If D becomes a failure, what's the key reason, do you think?

[Bruno Medeiros]

David Medlock wrote:
> Walter Bright wrote:
>> Tesuji wrote:
>>
>>> In article <e8l426$26o3$1 at digitaldaemon.com>, Don Clugston says...
>>>
>>>> It's all in the libraries. D is a fantastic language to write 
>>>> libraries for. That's where you get the benefit from all the 
>>>> incremental improvements. If const-by-default enables the creation 
>>>> of much better libraries, then it's worth the pain. If it doesn't, 
>>>> don't do it.
>>>> Ruby had this huge surge in popularity not because of the language, 
>>>> but because of the library Ruby On Rails. Developing good libraries 
>>>> requires a stable language, and we don't have that right now. The 
>>>> protection/module system seems to be completely broken.
>>>
>>>
>>> Agreed, in addition I also believe that a const-by-default C++ like 
>>> reference
>>> type is needed before any container library (like DTL) can be 
>>> effectively
>>> written. Currently D is lacking in this area where C++ is strongest. 
>>> relying
>>> solely on built-in array / hash is hardly the solution.
>>
>>
>> I don't understand why either of these would *prevent* effective 
>> libraries from being built. Neither enables new programming techniques 
>> or paradigms, they are just aids to documentation and debugging.
> 
> I feel the same.  Libraries either
> a) Are passed allocated objects, in which they are allowed to manipulate 
> them.  No need for const there(that I can see).
> 
> b) Allocate and return objects/data.  Definitely no need for const there.
> 
> Java has tons of libraries, as does Ruby, and Perl, and C, and tons of 
> other libraries without const.  No offenses intended, this is bordering 
> on an obsession.
> 
> With garbage collection, I just don't see the HUGE benefits of const....
> -DavidM

I subscribe to all the other posts made in reply to this one. I'll just add:

 > Java has tons of libraries, as does Ruby, and Perl, and C, and tons of
 > other libraries without const.  No offenses intended, this is bordering
 > on an obsession.

C is not that much of a good language for mid and large scale projects. 
Or at least it is not known to have a good library. I don't know about 
Perl and Ruby, but in Java, the String class (one of the types where 
constness is more important) is immutable by nature.


-- 
Bruno Medeiros - CS/E student
http://www.prowiki.org/wiki4d/wiki.cgi?BrunoMedeiros#D