Origins of the D Programming Language

[anon reviewer]

On Friday, 30 November 2018 at 19:34:58 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu 
wrote:
> Over the past few months, Walter, Mike, and myself have been 
> working on a draft submission for the HOPL 2020 conference 
> (History of Programming Languages).
>
> The submission proceeds in several stages. Currently we've been 
> through one round of preliminary review. Here is the current 
> draft:
>
> http://erdani.com/hopl2020-draft.pdf
>
> We'd appreciate feedback and additional historical details.
>
>
> Thanks,
>
> Andrei (on behalf of Walter and Mike as well)

A comment on section 1.2, C & C++ connection:

When discussing the simplified template syntax used in D, as you 
would be aware, Stroustrup originally considered a simplified 
syntax with template arguments after the function name and using 
parentheses rather than angle brackets for C++.
He discusses his rationale for choosing the final design in 
section 15.7 of "The Design and Evolution of C++", 1994.
https://books.google.com/books?id=hS9mDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT418

IMO, this C++ rationale should be referenced and the D choices 
discussed relative to the C++ decisions of that time (which have 
become less relevant with increasing familiarity with template 
syntax).