Future of D

[Bastiaan Veelo]

On Sunday, 13 December 2020 at 21:21:12 UTC, Max Haughton wrote:
> The solution will have to be better than C++. - passing 
> unique_ptr isn't good enough. In effect, this means we need a 
> combination of reference counting and borrowing. I understand 
> that this is a big task but we're a small but efficient 
> community so we should try.

OK, I like this formulation better. The problem I had with your 
previously hyperbolic wording was that I don’t think it does any 
good. It does not make anyone jump into gear and kill the GC to 
please people that aren’t here, and it possibly scares people 
that should not be scared or confirms people’s misbelieves.

The good news is that there is motion. We now have copy 
constructors which is a necessary step for RC, as is proto 
object, iirc. @live is actively being worked on.

> Garbage collection is absolutely a powerful tool but we 
> shouldn't lie to ourselves about where it doesn't fit.

“Fitting” is relative. There may be better options and work is 
being done to please a bigger audience. My point is that most 
complaints about garbage collection I see on these forums are 
hypothetical and theoretical. I don’t think I have seen anyone 
hitting collection related problems in practice that cannot be 
brought within acceptable limits and that would have been better 
off using another language.

— Bastiaan.