A Perspective on D from game industry

[H. S. Teoh via Digitalmars-d]

On Wed, Jun 18, 2014 at 07:00:43AM +0000, c0de517e via Digitalmars-d wrote:
> >It is absolutely necessary to move to higher levels of abstraction in
> >order to handle the increasing complexity of modern programs.
> 
> And this is 100% right, but people should be educated about "premature
> abstraction". Have you seen the horrors of "generalization"?

There's no need to call a hammer useless because (some) people insist on
using the wrong end to hit the nail. It's not the language's job to
educate people how to do things right; you should direct your complaints
at CS instructors instead. The language's job is to provide the
necessary tools to get the task done, whatever it may be. Excluding some
tools because some people don't know how to use them properly just
handicaps the language unnecessarily.


> Especially C++ neophytes get so excited by pointless generalization,
> then some grow out of it (studying other languages also helps) but
> some never do.
> 
> We write a lot about powerful techniques and neat applications, but
> often forget to show the perils and tradeoffs.

So your complaints are really directed at how people use the language,
rather than the language itself. I don't think it's the language's job
to dictate to the user what to do -- Java tried to do that with OO, and
the result is so straitjacketed I feel like pulling out my hair every
time I use it. I find D far better in the sense of providing all the
tools to get the job done, and then STANDING BACK and letting me use the
tools as I see fit, instead of dictating a particular way of doing
things.

Now whether people are competent enough to use the language properly --
that's not really the concern of language design, it's a problem of
education. These are really two distinct issues. Using the lack of
education as evidence for poor language design -- I just don't follow
this kind of reasoning.


T

-- 
Life would be easier if I had the source code. -- YHL