Why I Like D

[H. S. Teoh]

On Fri, Jan 14, 2022 at 09:18:23AM +0000, Paulo Pinto via Digitalmars-d-announce wrote:
> On Friday, 14 January 2022 at 02:13:48 UTC, H. S. Teoh wrote:
[...]
> > How is using D "losing autonomy"?  Unlike Java, D does not force you
> > to use anything. You can write all-out GC code, you can write @nogc
> > code (slap it on main() and your entire program will be guaranteed
> > to be GC-free -- statically verified by the compiler). You can write
> > functional-style code, and, thanks to metaprogramming, you can even
> > use more obscure paradigms like declarative programming.
[..]
> When languages are compared in grammar and semantics alone, you are
> fully correct.
> 
> Except we have this nasty thing called eco-system, where libraries,
> IDE tooling, OS, team mates, books, contractors, .... are also part of
> the comparisasion.
[...]

That's outside of the domain of the language itself.  I'm not gonna
pretend we don't have ecosystem problems, but that's a social issue, not
a technical one.

Well OK, maybe IDE tooling is a technical issue too... but I write D
just fine in Vim. Unlike Java, using an IDE is not necessary to be
productive in D. You don't have to write aneurysm-inducing amounts of
factory classes and wrapper types just to express the simplest of
abstraction.  I see an IDE for D as something nice to have, not an
absolute essential.


> Naturally C# 10 was only an example among several possible ones, that
> have a flowershing ecosytem and keep getting the features only D could
> brag about when Andrei's book came out 10 years ago.

IMNSHO, D should forget all pretenses of being a stable language, and
continue to evolve as it did 5-10 years ago.  D3 should be a long-term
goal, not a taboo that nobody wants to talk about.  But hey, I'm not the
one making decisions here, and talk is cheap...


T

-- 
Give me some fresh salted fish, please.