why and how D can solve the next software crisis (was Re: Negative)

[Sean Kelly]

Kevin Bealer wrote:
> 
> Now I realize something..
> 
> Business people, and for that matter, most other people, tend to explain their
> own logic (and history itself) via "narratives".  Everyone used X, but then
> problem Y happened.  Language Z came along and solved this.  Political movement
> X was replaced by movement Y when World War Z occurred.  Cause->Effect.

I think this is true of people in general.  In fact, Bruce Schneier has 
made the same observation with respect to security issues in that most 
security initiatives have attempted to address "movie scenarios" rather 
than actually improve security in a general sense.  There's something 
very compelling about a situation we can envision.

> Compiled languages generally don't seem to take off until there is a compiler
> available for every big platform.  (Am I wrong about this?)

If you have Microsoft's marketing strength I think it's quite possible 
to push a Windows-only solution.  And I suspect people are willing to 
take what they can get with niche platforms.  But in general I suspect 
this is true.  Just look at ObjectiveC.

> And to top it off, a "customer anecdote":
> 
> I work at a government job, writing public services and C++ libraries for
> biotech apps.  I imagine walking into a meeting and saying that there is this
> cool new language, D, "but it only works on 32 bit amd/intel".  This would be
> enough to reject D (all our servers are 64 bit amd/intel already, and we also
> provide Solaris, IRIX, OSX, and Windows binaries).

We're actually heading the opposite direction.  Our software was 
designed for 64-bit Sparc machines and we've recently ported it to 
64-bit AMD.  But 32-bit will never happen--memory requirements are 
simply too high.

> Which is too bad, because we are a high-performance project (we worry about
> cache lines and register pressure all the time), that suffers from C language
> pointer-related mishaps and C++ syntax related burn out.  In many ways, D is
> perfect for the niche we are in.

Same here.  Though we'd have to make limited use of the GC for memory 
size and performance reasons.  Still, I think that would fit in nicely 
with the way the system is designed.


Sean