D vs C++

[foobar]

Andrei Alexandrescu Wrote:

> On 12/27/10 2:34 PM, foobar wrote:
> > Andrei Alexandrescu Wrote:
> >> It's currently a growing niche as sequential speed doesn't scale anymore
> >> by Moore's law. Depending on the interplay of discoveries in the coming
> >> years, I believe it's not impossible that serial languages that spend
> >> CPU cycles on dynamic interpretation might become a historical curiosity
> >> caused by a fleeting context: (a) serial speed is large enough to allow
> >> wasting some of it, (b) I/O is much slower than CPU and dominates the
> >> performance profile of many programs, (c) many of today's computing
> >> needs are materially covered with relatively little CPU effort. Any and
> >> all such conditions may change in the future.
> >>
> >>
> >> Andrei
> >
> > No one can predict the future, but I feel that your conclusion is in conflict with your above description. Because sequential speed does not scale, there is a search for non sequential solutions. Those steer _away_ from hand managed systems languages that make such programming harder. In fact, it makes even more sense to go dynamic to adapt the code for different platforms and scenarios.
> > Erlang is an excellent example and is dynamic.
> 
> Good point. Yet Erlang's dynamism has little to do with its concurrency 
> capabilities and more to do with hot swapping.
> 
> At any rate, the current crop of successful dynamic languages (Ruby, 
> Python, PHP) seem to be worse equipped than the current statically-typed 
> languages (Java, C++0x), which are rather ill-prepared themselves. I 
> hope I placed a winning bet with D's NDS (no-default-sharing) 
> concurrency model; only time will tell.
> 
> 
> Andrei

As you said, both groups are ill-prepared (I would've used stronger words..), but I don't agree that the dynamic languages are worse in this regard. Take a look at how Ruby changed it's thread model in the transition to 1.9. It is easier to accomplish than in a compiled language. 

I agree that D's no-default-sharing is a _huge_ thing, this is also one of the big pros of Erlang. It is an important step but it is not enough and there are many more aspects to consider.