Is D right for me?

[Don]

Daniel Gibson wrote:
> Gour D. schrieb:
>> On Tue, 05 Oct 2010 12:52:22 +0200
>>>>>>>> "Simen" == "Simen kjaeraas" <simen.kjaras at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Simen> I believe GDC supports ARM.
>>
>> Hmm, baes on http://dgcc.sourceforge.net/ it looks it is not overly
>> active?
> 
> try http://bitbucket.org/goshawk/gdc/wiki/Home :-)
> 
>>
>> Simen> The bus-factor of D is sadly close to 1. If Walter should choose
>> Simen> to leave, we have a problem. On the other hand, I don't think a
>> Simen> mere bus would keep him from continuing the project.
>>
>> Uhh...this is almost like a showstopper or, at least, very strong
>> anti-adoption pattern. :-(
>>
> 
> I don't think it's as serious, because afaik Walter is not the only one 
> developing the dmd compiler (and thus familiar with it) and, more 
> importantly, there are alternative D compilers (gdc and ldc, with at 
> least gdc being actively developed).
> 
> So even if Walter, for whatever reason, stops developing D, there is - 
> IMHO - a good chance that others will continue his efforts and keep D 
> alive.

Look at the changelog for the last three releases. During that time, 
Walter has worked almost exclusively on the backend for the 64-bit 
compiler. If there were no community involvement, there would have been 
almost no progress on the 32-bit compiler. Yet the rate of compiler bug 
fixing has not fallen.

I would estimate the truck factor as between 2.0 and 2.5. Two years ago, 
the truck factor was 1.0, but not any more.