OSNews article about C++09 degenerates into C++ vs. D discussion

[Mike Capp]

Walter Bright (and assorted quoted people) wrote:
> >
> > [John Reimer] most D apologists /DO/ advertise D as having the
> > best of both worlds when it comes to memory management, but C++ fans are
> > bound and determined to see D as practically a GC-only language: the GC
> > is one of the first points they always bring up. [...] It's unfair and
> > short-sited, but a typical response.

It's not that unfair. D has good support for RAII now - possibly better than C++'s
on balance, though with different strengths and weaknesses. But GC-less
programming (as opposed to GC+manual) is ignored - no compiler checking, no
standard library beyond C's unless you're willing to vet the source with a
fine-toothed comb. The post John is applauding here states this assumption
explicitly: that there's no need for or value in a GC-less library.

What scares the bejesus out of me is a future combination of:

1) a copying collector,
2) multiple threads and
3) raw pointers.

We talked about this about a year ago, and didn't come up with an obvious
solution. (Though I may have missed one in between drive-by lurkings.) Manual
pinning is waaay too easy to get wrong, IMHO.

>  > some of these people are literally annoyed at D and D
>  > promoters

Not all of those people are diehards, though. I like D, and I sometimes get
annoyed by D promoters. There does seem to be an underlying attitude among some of
the younger and more enthusiastic posters here that D is essentially perfect for
everything, that anyone expressing reservations is automatically a closed-minded
fogey, and that no amount of experience with other languages is relevant because D
is a whole new paradigm.

> That's to be expected. Many people have bet their careers on C++ being
> the greatest ever, and nothing can change their mind.

Some may see it that way, but it's a bit of a non sequitur. Even if no new C++
projects were launched from now until the end of time, there's more than enough
legacy code out there to keep a competent C++ programmer (un)comfortably employed
maintaining it for the rest of their career, if that's really what they want to be
working on. It's COBOL all over again. If anything, their knowledge becomes _more_
valuable if people coming onto the job market are learning D instead; basic supply
and demand.

> It doesn't really matter, though, because if you attend
> a C++ conference, take a look around. They're old (my age <g>). Someone
> once did a survey of the ages of D adopters, and found out they are
> dominated by much younger folks.

Well, yes. Every new language is dominated by younger folks, whether it's
eventually successful or not. Something about the combination of copious free time
and unscarred optimism...