Why I Like D

[Araq]

On Friday, 14 January 2022 at 02:13:48 UTC, H. S. Teoh wrote:
> It takes 10x the effort to write a shell-script substitute in 
> C++ because at every turn the language works against me -- I 
> can't avoid dealing with memory management issues at every turn 
> -- should I use malloc/free and fix leaks / dangling pointers 
> myself? Should I use std::autoptr? Should I use 
> std::shared_ptr? Write my own refcounted pointer for the 15th 
> time?  Half my APIs would be cluttered with memory management 
> paraphrenalia, and half my mental energy would be spent 
> fiddling with pointers instead of MAKING PROGRESS IN MY PROBLEM 
> DOMAIN.
>
> With D, I can work at the high level and solve my problem long 
> before I even finish writing the same code in C++.

Well C++ ships with unique_ptr and shared_ptr, you don't have to 
roll your own. And you can use them and be assured that the 
performance profile of your program doesn't suddenly collapse 
when the data/heap grows too big as these tools assure 
independence of the heap size. (What does D's GC assure you? That 
it won't run if you don't use it? That's such a low bar...)

Plus with D you cannot really work at the "high level" at all, it 
is full of friction. Is this data const? Or immutable? Is this 
@safe? @system? Should I use @nogc? Are exceptions still a good 
idea? Should I use interfaces or inheritance? Should I use class 
or struct? Pointers or inout? There are many languages where it's 
much easier to focus on the PROBLEM DOMAIN. Esp if the domain is 
"shell-script substitute".