On the richness of C++

[Craig Black]

> Structs would be my vote for the area where C++ is more flexible and 
> expressive than D.  But Walter realizes this and it's on the plate. Some 
> sort of destructor support was added in the last update, and inheritance 
> was promised in the slides at last year's D conference.  So D will catch 
> up in that arena.
>
> Metaprogramming is definitely the area where D is light years ahead of 
> C++.
>
> --bb

Agree on all points.  Overall, D is much more elegant and expressive than 
C++, especially with templates.  With better support for structs, D will 
allow more flexibility for high-performance data structures.  IMO, the next 
steps for closing the performance gap with C++ would be to optimize the GC 
and the compiler back-end.  Once these optimizations are in place, D should 
be on par with C++ performance-wise.  What's more, if the right features are 
implemented, D performance could potentially surpass C++ in the next five 
years or so.

-Craig