does D already have too many language features ?

Nick Sabalausky (Abscissa) SeeWebsiteToContactMe at semitwist.com
Thu Apr 11 18:45:48 UTC 2019


Put simply: The question itself is flawed.

A language is a workshop.

Not having a helpful tool (feature) is a big problem: it makes 
accomplishing a task more complicated/difficult/time-consuming than 
necessary.

But conversely, having an unhelpful tool (feature) available isn't much 
of a problem: (With apologies to Kondo-san ;) ), sure it may take up a 
little extra space, or leave people scratching their heads when they see 
it and then simply don't use it. But that's all very minor as far as 
problems go.

Just because you have a drill press sitting in the corner collecting 
dust doesn't mean it's hindering your ability to work. Of course, if 
people keep tripping over it, or over some other unhelpful tool (or 
feature), then sure that's a problem, and the ideal thing to do is get 
rid of the misfeature (or to simply redesign it if it IS still useful 
but dangerous, unwieldily or otherwise problematic).

In any case, the idea that there's a roughly ideal number of features 
(tools) for a language (workshop) is just not a very meaningful concept 
- that's just looking at things the wrong way. What matters is the 
features themselves, whether anything helpful is missing (ie, a 
problem), and whether anything else is causing a problem.


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