The design principles of D (aka The D Manifesto)

[Andrei Alexandrescu]

Nick Sabalausky wrote:
> "Justin Johansson" <no at spam.com> wrote in message 
> news:hv2n35$29rl$1 at digitalmars.com...
>> Deeply nested in the thread "Marketing of D", the creator or D wrote
>>
>> "D has design principles, but those principles are often contradictory. I 
>> don't see a good reason to follow a design principle out of principle if 
>> it destroys the utility of the language."
>>
>> For the assurance of the believers, the swaying-over of the disbelievers 
>> and for the amusement of the bystanders (the D-agnostics), it would be 
>> great to have those design principles re-articulated here.
>>
>> For my own satisfaction, I would like to know if the "D design principles" 
>> (whatever they are) are concert with some fundamental axioms from which 
>> the rest of the D language is formulated by induction or some other 
>> mathematically/logically satisfying instrument.
>>
>> So may I ask of the creator of D what exactly are the design principles of 
>> the language.  In particular, I would be very interested to hear whether 
>> or not the type system aspects of the language are coherent.
>>
> 
> Another one seems to be "pragmatism over religious adherence". (Like 
> dsimcha's, this one can be contrasted with Java.)
> 
> Also, "make the right thing easier, and the wrong thing harder".

Nice! Also:

"Avoid magic"

"Memory safety is non-negotiable; most everything else is"

"New behaviors should be natural extensions of existing behaviors"


Andrei