Why I (Still) Won't Use D

[Georg Wrede]

Benji Smith wrote:
> I first stumbled across the D programming language way back in 2002.

Long time, no see, Benji! Congrats on the kids! My youngest was born 
after I got into D, and this year she'll start school. Man, doesn't time 
fly!

> But the language was *ALMOST* ready.

True! And had we then known that in 2008 it still is, many of us would 
be long gone. OTOH, D really is a lot better now.

> Here are some of the things that are most offputting:

Must say that I agree with almost all of it!

D1 is what you'd be interested in. I just looked at the differences 
between D1 and D2, and found that there's almost nothing I'd honestly 
need *when developing for customers*. And it's spec is _very_ stable, 
almost paranoidly so.

D1 is a long-term thing. It's good enough for what one might expect 
today, and the stability offers tool and library writers a chance to 
write code without chasing a moving target. Also by this time, you 
probably don't stumble on bugs unless you do something very unusual. And 
it keeps getting bug fixes, at least until D3 (experimental) is 
announced, AND when D2 becomes stable enough for library writers and 
serious app writers to have moved to.

As to D2, for me it's mostly for playing with the language and concepts, 
and generally having a toy that keeps feeling "new". ;-) It also keeps 
up the interest and excitement of being on the bleeding edge of language 
development.

But still, your points on D were well thought out and valid. I sure hope 
they make a difference here.