Why is the 'protected' attribute considered useless?

[Don]

On Wednesday, 30 January 2013 at 03:38:39 UTC, Chad Joan wrote:
> I've read more than once now that 'protected' is considered 
> useless in D.  Why is this?

I've never heard that before. Where have you read that?
Several people, including me, have said that 'package' is useless 
-- could that be what you mean? (There are many discussions in 
the Java community about how useless it is in Java, D copied the 
same failed design).

It's also true that 'protected' is in practice not very useful in 
D, as long as bug 314 remains unfixed. But I wouldn't describe it 
as useless.