[Semi-OT] I don't want to leave this language!

[Jonathan M Davis via Digitalmars-d-learn]

On Tuesday, December 06, 2016 13:36:20 Ilya Yaroshenko via Digitalmars-d-
learn wrote:
> On Tuesday, 6 December 2016 at 13:02:16 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu
>
> wrote:
> > On 12/6/16 3:28 AM, Ilya Yaroshenko wrote:
> >> On Tuesday, 6 December 2016 at 08:14:17 UTC, Andrea Fontana
> >>
> >> wrote:
> >>> On Monday, 5 December 2016 at 20:25:00 UTC, Ilya Yaroshenko
> >>> Phobos/Druntime are pretty good for a lot of projects.
> >>
> >> In theory
> >
> > And what seem to be the issues in practice with code that is
> > not highly specialized? -- Andrei
>
> If code is not highly specialized there is no reason to spent
> resources to use C/C++/D. A company will be happy with Python,
> Java, C#, Go and Swift. If one need to have C/C++ programming
> level he can not use D because DRuntime. Only a subset of D can
> be used. And current problem that we have not BetterC paradigm in
> D specification. So, only crazy companies will consider D for
> large projects. Current D is successful in small console text
> routines.
>
> If a system PL can not be used as C for highly specialized code,
> it is not a real system PL.
>
> DRuntime and Phobos is going to compete with Java and Go. It is
> suicide for D, IMHO. In other hand, BetterC is a direction where
> D can be populated among professionals and replace C/C++.

While I am quite sure that there are use cases where folks would be unhappy
with druntime and Phobos and want to avoid them, there are definitely
companies using D with druntime and Phobos right now, and personally, I've
never worked at a company where anything about druntime or Phobos would have
been a showstopper in switching to D. The showstopper would be in convincing
them to use a new language rather than one that they were already familiar
with. C++ works for them, and they're not interested in switching. And
honestly, pushing for a subset of D that didn't have the functionality in
druntime and Phobos would just make it an even harder sell. At that point,
they're _really_ not interested in using D. C++11/14/17 quickly and easily
wins out in that fight.

So, while there are certainly folks who would prefer using D as a better C
without druntime or Phobos, I think that you're seriously overestimating how
many folks would be interested in that. Certainly, all of the C++
programmers that I've worked with professionally would have _zero_ interest
in D as a better C.

- Jonathan M Davis