All this talk about finalising D2 makes me worried

[Stewart Gordon]

Bill Baxter wrote:
<snip>
> This is delusional.  Major software companies aren't going to start
> implementing D just because the spec is finished.  There's no market
> for it when the original compiler is given away for free.  And if
> someone really thought there was a major market for a D compiler with
> fewer bugs, I don't think the holes in the spec would stop them from
> trying to implement it.  I mean why do you think we have all this
> #ifdef mess in cross -platform C/C++ projects?  Everyone implemented
> the spec slightly differently.  They clearly were not deterred by the
> fact that they didn't understand the spec 100%. 

But one of D's main design goals is to avoid this.

http://www.digitalmars.com/d/1.0/faq.html#q4
http://www.digitalmars.com/d/1.0/faq.html#q7_3 (final sentence)

Every hole, ambiguity or inconsistency in the spec is a potential 
portability issue.  If people want the mess C++ is in, they know where 
to find it.  I think one reason that companies will want to implement D 
is to 'sell' a language that doesn't suffer from this problem.  As such, 
I can imagine some wanting to wait until D lives up to its advertising 
claims, or to hold back when they sooner or later stumble upon one of 
D's spec problems.

> That's because there was a customer demand  for a C++ compiler on their platform, so they
> wrote one.   And they charged their customers $500 or more for it.
> But those days are gone.  You can't make a business out of charging
> $500 for just a compiler anymore.  If anything you've got to go into
> dev tools like fancy IDEs and such.  But even then it's a tough market
> when you're talking about a niche language.

And many of these fancy IDEs will want to include their own compilers, 
which would compete in quality with DMD and each other.  That's also 
among D's design goals.

> But if D were to become wildly popular... that's a different story.
<snip>

And I think many of us are hoping that it will - myself included.

Stewart.