Quora: Why hasn't D started to replace C++?

[Benny]

On Wednesday, 31 January 2018 at 07:56:37 UTC, Andrew Benton 
wrote:
> If I had to pick a second issue, it's that the ecosystem story 
> is hard compared to other languages.  New programmers aren't 
> certain what to choose or how to get their environment up and 
> running.  Compared against Rust, Go, and Java we have horrible 
> ecosystem fragmentation.  E.g. three compilers, two separate 
> languages for dub

* three compilers

And 3 different installation method's depending on the platform.

Windows: DMD installer, LDC manually extract zip and setup path, 
GDC ...

Now not all platforms are better. Go with its default compiler 
and cGo are also two different beasts. But both perform in 
regards to performance close to the point that you can rely on 
the main compiler as production compiler.

The same can not be said about DMD and LDC where the performance 
differences can be huge.

Let me add a few other issues to your list:

* Library

Auto generated libraries where all functions are dumped into 
massive one pagers.

https://dlang.org/phobos/std_datetime_date.html

Is this readable when the first two pages are this:

jan
feb
mar
apr
may
jun
jul
aug
sep
oct
nov
dec
sun
mon
tue
wed
thu
fri
sat

Const "jump to" lists intermixed between the documentation.

No clear function calls:

const pure nothrow @nogc @property @safe ubyte daysInMonth();

Const
Pure
nothrow
@nogc
@property
@safe
ubyte ...

and FINALLY the actual function call your looking for: 
daysInMonth();

Now the question becomes without looking at the example!!! Is 
this part of Date, Datetime, ... You can not tell because the way 
you jump to page anchors and with a bit of scrolling, you lose 
where you are. Everything Date belongs into a Date Subpage with a 
method/function Index page. And that method/function Index page 
links to separated pages for EACH method.

You know the extra advantage: It makes finding information from a 
search engine like Google way more easy and less clutter / clean.

No issue for people who read this manual hundred of times or know 
the function calls from there head. But it just ugly and unclean.

......................................

The real problem is that anybody can find 100's of issues that 
are simply unproductive or make the language look like a mess. 
And they get reported all the time but there is nobody to work on 
them. When the company line is: Do it yourself or pay somebody to 
do it. Guess what the first reaction of a lot of people is.

*miep* *miep* *snooof* ... and you hear nothing from them 
anymore. A few may struggle, get into arguments and then they 
give up. And the rest simply complains about trolls who come to 
complain all the time and do not do the work.

D is highly individualized as a language with actually very 
little corporation between the 100's of project, that get 
abandoned when the only developer runs out of time or moves to a 
differed language.

I put a lot of money in several FOSS projects and it always feel 
like trowing money into a bottomless pit. Very few projects show 
where there money is being spend, let me correct that, not a 
single FOSS project where i put money into has every published 
where the money really gets spend. The closed that i ever got was 
Crystal where Manas.tech gives a yearly report of there time 
spend, money intake, ...

https://crystal-lang.org/2017/12/19/this-is-not-a-new-years-resolution.html

Its the core issue with D.

* Why replace C++ with D when C++ does all the same with just a 
bit more effort but in exchange you get access to way more 
community, development, tools, support.

* Why replace Rust with D when Rust is more actively developed, 
has better tooling support, focuses on drawing in new people, has 
key selling points that its drones keep repeating over and over 
again.

* Why replace any language with D...


We can talk until we turn blue and wast ages discussing the 
issues. But very few outsiders will put in the voluntary effort 
on a language where most doubt its future. That includes me ( and 
i know people will jump on this as being a troll comment ).

There is a reason why i am focusing on learning Rust for my next 
project and not D. Despite Rust its more complex designs, its the 
whole package that is simply better organised. And do not take 
this that i am a rust troll.

While yes, D gets used by some big companies on specific 
projects, the reality is that this seems to stem more from one 
developer in that company using D and not a real interest to use 
it company wide.

D simply has too few people, no real goal, is a mishmash of 
different people with mostly individualized goals, a lacking and 
unclear foundation, lacking in paid developers.

In simple terms, what D accomplished in 20 years time, is being 
overturned C++ taking the same features, Rust developing at a 
very fast rate, Swift same, Go same ... and with a mass of choice 
to people, if one does not stand out.

This really remind me of a Knight Tale: "You have been weighed, 
you have been measured, and you have been found wanting".

I said it before, i tried getting into D for over a year and keep 
running into just stupid issues with DMD regressions, editor 
plugins that do not work, unfinished or unsupported projects, 
just badly designed documentation layouts, ... just everywhere 
lacking. And with the amount of time trying to get things 
working, reporting issues on github, ... sigh ... so much time 
better spend on other languages.

I told before if there is no leadership to focus resources and 
the main developers are more focused on adding more features to 
the compiler that is already overflowing, then how do you expect 
to see things solved?

Let me say this again: I like D but unless you are years into D 
as a developer its just frustrating to deal with the constant 
issues.

And please ... do like always, cut my post into small parts and 
start criticizing and attacking the author that he needs to "put 
more effort into it or pay". Or some other bullshit. And then 
complain how people troll the forum because they complain and not 
do anything to solve it. Tired of reading the same rhetoric as 
are the people who think posts like this are troll posts.