Why I Like D

[H. S. Teoh]

On Thu, Jan 13, 2022 at 09:32:15PM +0000, Paul Backus via Digitalmars-d-announce wrote:
> On Wednesday, 12 January 2022 at 20:48:39 UTC, forkit wrote:
[...]
> > Programmers want the right of self-government, over their code.
> 
> Actually, I think *self*-government has very little to do with it.
[...]
> So, why do so many programmers reject D? Because there's something
> else they care about more than their own autonomy: other programmers'
> *lack* of autonomy. Or, as it's usually put, "the ecosystem."
[...]
> Suppose you've already decided that you don't want to use a GC, and
> you also don't want to write every part of your project from
> scratch--that is, you would like to depend on existing libraries.
> Where would you rather search for those libraries: code.dlang.org, or
> crates.io? Who would you want the authors of those libraries to be:
> self-governing, autonomous programmers, who are free to use GC as much
> or as little as they like; or programmers who have chosen to give up
> that autonomy and limit themselves to *never* using GC?

This reminds me of the Lisp Curse: the language is so powerful that
everyone can easily write their own [GUI toolkit] (insert favorite
example library here).  As a result, everyone invents their own
solution, all solving more-or-less the same problem, but just
differently enough to be incompatible with each other. And since they're
all DIY solutions, they each suffer from a different set of
shortcomings.  As a result, there's a proliferation of [GUI toolkits],
but none of them have a full feature set, most are in various states of
(in)completion, and all are incompatible with each other.

For the newcomer, there's a bewildering abundance of choices, but none
of them really solves his particular use-case (because none of the
preceding authors faced his specific problem).  As a result, his only
choices are to arbitrarily choose one solution and live with its
problems, or reinvent his own solution. (Or give up and go back to Java.
:-D)

Sounds familiar? :-P


T

-- 
Democracy: The triumph of popularity over principle. -- C.Bond