D popularity

[Rob T]

On Monday, 21 January 2013 at 08:09:45 UTC, Jonathan M Davis 
wrote:
> On Monday, January 21, 2013 08:52:23 Rob T wrote:
>> If the goal is to increase the popularity of D, and if people
>> prefer scripted languages over compiled, then a good place to
>> start is to create an interpreter for D, thus allowing it to be
>> used as a scripted language, and also retain the ability to be
>> compiled for optimal performance.
>
> You can already do that. Assuming that dmd is installed in the 
> right place,
> you can make your source file executable, put #!/bin/dmd at the 
> top of it, and
> then run it. It'll be compiled and run. It's not interpreted, 
> strictly
> speaking, but given how fast D compiles and how fast D code 
> runs once it's
> been compiled, it'll be plenty fast.
>
> - Jonathan M Davis

Yes that kind of thing works well in some situations, but there's 
more required than that. For example, there are situations where 
you want to make a change to a component of a large application 
without stopping the entire application. Also there are 
situations where an embedded interpreter is critical to the 
success of the application.

I think that D almost gets it right, it's close and it does many 
things very well, but it still falls short in terms of meeting 
all of the major advantages of a scripted language.

--rt