Is D still alive?

Steven Schveighoffer schveiguy at yahoo.com
Fri Jan 28 07:14:04 PST 2011


On Thu, 27 Jan 2011 04:59:18 -0500, retard <re at tard.com.invalid> wrote:

> Wed, 26 Jan 2011 15:35:19 -0500, Steven Schveighoffer wrote:
>
>> I'd suggest to anyone looking to use D for something really big to try
>> and "prove" out how well D will perform for you by coding up bits of
>> your whole project that you think will be needed.  Hopefully, you can do
>> everything without hitting a mercy bug and then you can write your full
>> project in it.
>
> I think this reveals a lot about D. You still need to prove things. Or
> maybe the community members in general aren't very good developers; they
> can't see the potential of this language. The fact is, no matter what
> language you choose, if it isn't a complete joke, you can finish the
> project. (I'm assuming the community members here won't be writing any
> massive projects which are not possible to do in C++ or PHP or Java.)

I fully see the potential of the language, but I've also experienced that  
a one (or two or three) man compiler team does not fix bugs on *my*  
schedule.  I can't buy "enterprise" support, so any bugs I may hit, I'm  
just going to have to wait for Walter and Co. to get around to them.  Not  
a problem for me, because I'm not developing with D professionally.  But  
if I was going to base a software company on D, I'd be very nervous at  
this prospect.

I find that I can work around many of D's bugs, but there are just some  
that you have to throw your hands up and wait (I don't have time to learn  
how a compiler works, and fix D's compiler).  I think as D matures and  
hopefully gets more enterprise support, these problems will be history.

> I don't see any need to prove how well Haskell works. Even though it's a
> "avoid success at all costs" experimental research language. It just
> works. I mean to the extent that I'm willing to go with these silly test
> projects that try to prove something.

The statements I made are not a property of D, they are a property of the  
lack of backing/maturity.  I'm sure when Haskell was at the same maturity  
stage as D, and if it had no financial backing/support contracts, it would  
be just as much of a gamble.

You seem to think that D is inherently flawed because of D, but it's  
simply too young for some tasks.  It's rapidly getting older, and I think  
in a year or two it will be mature enough for most projects.

-Steve


More information about the Digitalmars-d mailing list