[OT] compiler optimisations

[via Digitalmars-d]

On Friday, 24 April 2015 at 02:33:19 UTC, ketmar wrote:
> On Thu, 23 Apr 2015 19:05:06 -0700, Walter Bright wrote:
>
>> On 4/23/2015 5:37 AM, "Ola Fosheim =?UTF-8?B?R3LDuHN0YWQi?=
>> <ola.fosheim.grostad+dlang at gmail.com>" wrote:
>>> Yes, it is because of modular artithmetics which is a D 
>>> design flaw.
>> 
>> Out of the innumerable posts you write, I can't recall one 
>> which didn't
>> assert that whatever D does is wrong.
>
> that's 'cause he don't talking about features done right. ;-)

Oh, but I have!! I've pointed out that the vision for D1 was 
right, but D2 ruined it by adding cruft without fixing the 
flaws... ;-)

Walter got A LOT right in his original _vision_ as represented on 
his original website for D1:

- Taking current practice for C++ and building a better syntax 
for the most common patterns.

- Clearly stating that a programming language should encourage 
you to write code that is aesthetically pleasing on the screen 
and make that easy.

- Clearly stating that language semantics should be so simple 
that you didn't need a long specification for it.

- Clearly stating that performance was imperative as a goal for 
the language and that D would not aim to replace higher level 
languages like C#.

I can applaud to this, anyone who has exposed themselves to the 
annoyances of C++ can applaud to this! And D1 was a step in the 
right direction. A good start.

The vision was lost on the way to D2, and most unfortunately the 
market for programming languages is a Winner Takes It All market. 
D2 is only a marginal improvement on C++, and worse in some 
areas. That can't win.

I find it worrying that the evangelical D users are perceiving D 
as a compiled scripting language and claim it is similar to 
Python... D semantics are not at all like Python. That can't win.

I find it worrying that the people who say they want to use D as 
a system programming language are into games, yet the projected 
vision for the D leadership now is to make it a web programming 
language that should ship with vibe.d. That can't win.

I find it worrying that so many people attracted to D system 
level programming are into games, yet game development needs are 
ignored. That can't win.

D is lucky that Rust is annoying, Go is marginal, and Nim is 
unknown, so people are stuck with ugly look C++ code.

There is a need to move towards something beautiful, and that's 
not in Andrei's vision, but in the original D1 vision + the 
improvements proposed by Bearophile, Timon Gehr and others. Or 
swing 100% to Andrei's direction and improve significantly on 
meta programming by adding pattern matching and partial 
evaluation, so that you have something significantly better than 
C++.

…but move...

Remember: It's a winner takes it all game.