My Long Term Vision for the D programming language

[Tejas]

On Wednesday, 17 November 2021 at 13:27:16 UTC, maltedbarley97 
wrote:
> On Wednesday, 17 November 2021 at 11:01:41 UTC, Ola Fosheim 
> Grøstad wrote:
>> On Tuesday, 16 November 2021 at 22:46:24 UTC, bachmeier wrote:
>>> I'm not sure about "GC only", but yes, D is only relevant if 
>>> it has a GC. Going after the GC-free segment of the market is 
>>> like releasing OpenBSD-only binaries. It's just too small to 
>>> be worth the effort, especially with a well-funded competitor 
>>> already in that space.
>>
>> This is not true at all. Lots of people want a cleaned up C++, 
>> with C-like syntax. *Without* global GC.
>>
>> C++ will never be productive for application level 
>> programming. I don't think Rust will either.
>>
>> What is primarily holding D back is that the project is not 
>> run by sound *software engineering* practices. If you were a 
>> professional, would you put a tool in your foundation where 
>> the design and development practices are not better than your 
>> own practices? I would think not.
>>
>> One reason that developers trust tools made by Google, Apple 
>> and Mozilla is that they assume that they use proven software 
>> development methods. Small projects have to prove that they 
>> do. If they don't they are off the table.
>>
>> Restructuring the compiler, cleaning up the language and 
>> having *zero* regressions in releases is the first step to 
>> producing a tool that appeal to professional use.
>>
>> Right now, D appeals to hobbyists, and that is ok. It is a 
>> nice hobby. Nothing wrong with that. And the big advantage of 
>> D primarily appealing to hobbyists is that the cost of 
>> breaking changes are small, if you don't do them all the time, 
>> but collect them and do them at once.
>
> Hobbyism is a nice way of putting it, and at this point, I 
> think you're right. Project goals were last relevant about a 
> decade ago.
>
> I think the undesired outcome of D's place in the world comes 
> down to the project management style that ultimately creeps in 
> to the final product.
>
> Basically it is the proof of how this style of pleasing 
> everybody fails on limited manpower and influence. C++ can do 
> it, D can not. Even when the principal author spent all his 
> life in the gravitas of C++, does not mean there is reward for 
> good behaviour. By that, I mean obviously the crowd-pleasing 
> attitude (for the crowd you want, not the one you have). As 
> mentioned somewhere, implementing new features on a whim goes 
> against being community-led - it seems he would prefer people 
> working for him instead of with him. Ironically, it becomes the 
> exact opposite of pleasing everybody.
>
> By the way, I haven't seen Walter engaging in these "future" 
> conversations in a while. Maybe he's getting deja vu too? 
> Forums look exactly the same as 5 years ago, debating the same 
> things. Making them quite a sad place on the internet.

Stuff can get pretty negative down here, as well as other 
platforms(regrettably, I myself recently spat venom from my mouth 
in our Discord channel just a couple days ago...)

He recently came up with another idea that will help D gain 
traction: integrating a C compiler(parser, actually) directly 
into the front-end.

How much skepticism and criticism was thrown upon him(I'm not 
judging whether that was good or bad)?

He's trying, honest to god he's doing everything he thinks that 
can help, but its not working out :(

Plus, as you say, things are getting a little circular 
here(although there is serious action behind `stdv2` now, so 
maybe a little bit of genuine progress is being made), so I don't 
blame him for thinking that its better to keep your head down and 
work rather than engage in fruitless discussion.




Plus Plus, I think he _was_ interacting relatively recently in 
the refcounting thread, plus a discussion in ImportC as well, so 
its not as if he's completely absent from the forums