>\n
Because of that, the total post count was down from 2017<\/a> and I didn\u2019t meet the goals I had for 2018. But the tank has been topped off for 2019, my output level has improved, and I\u2019m putting a higher priority on chasing contributors. If you\u2019re writing D code and I have a means of contacting you, beware!<\/p>\n Publishing more project highlights was a big goal in 2018, but it didn\u2019t go that way. The year kicked off with two in short order: BSDScheme in January<\/a> and The D Community Hub<\/a> in February, and that was it.<\/p>\n This is a bigger priority for 2019. If you have a D project you\u2019d like the world to know about, let me know! It will help me tremendously for volunteers to step forward.<\/p>\n In March, I wrapped up the blog\u2019s focus on the first target of our D in Production series<\/a> with a set of User Stories from Funkwerk<\/a>. They agreed at DConf 2017<\/a> to participate in the series and we started it shortly thereafter.<\/p>\n At DConf 2018<\/a>, I asked the folks from Sociomantic to be the next target and they agreed. We started the conversations, but the initial post fell victim to my writer\u2019s block and subsequent output woes. We\u2019ll get that going early this year. I expect to pick up the next target at DConf 2019<\/a>.<\/p>\n The guest post story wasn\u2019t all bad. In the first three months, most of the posts were from me. The two exceptions were Walter\u2019s Flash-Gordon-inspired title, Vanquish Forever These Bugs That Blasted Your Kingdom<\/a>, a post from the LDC developers<\/a> about the release of LDC 1.8.0, and the aforementioned Funkwerk User Stories.<\/p>\n In the middle of the year, we had guest posts from Jared Hanson on As with the project highlights, guest posts are always welcome. If you have something you\u2019d like to contribute, let me know! Most people I contact first tell me they don\u2019t have the time now. Some agree to do it and then ask to postpone or cancel, sometimes after sending me a rough draft. That\u2019s perfectly understandable, and I\u2019m not complaining. I just want to make it clear that when someone volunteers to contribute a guest post without my prompting them, I know the person is already committed to publishing the post\u2014they contacted me! The success rate, in that case, is almost 100%. It’s quite a bit lower when I’m chasing posts.<\/p>\n Several of my posts in 2018 were written to announce new initiatives, like The #dbugfix Campaign<\/a>, The State of D Survey<\/a>, The New New DIP Process<\/a>, The D Language Foundation at Open Collective<\/a>, Funding code-d<\/a>, and The New Fundraising Campaign<\/a>. And let\u2019s not forget the page on the Symmetry Autumn of Code<\/a>, which is in the process of wrapping up. I\u2019m keeping the focus on the blog itself in this post, but I\u2019ll be following up in a few days with a retrospective on D at large in 2018, including some words on all of these initiatives.<\/p>\n More such announcements will be coming your way in 2019. I\u2019m hoping to publish one before the end of this month. It\u2019s highly dependent on my time-management skills, so please don\u2019t make any high-valued bets on it.<\/p>\n My favorite part. Be sure to see The D Blog in 2017<\/a> and The D Blog in 2016<\/a> for comparison if that\u2019s your thing.<\/p>\n There were 39 new posts published to the D Blog in 2018. We picked up 132,754 page views from 80,708 visitors who left 92 comments.<\/p>\n The top five referrers:<\/p>\nWhat Was and Could Have Been<\/h3>\n
std.variant<\/code><\/a>, Kai Nacke on using D with SAP<\/a>, Nick Sabalausky on alias this<\/code> vs alias<\/code><\/a> for clearer error messages, Jack Stouffer on continuous improvement in D<\/a>, Bastiaan Veelo on how his engineering company picked up D<\/a>, and Walter on how he converted make.c<\/code> to D<\/a>. After that, there were no contributions until Joakim\u2019s interview with Liran Zvibel of WekaIO<\/a>.<\/p>\nThe Stats<\/h3>\n