D vs. C#

[Clay Smith]

Steven Schveighoffer wrote:
> "Clay Smith" wrote
>> Walter Bright wrote:
>>> Jussi Jumppanen wrote:
>>>> I think Microsoft's longer term vision is to have .NET everywhere
>>>> and I mean everywhere.
>>>
>>> I've never been able to discover what the fundamental advantage of a VM 
>>> is.
>> The ability to have multiple language's targeting the same VM, as well as 
>> lowering the barrier for a language to become cross platform.
>>
>> I think the future of computing may be to allow the programmer to choose 
>> whatever compiled language they want, and eventually have all languages 
>> compiled down to the same 'bytecode' so they can all interoperate with 
>> each other.
> 
> The future is now :)  .net does this.  C++.net and J# (Java-like .net) and 
> C# and VB and COBOL.net, and oh I don't know, look at this page: 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.NET_Languages
> 
> BTW, I don't think the result is an advantage, as in practice, the language 
> is more important than the object format, so you still end up only using the 
> best language (in my mind, C# is the best .net language).  All these 
> languages must use the .net library to be compatible.
> 
> -Steve 
> 

The .NET languages do look really promising in this regard, the problem 
is that Microsoft only supports its own platform. Maybe Mono might catch 
up, but if Microsoft decides to be evil, it could easily pull the rig on 
Mono by changing specs or using their army of lawyers.

What I'm envisioning will be something that is not tied to any one 
platform or corporation and will be open source, with no one claiming to 
own the technology. Of course, it would require all programmers to agree 
on a common ground, so it is probably unrealistic.