Fixing C's Biggest Mistake

[GrimMaple]

On Friday, 23 December 2022 at 20:34:10 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:
> On 12/23/2022 6:24 AM, GrimMaple wrote:
>> What is your goal even, do you care about D at all? I'm going 
>> to great lengths to write software that's pure D, and when the 
>> creator of D gives up and starts "fixing" other languages, 
>> that's a huge off point to many.
>
> Expecting people with large C code bases to translate their C 
> code to D is never, ever going to work. With ImportC, their C 
> code bases can become "user friendly" with D code, making using 
> D viable with a considerably larger user base.
>
> After all, look at the success of C++ with its integration with 
> C.

This just further cements my point of you caring more about C 
programmers than about existing D programmers. You know, this is 
very difficult to deal with. Especially with your attitude of 
"I'm going to add half working stuff and if you're not satisfied 
with it just fix it yourself". You really shouldn't expect the 
community to run behind you and undo the damage that your toying 
around with the compiler does. There isn't any problem with 
manpower in the community at all. It's the fact that you keep 
introducing half-baked solutions so nobody understands what the 
heck to focus on, and what to fix. As a result, D promises a lot 
of potentially great features, that only really work on paper.

I've went through an effort and checked your github page. I 
didn't see you write or create anything beisdes the D compiler. 
Have you ever stepped down from your compiler work and tried to 
actually write anything in D? I'm not talking about basing your D 
code on top of existing C code, I'm talking about quality 
software written 100% in D. Because it feels like you're 
completely missing the point because you don't deal with the 
sufferings of D on a daily basis. I and a lot of the community 
are facing those problems, which is why a lot of people here told 
you to stop fixing C.

Now, about the C++ success part. I don't know how in the world 
you determined that C++ is a success, considering how every other 
C++ programmer (I've been a professional C++ programmer for about 
10 years now) is loathing the language and desperatly wants to 
move out of it, but is held back by the legacy and the third 
party. C++ is so successful that Google had to make Carbon to fix 
it. For God's sake, wasn't the sole purpose of creating D to fix 
C++ in the first place? Aren't you just going against everything 
that D is?

The large portion of C++ is just legacy that has to be supported 
despite the suffering. For me, D is slowly turning to the same 
thing. The sunk cost fallacy.

> Anyone is welcome to fork D.

Are you really that arrogant? I hope you don't mean it, because 
when people do end up forking D, what would you do? I've been 
told about the D vs Tango split in the past. It doesn't seem to 
have taught you anything though.

At this point, I don't think any convincing you is going to work. 
You're just gonna do it because you can do it. And if anyone 
disagrees, they, by your words, can just fork the compiler. That 
line can be read as "You can screw off" by someone who has put 
any effort in improving the D ecosystem.

That being said, consider another D contributor lost.
I might fork D later, but I don't think I could be bothered. I'm 
not a compiler developer, and there doesn't seem to be enough 
peope interested in D as a stable language. So instead I will 
just go back to C++ or C#.