The Next Big Language

Fawzi Mohamed fawzi at gmx.ch
Mon Oct 18 09:25:52 PDT 2010


On 18-ott-10, at 18:14, Denis Koroskin wrote:

> On Mon, 18 Oct 2010 19:07:38 +0400, Don <nospam at nospam.com> wrote:
>
>> Jeff Nowakowski wrote:
>>> On 10/18/2010 04:59 AM, Jonathan M Davis wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Java was big long before it was open-sourced, and C# is big in  
>>>> spite of the fact
>>>> that its main compiler isn't open source and the one that is  
>>>> (Mono) is so far
>>>> behind the main one that many people totally discount it.
>>> Java and C# were pushed by big companies. Pretty much any other  
>>> popular language these days is open source.
>>>
>>>> I really don't understand the complaints about the lack of an  
>>>> open source
>>>> compiler for D, but then again, I've always been pro-open source  
>>>> and anti-free
>>>> software (I think that the FSF is nuts, personally), so that may  
>>>> be why.
>>> I really don't understand why you say you don't understand. You  
>>> list the reasons why open source is good. Not everybody has the  
>>> luxury of plopping down a $1000 for a compiler. People don't want  
>>> vendor lock-in. Open source is a popular movement, and you say  
>>> you're pro-open source, and you don't understand why D gets  
>>> knocked for not being so?
>>
>> The problem is that D is getting attacked _as if it were closed  
>> source_, which is completely untrue! The source code for ALL D  
>> compilers is freely available at no charge. closed source != !open.
>>
>> There are many, very strong disadvantages of closed source vs Open  
>> Source, but most don't apply to D.
>>
>> I see only two disadvantages with the DMD backend vs Open Source:
>> (1) we carry the risk that something happens to Walter;
>> (2) DMD cannot be included in Linux distributions.
>>
>> But since the front-end is GPLed, these apply only to the backend.
>>
>> It really seems to be a philosophical objection rather than a  
>> practical one. Or else based on a misunderstanding.
>>
>>
>
> Those who complain about dmd not being open-sourced are those who  
> didn't try programming in D. Those who tried complain about dmd bugs.
>
> We've just tried programming with a friend in pair in D, and after  
> spending about an hour trying to figure out the program misbehavior  
> we understood it was a dmd codegen bug (I'll submit a report  
> shortly). He was very angry and said "After so many years being in  
> development this is still a b.s. I will never touch this language  
> again". I had nothing to say other than I'll submit a bug-report and  
> it will hopefully get fixed.

D2 I imagine :(, with D1 I had my share of ugly bugs, but normally  
things work.

Fawzi



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