Has D failed? ( unpopular opinion but I think yes )

[Guillaume Piolat]

On Friday, 12 April 2019 at 07:35:05 UTC, Tofu Kaitlyn wrote:
> I have been using D since around 2012 or 2013, instantly fell 
> in love, use to post on the forms a lot under the name Tofu 
> Ninja. I was convinced D was the future but since then I have 
> become disheartened. The biggest thing that makes me feel like 
> this is that in the 7 years I have been using D I literally 
> have never met another programmer IRL who has even heard of it.

I'm fortunate to know about 10 other D programmers (or people 
that had to work with D) personally. I don't think anyone didn't 
like the language.



> I feel like D has failed.

I think D provides lasting value very easily and you can tell 
this by the increased support in 
https://dlang.org/orgs-using-d.html (Mercedes benz coming lastly, 
and sponsoring DConf).

It has the right attributes to create added value.


> I duno... what do yall think? Is D going to somehow explode in 
> popularity in 5-10 years?

Not so soon because the picture is darkened by increasingly 
nihilistic language that removes time-proven approaches like good 
syntax, OOP and exceptions... See the history of scorbut to know 
how availability of multiple solutions can obscure the picture 
for a long time.

D is typically the product that doesn't succeed in internet 
forums, but is popular in the trenches.

There really are two classes of products, "good-for-status" 
products you can talk about when describing your taste, and 
"good-at-home" products you can actually use intimately. D is 
"good at home".