If D becomes a failure, what's the key reason, do you think?

[David Medlock]

Walter Bright wrote:
> Tesuji wrote:
> 
>> In article <e8l426$26o3$1 at digitaldaemon.com>, Don Clugston says...
>>
>>> It's all in the libraries. D is a fantastic language to write 
>>> libraries for. That's where you get the benefit from all the 
>>> incremental improvements. If const-by-default enables the creation of 
>>> much better libraries, then it's worth the pain. If it doesn't, don't 
>>> do it.
>>> Ruby had this huge surge in popularity not because of the language, 
>>> but because of the library Ruby On Rails. Developing good libraries 
>>> requires a stable language, and we don't have that right now. The 
>>> protection/module system seems to be completely broken.
>>
>>
>> Agreed, in addition I also believe that a const-by-default C++ like 
>> reference
>> type is needed before any container library (like DTL) can be effectively
>> written. Currently D is lacking in this area where C++ is strongest. 
>> relying
>> solely on built-in array / hash is hardly the solution.
> 
> 
> I don't understand why either of these would *prevent* effective 
> libraries from being built. Neither enables new programming techniques 
> or paradigms, they are just aids to documentation and debugging.

I feel the same.  Libraries either
a) Are passed allocated objects, in which they are allowed to manipulate 
them.  No need for const there(that I can see).

b) Allocate and return objects/data.  Definitely no need for const there.

Java has tons of libraries, as does Ruby, and Perl, and C, and tons of 
other libraries without const.  No offenses intended, this is bordering 
on an obsession.

With garbage collection, I just don't see the HUGE benefits of const....
-DavidM