Why is D unpopular?

[Ola Fosheim Grøstad]

On Tuesday, 9 November 2021 at 11:58:37 UTC, Dukc wrote:
> What do "interfacing types" mean?

All builtin types should be present in the bottom layer. The 
layer above should predominantly be built by builtin-types and 
meta-programming + syntactical sugar.

> - Dmd should be rewritten in idiomatic D style, so that it's 
> easier to experiment with.

Not a requirement. Just a more modular architecture of the 
compiler, greater independence of compilation stages.

> - After that, a grand rework of the whole language.

Adjustments.

> - A small simple core for the reworked language, much like Lisp 
> or Forth.

No, nothing like Lisp or Forth. Move as much as possible to 
meta-programming, does not mean Forth or Lisp. It also does not 
mean that a minimalistic syntax. You can have syntactical sugar 
for common constructs.

> - A different fork for the language rework, instead of having 
> all that in the same codebase behind `version` declarations or 
> `-preview` switches or such.
> - No serious priority to stability and backwards compatibility 
> before the language rework is complete.
>
> If I got those even nearly right, You're in essence proposing 
> D3.

That is a faster path than evolving the current compiler 
structure, and also faster than dealing with all the bickering 
about even the smallest adjustment. There is a reason for why 
they work on Golang2.