Fantastic exchange from DConf

[Patrick Schluter via Digitalmars-d]

On Thursday, 18 May 2017 at 00:58:31 UTC, Steven Schveighoffer 
wrote:
> On 5/17/17 8:27 PM, H. S. Teoh via Digitalmars-d wrote:
>> On Wed, May 17, 2017 at 04:16:59PM -0700, Walter Bright via 
>> Digitalmars-d wrote:
>>> On 5/17/2017 1:46 PM, H. S. Teoh via Digitalmars-d wrote:
>>>> [...]
>>>
>>> It may not be the developers that initiate this change. It'll 
>>> be the
>>> managers and the customers who force the issue - as those are 
>>> the
>>> people who'll pay the bill for the problems.
>>
>> That may or may not force a shift to a different language. In 
>> fact, the
>> odds are heavily stacked against a language change. Most 
>> management are
>> concerned (and in many cases, rightly so) about the cost of 
>> rewriting
>> decades-old "proven" software as opposed to merely plugging 
>> the holes in
>> the existing software.  As long as they have enough coders 
>> plugging away
>> at the bugs, they're likely to be inclined to say "good 
>> enough".
>
> What will cause a shift is a continuous business loss.
>
> If business A and B are competing in the same space, and 
> business A has a larger market share, but experiences a 
> customer data breach. Business B consumes many of A's 
> customers, takes over the market, and it turns out that the 
> reason B wasn't affected was that they used a memory-safe 
> language.
>
> The business cases like this will continue to pile up until it 
> will be considered ignorant to use a non-memory safe language. 
> It will be even more obvious when companies like B are much 
> smaller and less funded than companies like A, but can still 
> overtake them because of the advantage.
>
> At least, this is the only way I can see C ever "dying". And of 
> course by dying, I mean that it just won't be selected for 
> large startup projects. It will always live on in low level 
> libraries, and large existing projects (e.g. Linux).
>
> I wonder how much something like D in betterC mode can take 
> over some of these tasks?
>
If you get it to compile for and run the code on an AVR, Cortex 
R0 or other 16 bit µC, then it would have a chance to replace C. 
As it stands, C is the only general "high-level" language that 
can be used for some classes of cpu's.
D requires afaict at least a 32 bit system with virtual memory, 
which is already a steep requirement for embedded stuff.
C will remain relevant in everything below that.