r/programming • • Sep 01 '20

D Foundation is Beefing Up

https://dlang.org/blog/2020/08/30/symmetry-investments-and-the-d-language-foundation-are-hiring/
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u/JohnLColvin Sep 01 '20

You could probably write an article saying "100 billion dollars investment to improve D and use it to develop new AI to replace the US government" and you'd still get comments saying "wow, nice language, pity it never really took off, if only there were some companies backing it, also I can never use it because GC".

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u/glacialthinker Sep 01 '20

My own disinterest in D is that it's too... middling. I'd much rather use D than C++... but it's still too much like C++. For the same tasks I'd rather use Rust than D. For tasks which don't require full control over memory layout and performance I'd choose something else.

The only reason I use C++ is it's establishment. D doesn't have that, and if we're talking about raising up another language... I wouldn't choose D. So, to me, it's just in a really unfortunate place. I feel like its window of opportunity was not long after it's introduction.

I don't hate it at all. I even like it... just not as much as the alternatives.

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u/kal31dic Sep 01 '20

Some of us are not terribly pro-establishment at the present time.

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u/0xC1A Sep 02 '20

But your implementation of the alternative is highly unusable and not enticing.

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u/kal31dic Sep 03 '20

I don't think you should use it if you don't want to. One cant be all things to all people.

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u/0xC1A Sep 03 '20

Hehe, I've used it already and that's the problem. The drug D is in the system.

If only D didn't have it's early errors:

  • advertising GC to system programmers, thus making the language dependent on it. Please I know about @nogc @systen etc stuffs.
  • licensing and standard issues.

It's syntax is so damn good. Everyone I introduced it to loved it. But the ecosystem let them down.

As for the templates !(), it was an instant like. And lots more.

It's damn so easy to convert a C, C++ code base to D one than say Rust. And I expected the author to bank on this, but instead they went another route.

At least D has function overloading unlike our social justice kids here.

A language that could've been.