D dropped in favour of C# for PSP emulator

[H. S. Teoh]

On Fri, May 11, 2012 at 09:01:25PM +0200, Chris Cain wrote:
[...]
> I really have to disagree on this. I programmed in C++ for awhile
> and templates were always a huge stumbling block for me. The syntax
> didn't sync up for me and they were extremely difficult to implement
> well, which made any generic programming I attempted feel
> half-hearted (IMO).

Yeah, I remember when I first read about template metaprogramming and
expression templates and stuff, and I was all riled up about finally
being able to write matrix expressions in an intuitive way and still
have peak performance... until I actually sat down to code the thing.
Let's just say I didn't get very far before I got completely lost in
deep jungle that is C++ template syntax.


> When I started looking at D's templates, I was _afraid_ that it
> would be as much of a pain in the ass. After putting it off and
> shying away from it, I decided to dive in and discovered that they
> were significantly easier to work with ... and more importantly, it
> was nearly straightforward to implement them _well_. It's absolutely
> no problem specifying that data type with certain properties should
> use this function and everything else should use this other
> function. In C++, you have to learn complicated, arbitrary idioms
> such as SFINAE to get any serious work done at all ... and it looks
> like all of it was written in another language when you're done,
> making maintenance a nightmare.

Yeah, one of the biggest problems with C++ template syntax is that it
looks like an alien language. I remember going, "wait, you have to type
*that* to achieve what can written as a simple loop in normal C++
code?!"

I couldn't tell you how delighted I was when I saw D's much cleaner and
clearer template syntax. I mean, it looks just like normal, non-template
code! Gee, what a concept!


> It's not surprising that entire C++ books are dedicated to teaching
> the absurd complexities of C++ templates. If anything, my experience
> with C++ templates hindered me.

Or the absurdity of C++ itself.

What started out as C with classes started acquiring this feature and
that feature until the whole thing is just a haphazard heap of
misfitting self-contradictory pieces, which requires an enormous amount
of essentially-arbitrary rules just to clarify something as simple as,
for example, automatic type conversions.


[...]
> There's definitely not enough info on how to get stuff done with
> ranges. I knew about assumeSorted and the fact that std.algorithm.sort
> returns a sorted range, but only because I carefully combed through
> the libraries looking for stuff like that.

Again, helpful tutorials like Ali's book really need to be on the
forefront of D. Newbies *need* to read that stuff before they get dunked
into the deep end of the pool that is the current dlang.org docs.


> That said, the D way is actually very well designed once you
> discover it. Like Andrei said, the code clarifies its intentions.
> 
> Hilariously, this style also makes the code look more magical. You
> want to say something is unique and, thus, can be legitimately made
> immutable? assumeUnique. Oh, you want to have a memoized version of
> funct? memoize!funct. I leave my friends wondering how D knew how to
> do all this stuff just by being "told" to. Magic API, that's how.

+1. Sufficiently advanced programming language syntax is
indistinguishible from magic. ;-)


T

-- 
"Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes." -- E.W. Dijkstra