The Case Against Autodecode

[Bill Hicks via Digitalmars-d]

On Friday, 13 May 2016 at 07:26:53 UTC, poliklosio wrote:
>
> Also, you are missing the point by claiming that a technical 
> problem is sure to kill D. Note that very successful languages 
> like C++, python and so on also have undergone heated 
> discussions about various features, and often live design 
> mistakes for many years. The real reason why languages are 
> successful is what they enable, not how many quirks they have.
> Quirks are why they get replaced by others 20 years later. :)
>

It all depends on what it means for a PL to be successful.  From 
a technical point, D is not successful, for the most part.  C/C++ 
at least can use the excuse that they were created during a time 
when we didn't have the experience and the knowledge that we do 
now.  Today if you are designing a programming language, such as 
D, and you've got the last several decades as blue prints, then 
you have no excuse to get things wrong on so many levels.  There 
are many things wrong with D, technical and non-technical.

If by successful you mean the size of the user base, then D 
doesn't have that either.  The number of D users is most 
definitely less than 10k.  The number of people who have tried D 
is no doubt greater than that, but that's the thing with D, it 
has a low retention rate, for obvious reasons.  Not only that, I 
don't think the number of contributors to D and Phobos has 
increased by much in the last five or ten years.  Github has all 
the data for people to verify.

If by successful you mean the business side of the things, then 
with a billion dollar a corporation could easily shove D down the 
throat of millions of developers, and success.  That's how 
projects become successful in America.  That's also how they 
spread democracy around the world, by use of force and by shoving 
an M16 down people's throat.