Why is D unpopular?

[jfondren]

On Monday, 8 November 2021 at 15:16:07 UTC, H. S. Teoh wrote:
> I'm honestly surprised anyone would want it any other way! :-D  
> (Being forced to do things one particular way is what drove me 
> *away* from languages like Java.)

I doubt that people do want it any other way; strictness is seen 
rather as an easy to understand catalyst for what they actually 
want:

- for the language to evolve in a predictable direction (and 
definitely not to add features they don't want, or waste time on 
features they don't care about)
- for the language's future to be more certain
- for the language to get more popular
- for robust follow-through on features that are added
- for there to be an easy argument to get language devs to move 
quickly to fix a problem (this go bug makes compilation super 
slow; this rust bug breaks memory safety; this d bug breaks ???).

There's a lot of arguing for means instead of ends like this when 
language popularity comes up.