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

[Jonathan M Davis via Digitalmars-d-learn]

On Tuesday, December 06, 2016 22:13:54 bpr via Digitalmars-d-learn wrote:
> On Tuesday, 6 December 2016 at 17:00:35 UTC, Jonathan M Davis
>
> wrote:
> > 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.
>
> I would guess that the vast majority of interest shown in Rust is
> from people who essentially want a better C or C++, with no
> runtime/GC. So, I think Ilya's point is very plausible. D with no
> GC, but with modules, templates, overloading, CTFE, and some
> other features might have been more tempting to the no-GC crowd,
> which includes many hardcore C++ programmers.

Sure, there are folks who would prefer not to have to deal with the GC but
throw out the runtime and std lib? You lose out on too much for it to be at
all worth it for many folks. At that point, C++11/14/17 looks far more
appealing, especially as it continues to improve. And @nogc and sane memory
use largely solves the GC problem for many programs. There are some places
where we need to improve the situation (like with lambdas and the GC), but
for most programs, it's totally workable as-is without giving up on all of
the features provided by the runtime and Phobos.

If you really need absolute pedal-to-the-metal performance and can't afford
to ever have the GC stop the world, you still don't need to actually throw
away the runtime and std lib. You're just a lot more restricted in what you
can do with them. So, tossing out druntime and Phobos entirely seems rather
extreme. It may very well make really good sense for a subset of D programs,
but I have a hard time believing that it's anything more than a small
subset.

> Those programmers who are comfortable working in a GC-ed language
> will likely eschew D because D's GC is really not that great.

We get plenty of folks who aren't big C/C++ programmers who are interested
in D. Yes, the majority seem to have a C++ background, but we also get folks
from C#, python, ruby, etc.

- Jonathan M Davis