:D as a Langauge

I do not wish to use this as an attempt to convert people to that which is D. I merely want to make it know why I use D, where I started, and give some help out to those that are going to try it. And to those that do, I will give that which is also stated on the Official Homepage, do not learn D as a first language.

Preface

I started my programming ventures with ZZT-OOP. This was actually a pretty good way to learn, you'd have to enjoy the game though. I didn't take a liking to programming very early on like my brother, but work with some HTML starting in seventh grade. It wasn't until ninth grade that I had attempted a "real" programming language, Perl 5. This was great because I could generate my HTML frame using a text file for content. I never finished.

Chapter 1: The Discovery

Within the next two years I ended up reading about half of "Teach Yourself C++ in 21 Days." In this time period I found Digitalmars' site on D. I don't remember why, but I found it and liked what I was reading. I made no real attempt to learn it. There was nothing that would teach me to program, I really hadn't done anything at this point. I decided I would come back to it.

Chapter 2: Past Time

The summer before my Junior year in High School I got my self to learn PHP4. Keeping myself busy with that for the summer and the first semester of school. Once I reach the second semester I had a Java class, taught by a teacher that just learned in that summer before. She was actually really competent on the subject. My knowledge of C++, note I only read half the book and wrote two programs from somewhere near the beginning, made the class a breeze. We learned a lot of the basics, and by the end of the semester had a ball bouncing across a window.

Senior year second semester I had another Java class with the same teacher. This time it concentrated mostly on GUI. Once I got to college I was able to skip several of the beginning courses for programming and went into Programming Principles 2. I got to learn more basics, linked lists and stuff. I even threw in a nice GUI for one of my projects.

Chapter 3: Long Lost Friend

The next quarter was Data Structures, which was once again concepts. This was the quarter I decided to look back into D. And when I did, it seemed to be much bigger. I found it very easy to pick up. I ended up taking the assignments given in class and rewriting them in D. I got myself familiar with the community and have found it to be a great language.

Chapter 4: The Conclusion

D is a language for those that are willing to put up with a language at it's infancy. D's community has created a mass of competing and disjointed projects. Everyone has something they wish to get into D, but has a different approach then those that have already been started. If you think about it, C was in worse shape when it started because every compiler did their own thing. I still have a lot to learn, but hope that I will be learning how to do whatever it is in D as well.

Chapter 5: Getting Started

Overview
A great way to find out what D is all about.
FAQ
Frequently asked questions.
FreeNode IRC Channel
The #D Channel on the FreeNode network is a great place to meet some people. It is a pretty small channel and is not constantly active.
NewsGroups
You'll find most of the community here.
DSource
Looking for projects made in D? There are some good libraries being developed here. This is a Wiki based site that has some good examples.
Wiki4D
This site has a lot of good inforamtion on it.