Help me decide D or C

[Paul Backus]

On Wednesday, 31 July 2019 at 18:38:02 UTC, Alexandre wrote:
> Hi everyone,
>
> I would like an honest opinion.
> I have a beginner level (able to do very small programs) in a 
> few languages  such as python, go, C, guile(scheme) and common 
> lisp. I want to pick a language and go deep with it and focus 
> on only one for at least the next 2 years or so.
>
> Should I go for C and then when I become a better programmer 
> change to D?
> Should I start with D right now?
>
> The reason I am considering starting with C: since I am a 
> beginner, obvious I will need lots of books, tutorials, videos 
> etc. And I believe C would have more resources and maybe a low 
> level to help with programming in general. And, when I need a 
> more powerful language, I would than learn D. Since you know 
> the good and the ugly of the D programming language I wonder, 
> what you would think would be the best to do right now?
>
> Thank you for your help!

If you're looking for a language with lots of learning resources 
available, both C and Python are excellent choices. C is a good 
choice if you want to learn about how your programs interact with 
the hardware, and get an idea of how higher-level languages work 
"under the hood." Python is probably a better choice if you have 
a specific project in mind that you'd like to work on, like a web 
application or a game.

I would not recommend D as a beginning language, both because 
there are fewer beginner-oriented resources available for it than 
for C and Python (the only one I know of is Ali Çehreli's book 
[1]), and because it's a bigger, more complicated language.

[1] http://www.ddili.org/ders/d.en/index.html