The Next Big Language

so so at so.do
Wed Oct 20 05:04:47 PDT 2010


One more thing, it is hard to be comfortable with C++ if you are pushing  
the limits of templates.
There are things you can do and things you simply cant.

Andrei and Walter here you know one of those template experts, so are the  
people in Boost.
I am sure not a single one of them would say that they are comfortable  
using templates. C++ is awesome, for its time :)

*cheers

On Wed, 20 Oct 2010 13:57:16 +0300, Paulo Pinto <pjmlp at progtools.org>  
wrote:

> Sorry but I have to disagree.
>
> Actually after reading TDPL I got the impression that at the semantic  
> level,
> D is not that
> much easier than C++.
>
> It does not make a difference for people that myself that are quite
> comfortable with C++,
> and all its idioms, but I think for the average programmer they are also
> complex.
>
> Which does not rule out people using D, after all you need to have the  
> right
> background
> for doing proper programming.
>
> --
> Paulo
>
> "Jonathan M Davis" <jmdavisProg at gmx.com> wrote in message
> news:mailman.735.1287519617.858.digitalmars-d at puremagic.com...
>> On Tuesday 19 October 2010 12:53:41 Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
>>> On 10/19/10 14:04 CDT, Max Samukha wrote:
>>> > On 10/19/2010 09:06 PM, Walter Bright wrote:
>>> >> bearophile wrote:
>>> >>> The point I was trying to express is that from what I have seen
>>> >>> people
>>> >>> are
>>> >>> able to learn to program Python (this means quite more than just  
>>> the
>>> >>> syntax)
>>> >>> in *much* less time it takes to learn C++/D. And this has precise
>>> >>> causes.
>>> >>
>>> >> Time will tell how long it will take people to become idiomatically
>>> >> proficient in D. But also consider that Andrei's book "Modern C++
>>> >> Design" completely changed the idiomatic way people wrote C++
>>> >> programs.
>>> >> A 1990's state of the art C++ program is very different from a 2010
>>> >> one.
>>> >>
>>> >> We've only just begun figuring out the right way to write D  
>>> programs.
>>> >
>>> > That is funny. Now and then you and Andrei talk so confidently about
>>> > Go,
>>> > C#, Haskell and other D competitors, without having written more  
>>> than a
>>> > couple of lines in those languages. At the same time, you are  
>>> claiming
>>> > that it takes years to even start to learn a programming language.
>>> > Sure,
>>> > it is not problems with D that make it difficult to use. We simply
>>> > don't
>>> > know how to program in D yet, after several years of doing just that.
>>>
>>> I agree this seems to be a contradiction. Haskell is a fairly mature
>>> language building on a staunch pure functional base so many of its
>>> idioms have been established. C# uses rather conservative features so
>>> it's not difficult to learn from the perspective of the languages that
>>> influence it. Go is a small language that has one defining feature (the
>>> implicit signature conformance) that does add a certain flavor but is
>>> understood and has been experimented with in other languages.
>>>
>>> D has added a lot in the direction of generics, and by their nature
>>> generics interact heavily with the rest of the language. I agree it is
>>> taking time to get to best use of such, but it's not wasted time  
>>> because
>>> it marks real progress. For example, code using the relatively new
>>> template constraints is better than code that didn't use them.
>>>
>>> > With all due respect for Andrei, I doubt that it is his book that
>>> > completely changed the way people wrote C++ programs. It was
>>> > influential, right, but it was really not a single factor. And some  
>>> of
>>> > ideas presented in that book are avoided by reasonable programmers.
>>> >
>>> > Please stop so shamelessly advertising each other. Thanks!
>>>
>>> Sorry. Do I advertise Walter that frequently?
>>
>> Both of you do periodically say something about what the other has done  
>> in
>> the
>> past, but I don't get the impression that you're ever explicitly trying  
>> to
>> make
>> the other person look good or "advertise" them. Others may see it
>> differently
>> though.
>>
>> And while in many ways, Modern C++ was a game-changer, I've never worked
>> with
>> anyone who really uses the stuff it talks about. In my experience with  
>> C++
>> code
>> in production code, templates get used when they're necessary but that
>> they're
>> generally avoided. Of course, given how bad some of the code I've seen  
>> is,
>> I
>> definitely don't _want_ a lot of the people who wrote it messing around
>> with
>> heavily-templated code, but regardless, as major as the ideas in Modern
>> C++ are,
>> I think that there are a lot of C++ programmers out who never use them.
>> They're
>> just too complicated for a lot of people. Hopefully D manages to make  
>> such
>> metaprogramming sane enough that your average D programmer won't freak  
>> out
>> about
>> template metaprogramming in the way many C++ programmers do.
>>
>> - Jonathan M Davis
>
>


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