Website message overhaul

[Walter Bright]

On 11/14/2011 7:15 PM, Jeff Nowakowski wrote:
> It's not precise at all. Very few languages are actually single-paradigm. Is C++
> multi-paradigm, even though it bills itself as such? Well compared to Smalltalk
> it is, but its functional support is crap, and generics are a nightmare. Is Java
> multi-paradigm? Why not? It isn't as religious as Smalltalk, has primites and
> arrays, with some generic support, and you can always kluge functional
> programming. What about Common Lisp? Sure, it has lots of parenthesis, but you
> can bend the language and it has support for objects (CLOS).

It's true that with enough effort you can program in any paradigm in any 
language. But that doesn't really make them multi-paradigm languages. To repeat 
an earlier analogy, I'm an expert at using a screwdriver as a hammer, but I 
still would prefer an actual hammer.


> Multi-paradigm is *not* a selling point. Explicit features are. This is one of
> these cases where you are arguing from a dead-end position. A reaction about
> marketing from your community cannot be explained away, because marketing is
> about about perceptions.

I am surprised at the negative reaction, because when I've done presentations 
about D revolving around it being multi-paradigm, the reaction was always positive.