A summary of D's design principles

[Justin Johansson]

On 19/09/2010 2:59 AM, Lutger wrote:
> To me some of the most distinguishing aspects of D are:
>
> - scale to complex as well as small programs: unlike C# and Java but perhaps
> like python
>
> - focus on early binding: this quote from David Griers is fitting: "Never put
> off until run time what you can do at compile time." But also related is the
> tendency to choose for a rich set of features, binding at 'language design time'
>
> - support a diversity of programming styles (like C++, python) and attempt to
> integrate them
>
> - support for features that help, and avoid designs that complicate maintenance
> of large programs
>
> - take advantage of existing C knowledge and codebase
>
> - enable the programmer to make his own tradeoff between performance and other
> quality criteria: this is true of many languages, but in D there is a much wider
> space to choose from.

I think the salient point that all miss is that D does not
expand beyond the classical OO paradigm in any meaningful way.

When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

When all you have is classical OO, everything looks like it
can be modeled with inheritance by addition (rather than
inheritance by restriction for example) or an interface
(rather than a trait for example also).

There is no need, or significant consumer demand, to reinvent
another classical OO language in 2010.  To make any inroad,
a new language in these times needs to leverage upon some of
the lesser well known yet powerful idioms of PLs that allow
for extensible type systems.

Cheers
Justin Johansson