narratives on switching to D

[Laeeth Isharc via Digitalmars-d]

weaselcat:
"I feel like I could write a book on why I use D, so I'm going to
stop now : )"

Actually, kidding aside, I do believe that it would make sense to 
collect some personal warts-and-all accounts of the experience of 
individuals working in academe, the corporate sector, and 
elsewhere in switching to D.  One can think of it as a Studs 
Terkel type exercise, or something more like a Stanford case 
study.  But either way, a narrative is very powerful in making 
the prospect of switching vivid, because in those little details 
and with the benefit of the natural coherence to which humans are 
used to thinking there is power that may supplement a drier, more 
factual presentation of the benefits of D.  I personally found 
Don's account at a dconf a year or two back rather powerful.  
(Who he was representing helped, but less than one might think).  
I would also mention the very good talk by the German games 
developer whose name I have unfortunately forgotten this second - 
and in a rush.

There is an empty page here if anyone cares to get the ball 
rolling.  I'll add something myself when I have time in a few 
days, but if anyone cares to add their own experience, perhaps 
that might be of considerable benefit over time:

http://wiki.dlang.org/?title=User_narratives_on_switching_to_D&action=edit&redlink=1


bachmeier:
> I'm not weaselcat, but I'm an academic and I also tried out 
> Rust before using D. I came to the conclusion that there was no 
> way I could ever expect any collaborator to use Rust. The 
> syntax was crazy. The requirement to study memory management 
> issues (something completely irrelevant) before even reading 
> the code was a non-starter. It's just a complicated language 
> that is not suited for the average programmer.

I very much appreciate your taking the time to share your 
perspective (and I always enjoy reading your posts).  I looked at 
Rust, but it doesn't address the problems I have, and I find the 
complexity off-putting.

> D is different. As long as I avoid templates, it's easy to read 
> the code I've written, without any experience with the language.

My own curve has been flattish, up until the point I got to 
templates, which are a bit more of a challenge.  Until recently 
the most advanced part of language design I was familiar with was 
ANSI C prototypes, so it's worse for me than for most others, I 
suppose!

weaselcat again:

"I truly believe that D is easier to port C code to than C++ 
because you
can write D in a "cleaned up" C for the most part, and slowly 
turn it into D whereas C++ is essentially a completely different 
style".

Yes - exactly what I have found (I don't know C++, although as I 
learn D it becomes easier to read C++ code).


Thanks for sharing the thoughts.  In a hurry, but I wanted to say 
something quickly now.