[article] Language Design Deal Breakers

[Nick Sabalausky]

On Sun, 26 May 2013 08:18:11 -0700
"H. S. Teoh" <hsteoh at quickfur.ath.cx> wrote:
> Back then there was a lot of pressure to minimalize the
> language; nowadays we know better...

No we don't. Some of us do, like those of us here in D-land. But from
what I've seen there's still a *lot* of belief in keeping languages
minimal.


> 
> On Sun, May 26, 2013 at 05:22:18AM -0400, Nick Sabalausky wrote:
> > 
> > I dunno. The more I learned about C++'s more advances features the
> > more disillusioned I became with it. I was always happiest (or at
> > least, least unhappy) with the "C with classes" form of C++.
> 
> Have to agree with that. Though when templates first came out, they
> were a huge thing for me. It was only later that it became clear that
> the way C++ handled them was ... well, it left a lot to be
> desired. :) When I got acquianted with D's templates, I was totally
> blown away. It was like a veil was lifted and I saw for the first
> time what a *real* template system ought to look like.
> 

I always tended to avoid doing much of anything with C++ templates
simply because they were still new at the time and the implementations
were considered to still be somewhat buggy.

Around the same time, I was noticing that using any of the newer,
fancier, "better" features of C++ had a tendency to leave you needing
to *also* start using all of the other fancier features, too, many of
which were either awkward (being C++ and all) or known-buggy (the
templates at the time). So that was a big part of what made me start
loosing interest in C++.

> C++11 (finally!) introduced lambdas
> and type inference, and a bunch of other stuff, but ... meh. A lot of
> it feels like "too little, too late".
> 

Yea. I generally feel that, regardless of whether or not those involved
are consciously thinking it, C++ is basically a rusty run-down old
engine on two working cylinders that's...not trying to catch up with D,
but just trying it's best not to fall too far behind, too quickly.