some questions about D

[Luis P. Mendes]

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 13:04:55 -0400, bearophile escreveu:

> Luis P. Mendes:
> 
>> I'm about to begin a project on artificial intelligence, decision trees
>> and some other algorithmic stuff that needs runtime and development
>> speed.
> 
> Very good, D sounds fit for such kind of code. If you need development
> speed (with good performance) you may also take a look at Java :-) If
> you work on Windows (but you have said you use Linux) C# gives some C++
> interoperability, and its performance and development speed are usually
> good. I can give you some of the answers, and I leave the other
> questions to other people:
> 
>> 1) Can I access a PostgreSQL and/or MySQL database from D?  Are there
>> (fast/reliable) database adapters?
> 
> There can be, but there's little that's really reliable in D :-) D is a
> newish language, and it has very few developers (Walter, Andrei for the
> std lib Phobos, and recently Don mostly for the as debugger), so things
> can't be compared to languages that are backed by large firms (C#, Java,
> etc).
> 
> 
>> 2) Is it easy to use C++ libraries?
> 
> D is able to use C libraries, and a little of C++ (with D2, mostly).
> 
> 
>> 3) D compilers don't yet compile natively in 64 bits processors? Mine
>> is a x86_64 Linux system.
> 
> LDC has acceptable 64 bit support on Linux. But then you can't port code
> to Windows yet.
> 
> 
>> 4) I have to use huge (for me) amounts of data, maybe I'll make use of
>> most of my 8GB RAM memory.  Will I find problems due to any compiler/
>> language limit?
> 
> I don't know. Not many people use D for large purposes yet. You can try,
> and tell us. Tango developers may find ways to solve some of the
> problems you find along the way.
> 
> 
>> 5) Besides Alexei forthcoming book, is there documentation for the
>> whole language and not only to part of it as in http://compsci.ca/v3/
>> viewtopic.php?t=9518 and http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/A_Beginner%
>> 27s_Guide_to_D ?
> 
> There's the "Learning to Tango with D" that's mostly about D1 Tango.
> 
> 
>> 6) Is D version 2 suitable for a beginner like me starting a new
>> project?
> 
> D2 is Alpha status, it's unfinished. It can be used but be ready for a
> rough ride. It will change in future, so if you want your code to keep
> working 2 years from now, you will need to update your code every few
> months.
> 
> 
>> 7) What advantages can I have in using Tango? Speed? Ease of
>> development? will it be integrated as standard?
> 
> Tango is often less buggy, faster, uses memory better (often no memory
> allocations unless you want them), and gives you a lot more features.
> 
> Bye,
> bearophile

Thank you all for your replies.
I'd really like to do my project in D, let's see if I can find a way to 
do it.

Luis