d bare bones

[Ramon]

OK, OK, completely overblown but for the sake of the point: Well,
if you bend and strip down Clarion or php far enough, you might 
use it for
a kernel, too.

Frankly, when hacking the kernel you use C, period. There are
alternatives, Ada for instance but they have a price tag too. And
D, with all the warm feelings we might have for it, is not one of
those alternatives.

I wouldn't say D is intentionally "marketed" so as to make
people think D can be - reasonably - used where it can not, at
least not reasonably. But it's at least, let's say, selling
itself in a way that invites people to wrong conclusions.

This is not even so much a moral issue but a rather practical
one. I understand that dicebot and some others are enjoying
experimenting around the periphery of D-land and that's perfectly
OK; they are quite grown up experienced guys who, so it seems,
make their experiments for hacking and learning purposes.

eles on the other hand seems to have walked into a comittment 
(trying to avoid the term "trap") by believing that systems 
programming, "very C like", "doing right what C++ was meant to 
achieve" and the like can actually deliver
on the promises. Now, Pardon me talking straight, he is in danger
of looking like a fool to his peers - and D is in danger to look
like a bragging fullmouth that just can't deliver.
Because it allowed itself to sound like promising what it can not.

Let's be honest. D, as Iain correctly indicated, is a userland 
language
that has strengths in userland systems programming and offers
high efficieny, even some comfort and other goodies without
keeping the programmer away from the lower levels incl. (more or
less) direct access to C code.

That's a lot. That's great stuff. Kudos. *And that's damn enough
and good enough to afford honesty*, the honesty, for instance, to
say "D is not for kernels or for MCUs (other than fat arms etc),
period. As for stdlib/clib like stuff it's on its way but far
from having arrived".

A propos "on the way". Maybe we should concentrate more efforts
on reliability (as in "private" and "public" being properly
implemented and respected) and on really making phobos into a
properly designed and structured library.

If one convinces 1 person that something is good he might bring 3
others. If one allows 1 person to feel left alone or betrayed or
reasonably disappointed 30 other will be driven away.

There is good reason I respect and praise Iain. He delivered.

After days of frustration and being laughed at or even being 
attacked
I'm humming away productively since I switched to GDC. This, too,
didn't come for free; it like so many things D-related took some
efforts but it definitely was worth it.

A+ -R