Comparison chart worries

[Don Clugston]

James Dennett wrote:
> 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++.

I agree. Also I was surprised that C# was listed as having support for RAII.

In my view, the chart is useful only for answering the question "I can 
do XXX in my favourite language, can I also do it in D?"
And it would therefore, I think, be better to improve the "D for C++ 
programmers", etc pages and remove the comparison chart to a 3rd party site.

   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?

And I think the language itself is strong enough now to not need this 
sort of sales pitch.

> 
> 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