The D Programming Language Vision Document

[Mike Parker]

On Sunday, 3 July 2022 at 11:13:42 UTC, Ola Fosheim Grøstad wrote:
> On Sunday, 3 July 2022 at 08:46:31 UTC, Mike Parker wrote:
>> Feedback is welcome.
>
> Thank you for putting this in clear terms. I miss an 
> overarching «primary use scenarios» to guide further language 
> evolution. How do you know if new language features are good or 
> bad if you have no scenarios to measure them up against?

That's not something we've discussed yet. Right now, the focus is 
on plugging holes in the existing language, building out the 
ecosystem, and overhauling Phobos. These areas are where we see 
some of the loudest complaints. Language evolution doesn't really 
mean much until we get all of this sorted. But we'll start 
discussing it at some point, at which time you'll see some new 
high-level goals appear.

In the meantime, Walter and Atila will continue evaluating DIPs 
on a case-by-case basis. (Speaking of which, I want to look at 
overhauling the DIP process a bit some time next year).

>
> It is nice to see that improved move semantics is a goal, then 
> I guess ARC could be something one could envision down the 
> line. That said, I am a bit disappointed that there is no hint 
> of a departure from the current STOP-the-world GC regime, but I 
> guess that is the reflecting reality. My interpretation of the 
> vision document is that the core team sees no need to change 
> the current GC strategy.

That's right. But Walter wants to minimize its use in Phobos v2, 
and there's a strong desire to have a pay-as-you-go DRuntime. I'm 
not the person to speculate on how the GC fits into that, but I 
do know they don't yet want git rid of it. (On a related note, 
I'll soon be publishing a video of a conversation I had with 
Walter about origins of D, and he said something there about the 
GC that really surprised me.)