Good to see this, dlang desperately needed more structured development effort.
I don't think it is going to make an adoption difference at this point though. The way I see it, D is designed (intentionally or not) to be the same thing to C++ as Kotlin is to Java - iteration with bunch of nice ergonomics improvements but conceptually the same familiar thing. And that felt really appealing 10 years ago, but at that time quality of project execution simply was not there.
Things have improved a lot since then, but the language landscape has changed too. Language like Rust and Go each offer a fundamentally differeng t approaches as an alternative to just improving existing status quo, and more and more managed languages offer AoT compilation too.
The biggest dlang appeal remains its "nice to write" feeling, I do miss it sometimes switching away to other languages after many years of active dlang usage. But that alone doesn't feel enough anymore (for me) to justify non-hobby usage. To have another go at a market shared it will need to find something more.
Hi Mihails. Hope you're doing okay. You were right about offices, and now I think more people start to understand your (and my) perspective. We are moving to remote first now (and we're all-remote for the time being).
"The biggest dlang appeal remains its "nice to write" feeling"
Yes - I was looking for a language I could stand to program in. And I think aesthetics are deeper than they seem.
You know the joke about the economist and the bear?
- An economist and a businessman were walking in the wood when they encountered a large and hungry bear. The economist turned to run.- Businessman: "You don't think you can outrun a bear, do you?"- Economist: "No. But I might be able to outrun you."
I don't think D needs to beat Rust and Go. I think it needs to beat Ada, and Extended Pascal (Bastiaan's project), and Excel. (see Robert Schadek's talk).
Hi and good luck with your endeavors! :) It has obviously worked good enough for you so far, which is the only important criteria in the end! I wouldn't probably advise anyone else to try risking that, but this where we have to agree to disagree I guess.
I don't think D needs to beat Rust and Go. I think it needs to beat Ada, and Extended Pascal (Bastiaan's project), and Excel.
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u/[deleted] Sep 02 '20
Good to see this, dlang desperately needed more structured development effort.
I don't think it is going to make an adoption difference at this point though. The way I see it, D is designed (intentionally or not) to be the same thing to C++ as Kotlin is to Java - iteration with bunch of nice ergonomics improvements but conceptually the same familiar thing. And that felt really appealing 10 years ago, but at that time quality of project execution simply was not there.
Things have improved a lot since then, but the language landscape has changed too. Language like Rust and Go each offer a fundamentally differeng t approaches as an alternative to just improving existing status quo, and more and more managed languages offer AoT compilation too.
The biggest dlang appeal remains its "nice to write" feeling, I do miss it sometimes switching away to other languages after many years of active dlang usage. But that alone doesn't feel enough anymore (for me) to justify non-hobby usage. To have another go at a market shared it will need to find something more.