Why I chose D over Ada and Eiffel

[Ramon]

On Thursday, 22 August 2013 at 05:22:17 UTC, deadalnix wrote:
> Just read this this : 
> ftp://ftp.cs.utexas.edu/pub/dburger/papers/ISCA11.pdf and come 
> back informed.

Well, I can give you a link to some paper that says that the 
world will break down and stop next tuesday. Interested?

>>> A vast amount of software is written in javascript, java, C#, 
>>> PHP and many "safe" languages, and still are crippled with 
>>> bugs.
>>
>> Do I get you right considering js, java, C# and PHP being 
>> "safe" languages?
>>
>
> They are dramatically superior to C in term of safety.

I know "bridges" in Siberia that are vastly superior to bridges 
in the Andes. Frankly, I'd prefer to use a european bridge.
And one *can* be in the C/C++ family and have a vastly safer 
system. Look at D.

>>> Some codebase are trully scary. Look at gdb's source code or 
>>> gtk's.
>>
>> Written in C/C++ ...
>>
>
> Well look at phpBB's source code then. Horrible codebase isn't 
> language specific.

So? Is this a "who knows most programs with lousy coding?" 
contest?

All I see there is that programmers, in particular hobby hackers 
will spot - and use - any chance to wildly shoot around unless 
they are mildly (or less mildly) guided by a sound and safe 
system.

And I see (and confess for myself) that even seasoned programmers 
can very much profit from a system that makes it easier to do the 
right thing and harder to do the wrong thing.

>>> You want no bugs ? Go for Haskell. But you'll get no 
>>> convenience or performance. The good thing if that if it does 
>>> compile, you are pretty sure that it does the right thing.
>>
>> Why should I? Isn't that what D promises, too (and probably is 
>> right)?
>>
>
> D promise a pragmatic balance between safety, performance, ease 
> of use, productivity, etc . . .

Well, being a systems programming language D is condemned to keep 
quite some doors open. It seems (as far as I can that now) 
however to have done an excellent job in terms of safety (give or 
take some minor sins like '=' as assignment).

One might put Java against D. But frankly, I do not consider 
Javas approach "Subdue them with pervert bureaucracy, hehe" 
approach as acceptable (and it creates a whole set of problems, 
too).

Frankly, if I had to work on a highly safety critical and 
reliable project (say in the medical area) I would have a hard 
time to spot just 5 languages that I would consider. Ada comes to 
mind (but I don't like it) and Eiffel, which is great but that 
great pragmatically. I'm afraid I'd end up where I ended up in 
the first place: Eiffel vs. D.

I'm probably not counted as a happy D protagonist around here but 
I'd happily state that D is way ahead of 99% of the known 
languages. And that expressly includes safety.

>> On another perspective: Consider this question "Would you be 
>> willing to have all your software (incl. OS) running 10% or 
>> even 20% slower but without bugs, leaks, (unintended) 
>> backdoors and the like?"
>>
>> My guess: Upwards of 80% would happily chime "YES!".
>
> Would you accept it if it means a 3x slowdown and no real time 
> capabilities (no video games for instance) ?

I refuse to answer that because it's way out of reality.