A Case for Oxidation: A potential missed opportunity for D

[Mike Franklin]

Please allow me to bring your attention to an interesting 
presentation about  choosing a modern programming language for 
writing operating systems:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDFSrVhnZKo

It's a good talk and probably worth your time if you're 
interested in bare-metal systems programming.  The presenter 
mentions D briefly in the beginning when he discussed how he made 
his choice of programming language.

He shows the following (probably inaccurate) matrix.

Lang    | Mem Safety | Min Runtime | Strong Type Syst. | 
Performance
C       |            | x           |                   | x
C++     |            | x           |                   | x
C#      | x          |             | x                 |
D       | x          |             | x                 | x
Go      | x          |             | x                 | x
Rust    | x          | x           | x                 | x
Java    | x          |             | x                 | x
Haskell | x          |             | x                 |
Cycle   | x          | x           | x                 | x

It appears the deal-breaker for D was the lack of "minimal 
runtime".  Of course D has -betterC and, with 2.079, a way to use 
some features of D without the runtime, but he also goes on to 
discuss the importance of memory safety in his application of the 
language.

I hope we'll see something competitive with DIP25, DIP1000, and 
the `scope` storage class, namely *memory safety without a 
runtime*.

I'm currently waiting for 2.081 to reach LDC and GDC, and then I 
have a few ideas I'd like to begin working on myself, but I never 
have a shortage of ideas, just a shortage of time and energy.

Enjoy!

Mike