What is the D plan's to become a used language?

[Joakim via Digitalmars-d]

I don't think it's fair to lump D1 into the 15 years, since D2 
went in a different direction and broke compatibility.  In any 
case, ruby was around for a decade before it took off, and it 
didn't have to deal with a version break and all the stuff that 
went with it.

To answer your question, here's my guess as to the plan:

- Make D efficient, that already rules out competition from ruby, 
python, and all the interpreted languages.
- Add a bunch of features that are either C++ done better or 
pulled from the more dynamic languages but done at compile-time, 
ie CTFE and mixins.
- Hope commercial support comes along and cleans up a bunch of 
bugs and clashing features.

Commercial support might consist of companies contributing to the 
D core, a mob of users putting up bounties for bugs they want 
fixed or features they'd like, or a language vendor closing up 
parts of the D core and selling a paid version.

The hope is that some commercial entities like the first two 
aspects of D so much that they think it's worthwhile to invest in 
fixing and polishing it up.  Otherwise, D has no hope of becoming 
a "used" language.