Rant after trying Rust a bit

[Andrei Alexandrescu via Digitalmars-d]

On 7/27/15 3:35 PM, Tofu Ninja wrote:
> On Monday, 27 July 2015 at 19:11:53 UTC, deadalnix wrote:
>>
>> That is completely unmaintainable.
>>
>
> I really don't get how the mess of unittests, mock data types, template
> constraints, and type interfaces that are just convention(ranges are
> just a convention, they don't exist anywhere) is supposed to some how be
> more maintainable than a single system that can serve the function of
> all of them and forces them all to be in sync 100% of the time.
> Seriously...

Clearly adding more language features to D would have certain payoff. 
But we should not just go ahead and pull today's hot topic, which really 
does change very often.

As the language's main proponents, we should be more inclined toward 
using the language that we have creatively for solving interesting 
tasks, instead of keeping on wishing that just one more feature would 
make it perfect. The lure of the eternally-open design stage is very 
powerful (I basked in its glow a number of times), but it inevitably 
becomes an adversary to productivity - instead of getting work done, 
there's always contemplating how the language design could be tweaked to 
better accommodate the task at hand.

The withdrawal is unpleasant, I know. But we must acknowledge that the 
design of D is done. The large stones and pillars we have in place are 
there to stay, and D shall not be radically different five years from 
now. We need to acknowledge that a lot of grass seems greener on the 
other side (and some really is), but we need to make do with the 
gardening tools we got.

I'll do my best to limit my participation in emotional debates, and 
suggest other D luminaries to do the same. We should put strong emphasis 
on finalizing the definition and implementation of the language we have 
(those imprecisions and fuzzy corners are really counterproductive), 
forge forward to do great work with D, and show others how it's done.


Thanks,

Andrei