TIOBE February 2016.... 15 ?!

[Ola Fosheim Grøstad via Digitalmars-d]

On Wednesday, 3 February 2016 at 19:48:48 UTC, Bubbasaur wrote:
> Yes they leave and go to another language with a lot of tools 
> but the new language design sucks or it's slow to developing or 
> have restrictions whatever.

It is possible to position a language as a focused niche 
alternative, people like to bet on the underdog. That's what 
attracted me to D 10 years ago. Walter was this courageous geek 
that singlehandedly challenged the big and bloated C++. I 
realized D was not finished, but had a favourable impression 
because my initial expectations were low.

That meant I had low resistance to downloading D again a few 
years later, and so on. So, even if people are leaving, it is 
important that they leave without resentment, after all if they 
were willing to give D a spin once, they might be willing to spin 
it up a few more times later on. Feel good.


> Couldn't some of those "new" people see a great potential on D 
> and write new tools that is lacking right now?

They could, but are they likely to? The most likely group to do 
system level programming are system level programmers, so 
realistic articles, presentations and talks that make D look 
technically interesting are more likely to win them over.

As the "most voted topics" on StackOverflow shows, D has a 
perceived credibility problem. Being honest and realistic is the 
best way to address that, IMO.

Perpetrating the idea that D is as big as Swift just hurts D's 
credibility.