Why I chose D over Ada and Eiffel

[Ramon]

On Friday, 23 August 2013 at 07:15:49 UTC, Gour wrote:
> On Mon, 19 Aug 2013 22:18:04 +0200
> "Ramon" <spam at thanks.no> wrote:
>
>> Sorry, this is a long and big post. But then, so too is my way 
>> that led me here; long, big, troublesome. And I thought that 
>> my (probably not everyday) set of needs and experiences might 
>> be interesting or useful for some others, too.
>
> Thank you very much for this post.
>
> I was considering to use D for quite some time for 
> multi-platform gui
> project, but was not satisfied with the state of its GUI 
> bindings (only
> gtkd although someone was working on wx bindings, but, afaik, 
> nothing
> happened) as well as non-stability of the language itself.
>
> That led me to research and try some other languages, starting 
> with
> OCaml, then explored .NET/Mono platform and languages like F# 
> (even
> Cobra).
>
> On the other end of the spectrum I've tried some obscure ones 
> like
> Nimrod and finally considered Ada as the most robust/safe 
> option with
> decent options for GUI (GTK & Qt).
>
> Your post and another thread 'DQuick a GUI Library (prototype)' 
> makes me
> optimistic that it would be possible to use D as the 'general
> programming language' sutiable for writing GUI apps as well.

Now, careful, Gour

What I wrote was written with close to zero D experience and
largely based on spec, gut feeling (W. Bright implements
languages since 2+ decades and says straightout that he
approached from a pragmatic view; which in my book counts as a
bik +) and some logical verification.
And it was said from someone who wants at least a large part of
Eiffels goodness in a more C/C++ way and look and feel and
practical useability.

So, this might be pretty far away from what you consider
reasonable, important, etc.

Yes, I think that D lends itself very well to GUI programming
and, more importantly (to me) it's one of the *very* few
languages in which a useful, professional and soundly designed
GUI lib could be implemented with adequate and reasonable efforts.

A warning though (and one I tried to get written in red permanent
marker like letters in my own head) when studying D somewhat more
(along the D book): Don't underestimate D! One might be led to
look at it as some kind of "easier C++ and better done"; it is
not. Or, more correctly, It is way more than that and offers a
lot of freedom paradigmwise.

If GUI is very important to you it might also be useful to look
at a small GUI (like lus'a IUP) and tinker along the lines of how
this would, could, and should be done in D and at how it was
actually done e.g. with the gtk binding.

I hope you'll enjoy D as much as I'm beginning to do ;)