D

[Tony]

"Dave" <Dave_member at pathlink.com> wrote in message 
news:gg5dgl$277i$1 at digitalmars.com...
> "Jarrett Billingsley" <jarrett.billingsley at gmail.com> wrote in message 
> news:mailman.26.1227226037.22690.digitalmars-d at puremagic.com...
>> On Thu, Nov 20, 2008 at 6:54 PM, dsimcha <dsimcha at yahoo.com> wrote:
>>> == Quote from bearophile (bearophileHUGS at lycos.com)'s article
>>>> D is a fringe language, and it's not an easy one (system language and 
>>>> all that),
>>> so there's never shortage of unusual people in this newsgroup :-)
>>>> Java groups are so boooring compared to this one :-)
>>>> Bear hugs,
>>>> bearophile
>>>
>>> Do people seriously consider D a "difficult" language?  Given that it 
>>> has garbage
>>> collection out of the box, builtin arrays, etc. I would have guessed 
>>> that most
>>> people only consider it to be of moderate difficulty.  Yes, you *can* do
>>> down-and-dirty programming with pointers, manual memory management, etc. 
>>> in it,
>>> but you don't *have to* unless the nature of your problem domain would 
>>> require it
>>> no matter what the language.
>>>
>>
>> Or if you're absolutely obsessed with microperformance and attempt to
>> subvert the GC at every possible opportunity.
>>
>> (Consider who you're replying to ;) )
>
> It seems that bearophile basically wants a GP / systems language and tools 
> that are nearly as productive as the likes of Python but can also produce 
> blazingly fast code. A pretty worthy goal, and I think that was the 
> orginal blanket idea behind D anyway. To win mindshare I think D has to be 
> able to do better than more established languages in both areas.
>
> Look at the time and $$$ spent on making Java "fast". Not a trivial 
> subject.
>
> Besides, there has been in previous years a good deal of initial interest 
> from members of two important groups where performance is vital: numeric 
> and game software developers. Over the years and more often than not it 
> seems, various members of both groups drop in to the NG's but end-up 
> showing only a fleeting interest in D. Most of the reason I think is 
> because performance isn't stellar, and even more that D (the language, as 
> specified) doesn't offer any advantage in that regard over the tried and 
> true like Fortran and C/++.

I think you need to "compile" a longer list of categories of 
development/developers. D is as old as C++ ("virtually"). Time has changed 
things. WB told me he finds GC compelling. I do not. Call me immature if you 
want to, but I have specific requirements, and GC doesn't fit into those. 
(Damn, this GC thing comes up soooo much, not only in D rooms, but 
certainly, this is where one would expect it to be thrashed out).

>
> I don't think D will succeed without healthy backing from at least one of 
> those groups. After all, if you're developing a "high-performance" 
> language, customers of organizations who sell Fortran compilers, math and 
> physics libraries and HPC hardware are pretty desirable to have on your 
> side..

Is D a solution looking for a problem?

Tony