On the D Blog -- Teaching D from Scratch: Is it a viable first language?

[Harrison Ford (hatf0)]

On Thursday, 23 December 2021 at 12:44:04 UTC, Mike Parker wrote:
> Steven Schveighoffer has been using D to teach a group of 
> children to program. He wrote about his experience for the D 
> blog. Is D a viable first language? See what Steve has to say 
> about it :-)
>
> The blog:
> https://dlang.org/blog/2021/12/23/teaching-d-from-scratch-is-it-a-viable-first-language/
>
> Reddit:
> https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/rmuufa/teaching_d_from_scratch_is_it_a_viable_first/

This is super cool. I absolutely agree with Steven that we have a 
*lot* to go (in terms of compiler diagnostics, and really, 
general user experience), but it’s always great to hear about the 
wisdom of D being spread around.

I’ve mentioned it on the discord, but I’d perhaps be open to 
chipping in some for these improved diagnostics / UX improvements 
(number one on my wishlist is improved code completion engine 
using the DMD front-end!). I really think those are the two 
biggest things that are holding adoption back now, and we still 
have a lot of work in that regard. This is actually where I think 
Rust has a leg up on us — the language might not be that great, 
but you *really* can’t beat those compiler diagnostics.