Reasons to use D (over alternatives like Rust)

[bachmeier]

On Tuesday, 4 February 2020 at 19:57:53 UTC, RaycatWhoDat wrote:
> I can tell people how I feel writing the language but I can't 
> give them exact reasons as to why they'd pick D over 
> alternatives like Rust. I was hoping I could get some opinions 
> from the people here and maybe you guys can help me solidify 
> some of my own understandings.

Why did I pick D?

Probably the biggest reason was because writing D code didn't 
lock me into the D ecosystem. I can run my D code from any 
language with a C FFI. I could collaborate with someone and they 
don't have to know anything about D to run my code.

Why did I pick it over Rust?

Because it has a GC, I didn't have to read a dissertation on 
memory management to get started. I don't want to care about 
memory management. I also thought the syntax was an atrocity. 
Things may have changed in recent years, because I haven't been 
watching Rust.

Why did I pick it over Go?

I found Go to be extremely restricted, by design, along pretty 
much every dimension. That might work well for a large 
enterprise, but it's not something I wanted. D is about the exact 
opposite in that regard.

Why did I pick it over C++?

Because C++ is C++.

Having written all this, I don't think there are any arguments 
that will get you very far. There are lots of languages that can 
do the job. It's hard to make a case for language A over language 
B in 2020. It's not 2005 where Rails made it obvious that you 
should have been using Ruby or 1998 where Java could replace C++ 
in places no other language could do the job.