Could D have fit Microsoft's needs?

[Paulo Pinto]

On Sunday, 21 July 2019 at 09:55:24 UTC, Russel Winder wrote:
> On Sat, 2019-07-20 at 17:22 -0700, Walter Bright via 
> Digitalmars-d wrote:
>> 
> […]
>> D has some huge advantages over Rust.
>
> In certain cases, yes. For me D/GtkD/GStreamerD is better than 
> Rust/gtk- rs/gstreamer-rs for writing GTK+ and GStreamer based 
> applications exactly because inheritance, integral to the 
> GObject mode, is part of D whereas is not in Rust and there has 
> to be massive superstructure in gtk-rs and gstreamer-rs to 
> handle this.
>
> In other cases, no. GStreamer folk have chosen Rust as the 
> language for GStreamer so using Rust for applications gets 
> support using D leaves you on your own.
>
>> For example, D has a familiar syntax and jargon. For another, 
>> you'll be able
>> to
>> move to memory safety incrementally with D, you won't have to 
>> rewrite your
>> app
>> from the start. D's metaprogramming abilities far exceed 
>> Rust's. Etc.
>
> I wonder of incremental change of programming language in a 
> codebase is just a nice concept rather than a practiced reality?
>
> One of Kotlin's massive advantages was that Java codebases 
> could be incrementally transformed as needed from Java to 
> Kotlin. Yet this is not how things have happened (as far as I 
> know). Kotlin has taken Android development by storm, but this 
> is nothing to do with incremental change of a code base.
>
> It seems Java codebases are treated as Java, and part Java, 
> part Kotlin is not seen as a way forward.
>
> Although Rust is now big in the GStreamer community, it is only 
> for new or replacement plugins, there appears to be no 
> replacement of C code with Rust code in the core libraries.

Kotlin will never win the hearts of all Java devs, because 
platform languages always win in the end, so it will just limp 
along just like any other JVM alternative language.

The KVM is Android, there Kotlin might reign now, specially since 
Google is only willing to partially update its support up to some 
Java 10 features, and they announced Kotlin First Everywhere at 
IO.

They just need to take care not to be overtaken by either the 
ChromeOS or Fuchsia teams.