Looking for a language to hang my hat on.

[Dan via Digitalmars-d-learn]

I am a very new c++ programmer, having just learned the language 
this year.

A few months ago I completed a course on Coursera that dealt with 
the security aspect of c (which I don't know, but it is similar 
enough):

https://class.coursera.org/softwaresec-008

The course highlighted just how dangerous c/c++ can be. My 
reaction to the course has been an increased use of shared/weak 
pointers over standard pointers, more judicious use of "assert" 
and increased use of destructors, where class pointers are 
destroyed via the destructor so I don't need to worry about 
memory leaks as much (all of my non-vector arrays are 
created/destroyed via a class w/ template).

Some of this slows programs down, but in reality it does not have 
much of an impact. But doubt will always linger that I caught 
every vulnerability. Therefore I am shopping for a language that 
codes like c++ but is safer.  It sounds like D may fit that 
requirement.

My platform of choice is 64-bit Fedora using Code::Blocks (yes, I 
use an IDE as a crutch). It seems that D supports this combo.

I have been lurking on this site over the past few weeks trying 
to decide when (and if) to make the transition. Can anyone here 
who has already made that transition tell me how smoothly it 
went? Any major unexpected problems? Advice?

thanks!
Dan