We are forking D

[bomat]

On Thursday, 4 January 2024 at 03:12:48 UTC, Don Allen wrote:
> I view this development positively. The constant strife I've 
> observed as a latecomer to D, but as someone who has done and 
> managed software development for a very long time, was clearly 
> not healthy or accomplishing anything other than wasting 
> peoples' energy, because it wasn't converging. This divorce 
> will hopefully allow the disagreements to be resolved on 
> technical merits.

Also being a newcomer to the language, I quite agree. While it's 
sad to see a split in a language that is already niche as it is, 
I try to see the positive sides (as Abdulhaq wrote, forking is 
better than quitting), and I hope that everyone can gain new 
insights by having a direct comparison between different 
approaches.

> Having said that, I want to express my great respect for what 
> Walter and the others responsible for D have accomplished.

Seconded! At the same time however, I want to express respect 
towards Adam D Ruppe. I don't know him at all, but I have enjoyed 
his D Cookbook and, although discussions may have become a bit 
too heated, I respect people with so much passion for a project.

> Given its conservative objectives (as opposed to something like 
> Haskell or even Rust -- "here's a new way to think about 
> computer programming"), I think D is very, very good...

Again, agreed! When I see the syntax of a lot of self-proclaimed 
"C-Killers", I can't help but wonder if things really *have* to 
be that ugly...

> ... and as a long-time language enthusiast, I'm familiar with 
> the competition, such as Nim and Zig (which isn't really 
> competition because it is still far from releasable quality, 
> both the software and documentation).

And yet, I feel like Zig is already getting more attention than 
D. Just my impression, I'm not going to speculate why that is.

> That D hasn't taken over the world is beside the point; good 
> things aren't always popular, e.g., Scheme, and sometimes bad 
> things are very popular, e.g., Windows, JavaScript, C/C++.

Now this is the point where I have to totally disagree with you. 
It doesn't suffice for a system to be well designed and great to 
use "in theory", there must also be tooling, documentation, 
thousands if not millions of samples, and an active community.
Otherwise it will not feel safe to embrace it - certainly not for 
companies, but to a lesser extent for every single developer.
If you look at your list of examples again - regardless if you 
deem them "good" or "bad" - this is something that every single 
one of them has, and which their competitors *don't*.
If you google for a problem/question you have with any of the 
mentioned things, you are *very likely* to find a viable solution.

In short, in order for something to be successful, it already has 
to be successful. This is a paradox that has been written about a 
lot and by much smarter people than me, and it is mysterious to 
most why some few projects have achieved to get over this hump 
while millions of others haven't.

This brings me back to the beginning of my post where I lamented 
the split of an already niche language. Again, I hope that the 
motto "unity is strength" does not apply in this case and that 
everyone keeps open minded enough to profit from each other.