Learning D

[Daemon]

Hi there. I am mesmerized by D and I would love to start using it 
to really learn programming. I've tried it a year ago but failed 
miserably and went back to C#. The problem I have is that I've 
been using C# and I feel it left me crippled. I don't understand 
a lot of the 'mechanical stuff', like how the hell am I supposed 
to use something I need to build from source, linking to 
libraries, debugging, etc. C# did a lot of this for me and so 
I've never learned.

So, after failing to use D for the first time, I decided that it 
would probably be best to start learning C++ and then, when I 
have solid understanding of things like these, transition to D. I 
have the advantage of a friend who lent me /C++ Primer, 5th 
Edition/ that also covers C++11.

My question is, do you recommend this approach? I am not only 
talking about learning the syntax - I consider that to be 
relatively easy. But I want to create meaningful programs and 
I've always bombed this in C#. I never really knew how to 
implement things and even though I tried my best to use the SOLID 
approach, I failed. I am hoping that if I learn C++, I can make 
use of some other books that discuss program design that I could 
learn.

Sorry for the longwinded post, but I am kind of desperate at this 
point.. it's really frustrating to suck at representing ideas in 
a programming language.

Thanks for any responses