Import concerns revisited

[Walter Bright]

Bruno Medeiros wrote:
> Walter Bright wrote:
>> It's not always true, but languages that are less wordy in their 
>> example code tend to be picked up faster. People's first projects in D 
>> aren't going to be large, complex, professional products. They'll want 
>> to just try it out on something simple. That bar should be as low as 
>> reasonable.
> 
> Really, how about Java? It is quite wordy from example programs to even 
> the large projects, yet it has been thoroughly successful.

Java is an exception. I find it wordy, though, and I've often heard that 
complaint about it. And yes, it's been successful. How successful would 
it have been without a billion dollar push behind it? Maybe it's 
successful in spite of the wordiness. No language is perfect, and people 
often settle for flaws because the good stuff outweighs it.

On the other hand, many terse languages have succeeded despite having no 
money behind them - C, Perl, Ruby, etc. Sometimes when I read the 
debates between static and dynamic typing, the real issue seems to be 
that often people just don't want to be bothered with typing in a type.

Cobol has clearly stepped over the line in wordiness, and APL has 
stepped over the line in terseness. I think D hits the sweet spot in 
between.

 > D should be
 > designed for mid and large projects, not small, simple ones.

People aren't going to get to a mid to large project with D if it is not 
going to be very usable for small ones.