Has D failed? ( unpopular opinion but I think yes )

[Nierjerson]

On Friday, 12 April 2019 at 14:30:53 UTC, H. S. Teoh wrote:
> On Fri, Apr 12, 2019 at 07:35:05AM +0000, Tofu Kaitlyn via 
> Digitalmars-d wrote: [...]
>> I honestly feel like D is a failure.
> [...]
>> I duno... what do yall think? Is D going to somehow explode in 
>> popularity in 5-10 years?
> [...]
>
> There lies the problem: you're equating success with 
> popularity.  They can be correlated, to some extent, but they 
> are certainly not the same thing.
>
> Personally, I couldn't care less about popularity. After what 
> I've seen in the industry over the past 2-3 decades, I've 
> become very cynical about popularity.  What I *do* care for is 
> a language with strong technical merit. D has that, to some 
> extent -- I'm not going to pretend D is perfect either, as I do 
> find a lot to be desired in it.  But it's much better than the 
> alternatives I've tried, so for the time being, it's my 
> language of choice.
>
> But obviously, YMMV.
>

And this is the problem. Those hard core users like yourself that 
pretend that popularity doesn't matter. What are you going to do 
in 10-15 years(depending on how old you are) when Walter is 
dead(isn't he like 70 now?) or simply cares even less about D and 
moves on to dying? Popularity is what grows something.  You might 
not care about it, but without it D is definitely dead and it is 
just a matter of time.

So many users here think "I like D and it is good enough for me" 
not realizing that not catering to the masses is putting nails in 
the coffin.

See, most of you guys think that your experiences actually matter 
to the rest of the world, yet you won't even begin to accept 
their experiences. You think if it's this or that then it is.

MOST programmers are not you, you are the exception! You have an 
exceptional language and it will die and exceptional death. You 
think you are getting a great deal... D is great. But you don't 
realize it could be so much better. Imagine having 100k 
programmers using D, how much shit they would add to it. Better 
IDE's, better libraries, better performance, better stability, 
etc.

Yeah, you can ignore popularity if it it's meaningless. It just 
shows your ignorance or your selfishness or both.

Once the popularity of D = 0 D is dead. That is a fact. Do you 
want D dead? or do you like playing risky games? If you think D 
is so great then why would you not want it to be more popular? If 
D is better then C++ in every regard then why would you not want 
everyone using D instead of C++?

See, your perceptions are illogical and detrimental to the very 
thing you claim to like. You haven't really thought it all the 
way through. You've got to the point "It works great for me" and 
have stopped there. You are not the average programmer. Also, you 
alone cannot make D better.

It takes a village and you are scoffing at that idea like it is 
meaningless when it is absolute reality. All you are really doing 
is putting the nails in the coffin by contributing to that 
mentality. D has grown at a snails pace... as many new people 
entering in to the community, many leave. This mean's D is not 
really growing and without growth there is only death.

The die hard fan boys scoff at the idea of doing anything that 
makes D commercially appealing like having a great IDE and 
debugger, or making error messages make sense(such as with 
templates that just spew out nonsense over and over requiring one 
to spend more than a few seconds to figure out what is going on 
UNLESS they have been programming in D for a few years(which 
means most people will give up on D pretty quick). Proper 
libraries that draw people in and work properly so that they do 
not experience problems which then causes them to exit.

D will not survive another decade at the rate it is going. If you 
truly care about it as much as you say then you might want to 
take heed and at least make sure I'm not right. Of course, in a 
decade you will have quit using D because some better language 
will have come out that does everything you want over D(after 
all, you know there are things about D you do not like)... but 
someone else will fill your place and say the same nonsense like 
"D is great, Does everything for me, I don't care about 
popularity!" as if we are talking about a popularity contest then 
what what is really mean, which is the growth of D in to a real 
force in the programming world. You would think Walter, of all 
people, would care about such things but he seems to be like you.

D is dead, at least it is on deaths door, you can stick your head 
in the sand and pretend it isn't, the mere fact these topics come 
up over and over proves it. You don't see C++ having such topics 
in any serious manner. It's the industrial standard. Maybe in 10 
years it will start to happen, but D has had this conversation 
over 5 years ago.

See, it is not that D itself is a bad language, it is that the 
whole atmosphere surrounding it, how it is managed, is the 
problem. Some things are done well but others poorly, eventually 
those things that are neglected will catch up because the 
community seems to care not one bit about them. The cracks are 
getting bigger and bigger, I'm sorry you can't see them.






> T