Learning D

[Jonathan M Davis]

On Monday 17 January 2011 05:15:04 Justin Johansson wrote:
> On 15/01/11 05:48, Adrian Mercieca wrote:
> > Hi folks,
> > 
> > What's the best way to learn D please?
> > 
> > Thanks.
> 
> Before you are lead misastray, which D would you like to learn?  D1 or D2?
> 
> Rumors have it that there might be a D3 as well.
> 
> D1, D2 and D3 are not necessarily backward compatible. Some people might
> even suggest that D1 and D2 are different languages, albeit from the
> same Algol tree of programming languages fruit.
> 
> I would advise you that if you are to take any responses from this
> newsgroup as gospel, to also ask in which context (D1 or D2) that they
> are responding.  Knowing if you wanting after D1 or D2 will help you
> make a better informed decision as to whether or not invest your time
> and energy in "D" per se.

True enough. However, most everything on this list refers to D2, since it is the 
current version of the language. D1 is in maintenance mode. D2 is intended to 
replace it (though you can obviously continue to use it if you want to). If 
there is a D3, then D2 will be put in maintenance mode, and eventually D3 will 
replace it. It's the same with other languages which have multiple versions. D2 
happens to break more backwards compability than is typical when creating the 
new version of a language, but other languages have done the same (e.g. versions 
2 and 3 of Python). Very few people on this list are likely to tell someone to 
learn D1 (though some may), because D2 is the current version of the language 
and the one that most everyone here is discussing and using (though there are a 
number of folks on this list who still use D1 - particularly for older 
projects).

- Jonathan M Davis