C++ to catch up?

Laeeth Isharc via Digitalmars-d digitalmars-d at puremagic.com
Tue Feb 3 19:52:25 PST 2015


> Excellent post. This situation is very obvious to us at 
> Sociomantic, as we're at the forefront of a massive disruption 
> that is happening in the advertising industry. D has far better 
> prospects in disruptive technology, rather than trying to 
> compete with incumbents in the rapidly disappearing traditional 
> desktop market.

Thanks, Don.  I am honoured that you took the time to read 
through all of this, and appreciate the feedback.  Every now and 
then I question whether I am headed in the right direction to use 
D (not because of anything lacking in D, but because it is less 
conventional, and because I have been away from the pulse of 
technology for a very long time).  Your industry is a little 
different, and my needs for the time being are not even soft 
real-time (although that could easily change).  But from 
listening to your talk, I am pretty sure you know what you are 
doing, and wanting high productivity when dealing with 
potentially quite respectably sized data sets is one shared 
aspect - so that is a source of comfort.

Could I ask you one thing, not directly relating to D?  Why did 
you pick Berlin to launch your startup?  (You in the corporate 
sense, I mean).  My fiancee is German, and I have some inklings 
as to why, but I would be curious to know if you have time to jot 
down a few lines.  Feel free to shoot an email if you don't wish 
to post publicly.  laeeth laeeth com.  I heard from a chap who is 
CTO for a German fund of funds that one can hire well at a good 
price there, but I doubt that's the only reason, particularly for 
your kind of business.

> "First published in 1997, Christensen's book suggests that 
> successful companies can put too much emphasis on customers' 
> current needs, and fail to adopt new technology or business 
> models that will meet their customers' unstated or future 
> needs" -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Innovator%27s_Dilemma
>
> I thought: "they put too much emphasis on backwards 
> compatibility" ...

Haha - I know you have been one of the proponents of breaking 
changes.  I think that is a distinct question from the other 
stuff, and guess it is not easy for the language leaders to 
balance the different demands - impossible not to make one group 
unhappy.  Someone cynical might say it is easier for you take 
that position if you are still mostly on D1, and so don't pay the 
same price others would.  I doubt that's a fair comment because 
you have a much larger vested interest in the survival of the 
ecosystem.  In any case, that's not an area where I have 
expertise.

Breaking changes aside, one can't say there isn't a sustained 
dynamism to the development of D.


Laeeth.


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