Comparison chart worries

[James Dennett]

Jeff wrote:
>>> (...) Several other features you claim are "important" are really not
>>> (like multiple inheritance, which is dangerous to begin with).
> 
> Huh? Don't the D docs -support- this stance?
> 
> Other than that, I have to agree that the comparison chart seems to me
> to be a bit zealous, and could do more harm than good in its current state.

Quite possibly (of which more below).

> Maybe instead of just having big shiny green "Yes" and "No" labels
> (supported occasionally by footnotes) the table could be modified to
> note in-line
> 
> - which features are provided by the language;
> - which are provided by the standard library; and
> - which are absent from both (regardless of whether they're implemented
> in other popular libraries because, well, with enough hacks you can
> implement almost anything in some external library, and that doesn't
> necessarily make it useful or usable! :P).
> 
> Perhaps a green "Yes (core)", an amber "Yes (std library)" and a red "No"?

Or an amber "Yes (core)" and a green "Yes (std library)"
to indicate where the core language facilities didn't
allow a particular feature to be moved to the library?

OK, that's a joke of sorts -- but color-coding for a
particular agenda is the kind of unnecessary bias that
puts people off.  Some languages designers view putting
something in the core language as a weakness (while
obviously knowing that there has to be enough built in
to allow a viable language+library combination).

Walter's position apparently doesn't match that -- but
assuming that something is better because it's in the
core isn't valid in itself; it might be true that being
in the core means that it can avoid weaknesses of some
library approaches though.

I'd certainly say that the D comparison chart was very
offputting to me, and still is.  Much of what is written
there about other languages is arguably misleading, and
I speak particularly of the notes on C++.  It seems to
be a sales pitch rather than an objective comparison --
and fair enough, it may well be a sales pitch, why should
we expect objectivity from Digital Mars in this context?

I'd be inclined to take D more seriously if we could
reduce by an order of magnitude the level of misguided
attacks against other languages and focus more on some
more thorough treatment of the trade-offs involved in
language and library design.  Many of those attacks
show a lack of knowledge of the other languages to
which they refer.  Focus on making D better (which
usually doesn't mean having a bigger core), not on
knocking other languages to make D *seem* better.

-- James