D, Java? To D or not to D?

[BCS]

TPJ wrote:
> And now I have found D. What can I say about it?
> 
> Disadvantages:
> 
> 2) D might be perceived as an alternative to Java or C# (I don't count C/C++).
> But it is really the case? Java was born in 1995, today it's a very known
> language. C# was born in 1999, today it's popularity is still rising. And D?
> Mars was born in 1988, D in 1999. How many people have heard about D? In
> comparison, say, to C#? How many apps and libraries are written in Java, in
> C#, and in D?

C# is ~7 years old and on, what V2.0? It was developed by a group of 
people with gobs of funding and AFAIN not a lot of user input. I have 
known it to be described as a shell around the .Net framework.

D is alos ~7 years old, is at V1.00 and is being develuped by one man 
with gobs of user input and AFAIN not a lot of funding. It is useful for 
practically anything.

> 
> So I ask myself a question today: should I invest in learning D? Is it worth
> my efforts?

Yes, even if you don't start developing for-profit apps in it. It is 
also a good language to build personal toolkit apps in.

> 
> Therefore I post this message here. I'd like to know what you (the people who
> know D) say about it.

The language CORE is great!! DMD is good and getting better. The 
tool-chain, libs and documentation suck. But that will change (I expect).

I wouldn't build a big for-profit project on D, not quite yet. But it's 
getting there.