Is D still alive?

[Jonathan M Davis]

On Monday, January 31, 2011 11:31:29 Jesse Phillips wrote:
> Trass3r Wrote:
> > > I've chosen to only work with D1/Tango from start, and I simply don't
> > > recognize the frustration many are feeling. I'm only concerned over
> > > that there ARE quite a few developers that seems to have been turned
> > > off by instability, and the Phobos/Tango-problem.
> > 
> > Well, if nobody acted as a guinea pig, no issues would be uncovered ;)
> > And though I already encountered several blocker bugs myself I got the
> > feeling that the situation has become way better.
> > Of course if, for some reason, you absolutely need x64 or have a hard
> > deadline for your project then D1 is probably the better way to go.
> 
> Andrei put for the question once of, "How many issues would users run
> across if they stuck to those features that are also available in v1.0?"
> 
> I think the answer would be more then sticking with a D1 compiler, but not
> nearly the number people do hit, which is also diminishing rapidly.
> 
> I do not think there is an issue with using D2 in a new project, but if you
> have to ask you probably should go with D1. I say this because someone who
> is aware of the issues present in the language is able to decide if their
> desired project would be hindered by the bug. There are definitely some
> projects, with constraints which would not make D a very good choice.
> 
> For example D would make a great language on an embedded device, but
> currently the first one to take it on will have a massive overhead to make
> it work.

Personally, I find that it's issues such as not being able to link C or C++ code 
compiled by Microsoft's compiler with code compiled by dmd which would stop be 
me from being able to use D in projects at work. The stability of the compiler 
is an issue, but the linker issue totally kills it before the stability issue 
would even come up. Pretty much everything I work on at work has to run on both 
Linux and Windows (and soon Mac OS X), and we use Microsoft's compiler here, so 
D could would _have_ to be able to link with code compiled by Microsoft's 
compiler. The issue of D1 or D2 is completely irrelevant.

Now, if you could use a compiler other than dmd (maybe gdc would work - I don't 
know), then maybe then it would become a possibility, and then you have the 
question of D1 or D2, but if the linking issue isn't solved one way or another, 
then it doesn't matter.

I'm sure that the situation is not as grim at all companies, but it definitely is 
where I work.

- Jonathan M Davis