D is our last hope

[GrimMaple]

On Tuesday, 19 December 2023 at 12:58:16 UTC, Dukc wrote:
> You are exaggregating all the time. Langauge being dead means 
> that no-one is using it. Think some academic research language 
> that was used to write a proof of concept project by a few 
> people and then everyone moved on. _That's_ what dead means.

You're saying all this as if it's some kind of hidden truth and 
you're exsposing me or something, when it should be clear as day 
that I'm exaggerating. But I'm exaggerating to make a point, not 
to argue about definition of a "dead langauge". But if you really 
want to, the word "dead" has various meanings, including (but not 
limited to)[1]:

* having the appearance of death
* no longer producing or functioning
* lacking power or effect
* no longer having interest, relevance, or significance
* no longer in use
* commercially idle or unproductive
* certain to be doomed
* devoid of former occupants

When someone says "My phone's battery is dead", do you reply to 
them "you are exaggerating, it still has 1% left, it's only dead 
when it's 0%"?

> You can make a reasonable case that D has too little adoption 
> and/or growth, but please call the problem that, and nothing 
> else. Exaggregating the failings of the language serves only to 
> make people annoyed and hence defensive.

You know, I have tried to reasonably argue. I even went through 
the hussle of personally counting up registered/updated libraries 
on DUB, and ever since (IIRC, I did the counting a long time ago) 
2018 the amount of stuff being updated declined with every year. 
I mean, what would it take to confirm that D is dead or in a 
dying state? "Orgs using D" page being 75% filled with ones who 
ditched D is not enough? Dub statistics going down isn't enough?
Mike said something about "new contributors", but where are they?

As of now, the page lists 869 contributors. In Dec 2022 it was 
834 [2]. In Dec 2021 it was 783[3]. So the amount of new 
contributors basically halved in a year. Where is the said growth?
In Dec 2020, the list had 716 entries [4], showing no growth in 
new contributors for the year 2021.
That is not to mention that the list only shows new contributors 
and doesn't account those who have left.

So, I will reiterate: what would it take you to admit that D is 
more dead than alive and that something must be done about it? If 
you will only admit deadness when literally nobody is using the 
lang anymore, isn't it a tad too late for you?


[1] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/dead
[2] 
https://web.archive.org/web/20221207092606/https://dlang.org/foundation/contributors.html
[3] 
https://web.archive.org/web/20211204222010/https://dlang.org/foundation/contributors.html
[4] 
https://web.archive.org/web/20201125184925/https://dlang.org/foundation/contributors.html