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

[Laeeth Isharc via Digitalmars-d]

On Sunday, 21 December 2014 at 11:33:05 UTC, matovitch wrote:
> On Sunday, 21 December 2014 at 11:18:43 UTC, Joakim wrote:
>>
>> Native efficiency combined with expressiveness and ease of 
>> use, as the front page says.  That's too general-purpose to 
>> just go build some specialized app like docker, but in the 
>> long run may lead to much bigger wins.
>
> I think so too, D aims at a broader goal than most of the new 
> languages out there.
> I find the people in here quite grumpy these days. D is already 
> a great usable and enjoyable language. I agree that some 
> features should be removed and other extended for closure. But 
> it's nothing that can't be achived in a few years.

Funnily enough, I had the same thoughts about grumpiness.  And it 
is not just the D forum, but this moment more generally, at least 
in the English-speaking world.  One of the ways I want to start 
using D is to do work on text analysis in order to better 
understand the influence of _affect_ on perception, economic 
fundamentals and market pricing.  I have not been able to find a 
better tool than D for this (only a bit more work to port the 
libraries).  Others are looking at this, but I think they start 
from a mechanistic idea that does not truly describe or lead to 
insights about mass human emotional dynamics.

For a concrete example of what I mean, it is in my view no 
coincidence that 2008 saw strife in the world of D (and, I 
gather, an explosion of bug reports) at the same time as 
gathering turmoil in financial markets.  The unfolding of a 
negative wave in affect, and its influence via the neuroeconomics 
phenomenon of misattribution of mood played a key part.

Back to D itself: comparing oneself with others may be 
destructive when the situation of others is different because one 
may learn a lesson that simply doesn't apply, even if at a 
pre-conscious level.  Andrei made this point some time ago.  And 
it is good that people argue if that means they have high 
standards and care about meeting them (see a recent book - 
something like the upside of your dark side), provided we use 
this energy to make things better, which, to this newcomer to D 
is what seems to be happening.

Social institutions ebb and flow.  And a language is a social 
institution.  The argument that because X has not gone anywhere 
means in the future it will not go anywhere is mistaken (whether 
or not the conclusion holds depends on other factors).  The right 
complemtentary factors as well as the right external conditions 
need to be in place before something reaches a point where it 
takes off publicly.  I don't think these conditions and factors 
were there before for D, and I wouldn't have bothered mentioning 
to people in finance.  But that is different now...

D isn't competing head on with any major language in its dominant 
use case, because that never favours the little guy.  Where any 
newcomer gets traction is at the fringes - see the Innovators 
Dilemma by Christensen.  It builds strength quietly in areas 
neglected by the dominant player, and uses the table scraps to 
create something of intrinsically great future power later in its 
development.  I am no expert, but I am a thoughtful user, and I 
think for example one sees a little complacency in the neglect by 
senior people in Python of the need for raw power given its all 
I/O or done by the C library back end.  Many projects like cython 
and pypy, but from what I have been able to see for my uses they 
are inferior to doing it all in D.

One should look at the notable relative success stories too - do 
more of what is working than necessarily be all things to all 
men.  Sociomantic, adroll, Facebook?  Seems like if D has an edge 
in these areas, its not a domain that is going to be shrinking in 
the next few years...