Why all the D hate?

[Walter Bright]

dsimcha wrote:
>> I think having a SafeD environemnt on .NET/JVM might be
>> an interesting exercise. However, the language doesn't have many
>> interesting new features to justify its existence on either platform.
> 
> Don't D's compile-time introspection and generic programming abilities count for
> something?  They're the biggest reason I use D over C# or Java, and AFAIK D is the
> most mainstream language with a comparable level of compile time metaprogramming
> ability.

What we may be seeing here is an effect I noticed decades ago with the Zortech 
compiler. Let's say you have the Zortech compiler, and BrandX compiler. The 
feature lists of the two are:

Zortech: A B C M N O S T U

BrandX:  A B C D M N O

Reviewer concludes that Zortech lacks features because it doesn't do D. Reviewer 
never notices S T U because he's used to BrandX and so obviously S T U are not 
relevant.

It's a very human thing. For example, back in 1995, a friend of mine would 
interview engineers. He'd show them a cell phone, and ask them how they would 
improve it. He'd get answers that were simple refinements of making phone calls. 
Nobody suggested adding a calculator, calendar, texting, email, music playing, a 
camera, etc. It simply never occurred to them because people thought of a phone 
as a phone, nothing more.

Back in the 80's, I knew about OOP but saw no value in it. I'd never used it, 
and had no idea how to. It certainly wasn't on any of my "it would be nice 
if..." desires for a programming language feature.