Unclear about the benefits of D over C++ and Java

[Ola Fosheim Grøstad via Digitalmars-d]

On Sunday, 3 January 2016 at 04:25:55 UTC, israel wrote:
> But maybe its just me, maybe im too young to know the olden 
> days of the 80s/90s where C++ was a godsend compared to C. Or 
> was it? I dont know, i wasnt alive...

C++ was hyped up in the press and commercial sector because it 
provided abstraction mechanisms on top of the existing C 
infrastructure. But most academics viewed C++ as an ugly hack 
back then, so it was no God send. Many programmers viewed it as 
bloated and inefficient, and it kinda was because compilers could 
not beat hand optimized C code (or: computers were too slow to 
make good compilers practical).  So C++ was more of an 
application level language than system level language.

That is still true, but today CPUs are fast, bottle necks are 
more in the memory system/multi threading, CPU internals are less 
transparent and programmers have less optimization skills... 
Which paves the way for high level programming languages like 
Swift.


Modern C++ is tolerable and fairly decent, but it will take a 
proficient programmer years to master. The big issue with C++ is 
that you also need to learn what _not_ to do, by trail and 
error...

C++ is not a language that one can reasonable select for a 
one-off project, it's a language for experts only. Unlike Python, 
Ruby, Swift or Go.

Maybe D2 is becoming a language for experts too at this point. A 
stronger focus on consistency and ergonomics would be beneficial.