Making D better than other programming languages (warning: rant, drivel)

[renox]

Dave wrote:
> Nils Hensel wrote:
> 
>> Walter Bright schrieb:
>>
>>> One thing you mentioned as a proven productivity booster is dynamic
>>> typing. D isn't going to do dynamic typing, but its type inference
>>> support is getting much better, to the point where one does not need to
>>> explicitly say nearly so many types.
>>
>>
>> I agree, this is a great feature. In this aspect D is nearly a
>> compilable Python. I found myself using D in cases I normally would have
>> used Python for.
>>
>> Way to go! ;-)
>>
>> Cheers,
>> Nils
> 
> 
> Where I work right now, they do a lot of Perl (the most productive 
> language mentioned in the OP).
> 
> Because of the built-in strings, AA's, good/easy I/O and regexp lib., D 
> could be great for a lot of what Perl is used for. And perhaps just as 
> productive for many text processing tasks for the average Perl hacker 
> who doesn't have all of the arcane Perl syntax imprinted in their 
> temporal lobe yet.
> 
> Anyhow, there are two reasons why D isn't in this shop:
> 
> 1) No (current) 'port' for HPUX
> 2) For security and system stability reasons, anything new and 
> relatively unproven is pretty unlikely to make it onto the machines in 
> this shop (pretty prudent actually).
> 
> With that in mind.. Once v1.0 of D is released, it may actually be a 
> good idea for Walter to call in some chips and get a 'code security 
> audit' done on the compiler and phobos if possible. Some assurance to 
> prospective commercial users that it's safe to install on their 
> 'big-iron' may go a long way towards at least getting organizations to 
> try it, but I really don't know.

Uh? Security audit of the *compiler*??

I agree that having secure generated code and secure library is a must 
but of the compiler itself, frankly..

Note that given widespread current usage of C, I find it hard to believe 
that this kind of security requirement is really serious.

Renaud


> (It may be impressive to headline something like "The D v1.0 compiler 
> and runtime library have passed a 3rd-party code security audit". [if a 
> statement like that wouldn't void some portion of the 'suitability 
> warranty'.])