Talk on what a systems programming language needs to replace C

[bachmeier]

On Thursday, 5 September 2019 at 17:56:09 UTC, bpr wrote:

> It would have been hard to see this when D came out; Java was 
> on a roll, C++ seemed to be waning, and Moore's Law was still 
> going strong. DasBetterC is, as its name suggests a better C, 
> much more so than C++ IMO. I believe DasBetterC would have 
> lessened the need for Rust. Ah, counterfactuals...

Well, quite simply, D would have seen little interest in the 
early days if didn't have a GC, based on my recollection. 
Stroustrup was even talking about garbage collected C++. I could 
be wrong, since there was no Hacker News or Reddit to teach me 
about the one true path, but D would not have been the marvelous 
language it is today, and would have had a marketing problem 
without a GC.

It's true that Rust does appeal to the sliver of programmers that 
think memory management is an awesome way to spend Saturday 
night, but let's let Rust have those users and worry about a good 
experience for the rest.

> There's still room in the world for DasBetterC, so I hope the 
> development continues. It's great that many of the annoying 
> restrictions have been lifted.

Exactly. There's no reason to choose between D and betterC 
because we can have both.