Why I chose D over Ada and Eiffel

[Zach the Mystic]

On Sunday, 25 August 2013 at 23:26:19 UTC, Ramon wrote:
> But then, maybe D's beauty in part lies in the fact that it 
> offers a lot regarding safety/reliabilty - and - very nice 
> performance, too ;)

One of the theories as to why there are no bears to be found on 
the African continent is that they are omnivores - i.e. 
generalists - which in a hugely competitive environment such as 
Africa, there is no niche in which they will not be beat out by a 
more specifically adapted animal. My understanding of D is that 
is like a bear, trying to be good at everything. (Maybe that's 
why bearophile likes it so much!)

But the environment for programming is sufficiently competitive 
that a language which is merely good at everything without being 
the best at something could be beaten out of the race simply by 
not having a niche. Therefore I see an emphasis on one thing to 
be a strategic advantage even if one's ultimate goal is to build 
something which is actually good at everything.

It certainly seems to turn a lot of heads when D rivals the 
fastest languages in a performance comparison. Having caught 
their attention, D can introduce its other advantages. The two 
which seem most prominent to me are compile time (often 10% of 
C++'s) and overall expressiveness, but it seems like almost 
nothing has been completely ignored.

I'm more or less a fanboy, so I'm sort of on-board for better or 
worse. Even so, I sometimes feel like this community is building 
some kind of Cyberdyne Systems Terminator in their garage or 
something.