Python vs D [ was Re: Bartosz about Chapel ]

J Arrizza cppgent0 at gmail.com
Fri Nov 11 05:50:39 PST 2011


On Fri, Nov 11, 2011 at 1:29 AM, Russel Winder <russel at russel.org.uk> wrote:

> > Paulo, with respect, I disagree. A single killer feature does not have
> > enough breadth to entice a developer community that has large and varied
> > needs from a language.
>
> But in developing the reputation it is critical to have a high profile
> showcase.  Ruby would not have caught on as it did without Rails.

Yes, I agree. But Rails is not a language feature, it is a set of modules.
But the reason it exists at all is because of the push within the language
community to create a repository (they were mimicking CPAN).


>  With them success is possible, without them success is unlikely -- though
> note Perl was hugely popular which caused CPAN to be created.


True it was successful prior to CPAN, but Perl was one of the first
languages available when the web first appeared. In fact it set the stage:
now a language *has* to have an associated repository.

Why is this wrong?


It isn't wrong at all. The "market " for D - i.e. the developers - is
fragmented. To make it popular requires all of the market segments to be
addressed. One of those segments wants everything done for them. That can't
happen effectively for those folks without a central repository.


> On the other hand, there is a huge amount of C and Fortran code out
> there, so therefore C or Fortran is the language to code in.


Yes, and true for C++ too, but it's not coordinated.

I'm willing to bet Jacob's centralized repository is going to have a strong
impact on D's popularity. First it will serve as a focal point for D
contributors and second it will serve as a magnet for new users of D. Each
will build on the other with a snowball effect. Anything and everything put
in there is going to be beneficial to D's popularity. At some point the
breadth of the repository will tip project decisions in favor of using D.
And that will see the snowball turn into an avalanche.

Now to Paulo's point, one of those packages will be the killer app that
causes D to go wildly successful. Will it be a web framework like Rails or
CGI? Perhaps. But it could be something else. Here's my wish:
   - a replacement for X11 on ARM processors running embedded linux
   - a fully functional windowing library using native D that rides on top
of it and that is easy to configure, build and install

That combination would become bigger than Rails simply in terms of the
number of processors it runs on.
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