D on quora ...

[Walter Bright]

On 10/7/2017 1:16 AM, AB wrote:
> Do you know why I'm not using D right now? Because I'm already invested in C++. 
> Also I can get a prebuilt C++14 compiler running on a Jurassic-dated FreeDOS;

DMC++ will still generate code for DOS, and I test it regularly. The compiler 
itself won't run on DOS, because DOS doesn't have enough memory. But as a cross 
compiler, it works fine.

16 bit C++, however, must be subsetted to work on 16 bits - exception handling 
and RTTI won't work (not enough memory).

You can use a 32 bit DOS extender, though.

I'm curious what C++14 compiler runs under DOS. The only C++ compilers I'm aware 
of that run under DOS are very old, pre-C++98, ones.

> meanwhile you've abandoned Windows XP.

dmd still works on and compiles for XP, it just officially is not supported on 
it. The problem with XP is its dodgy support for DLLs and thread local storage. 
This is an operating system problem. Officially, we want to support the entire 
language, not a subset.

> Where D doesn't tread, C++ persists 
> unchallenged. What will happen when Microsoft drops Windows 7, are you going to 
> drop it too?

D compilers being Open Source means that anyone can support whatever platform 
they need to.


> So what can you do now, other than abandon all hope? You could standardize D 
> ("ISO/IEC DLANG:2020"), officially endorse and support an "official" 
> **standalone** IDE for it (so that it won't be a one-man two-user project), and 
> cross your fingers hoping that C++ will run out of steam before D does.

D doesn't have to destroy C++ in order to be quite successful.