A summary of D's design principles

[Lutger]

Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:

> A coworker asked me where he could find a brief document of D's design
> principles. This was after I'd mentioned the "no function hijacking" stance.
> 
> I think it would be a great idea if the up-and-coming
> www.d-programming-language.org contained such a document.
> 
> Ideas for what it could contain? I know we discussed this once in the
> past, but couldn't find the discussion.
> 
> 
> Andrei

To me some of the most distinguishing aspects of D are:

- scale to complex as well as small programs: unlike C# and Java but perhaps 
like python

- focus on early binding: this quote from David Griers is fitting: "Never put 
off until run time what you can do at compile time." But also related is the 
tendency to choose for a rich set of features, binding at 'language design time'

- support a diversity of programming styles (like C++, python) and attempt to 
integrate them

- support for features that help, and avoid designs that complicate maintenance 
of large programs

- take advantage of existing C knowledge and codebase

- enable the programmer to make his own tradeoff between performance and other 
quality criteria: this is true of many languages, but in D there is a much wider 
space to choose from.