Geek of the week

[bearophile]

Tim Matthews:
> Don't know if it has already been posted:
> http://www.simple-talk.com/opinion/geek-of-the-week/walter-bright-geek-of-the-week/

No posted yet, thank you.
The text is very good, and it puts both D and Walter in a wonderful light. The nicest interview to Walter I've seen so far. I'll let some friends of mine read this text!

Just a note:
>What are the application areas that D targets? WB: In short, any application that would otherwise use C or C++ would be suitable for D.<

That may become true in future, but it can't be true now. If I buy an Arduino, or a little 16 bit CPU that has to go inside a cheap microwave oven, I usually have to program it in C, Forth (or worse). I can't use D for that. Currently D is not fit for the world of small real-time CPUs. And embedded CPUs are very common, for every desktop (and handheld) CPU produced, 10 or 100 small CPUs for embedded purposes are produced.

But there are possible ways to make D fitter for those purposes. For example it may be designed a "lightD", a subset of D (that has no built-in AAs, that uses no GC, etc), and adds several tricks/constructs useful when your available RAM is 1200 bytes long and your available ROM (well, flash, or a different slower kind of RAM) is 30000 bytes. In such situations a compiler is even asked to produce not just the faster or shorter binary, but sometimes even the less energy consuming one! (think about a -Oe compilation flag, beside the -O and the -Os). Or maybe D will never fit for such purposes. 

Bye,
bearophile