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

[Kyle Furlong]

Mike Capp wrote:
> 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.
> 

If this is talking about my first post in this thread, thats not what I 
said. I merely said that trying to apply the conventional wisdom of C++ 
to D is misguided.

Is that incorrect?

>> 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...