Why is D unpopular?

[Ola Fosheim Grøstad]

On Wednesday, 3 November 2021 at 14:38:39 UTC, Guillaume Piolat 
wrote:
> What I meant is that posting of the spec on Slashdot in 2001 
> wasn't a carefully executed software release you could have 
> for... consumer applications and new languages from big 
> companies.

Yes sure. I also remember that when I followed /. I generally 
paid little attention to the article and was more interested in 
reading the opinions and experiences that the users shared in 
their comments. Kinda like reddit. So, in some sense the /. 
population created their own hype machine fed by the editors… If 
reddit was more structured I guess it could have some of the same 
effect.

> Wirth family of languages. So yes exposure to C++ highlight the 
> value of D more I guess, so you can get the issue of 
> intersecting audiences.

Yes, especially since Walter pointed out on the website (IIRC) 
that the D compiler was built on the same core as a C++ compiler 
and that he had set out on a personal «mission» to create an 
easier language in the C++ family (he probably used different 
words, but that was the impression his «story» left in me). That 
made the goal believable, even though I hit some show-stopping 
experiences the first year I tried to use it. «Ok, let me wait 
and see how it looks when those compiler issues are dealt with.» 
Then D2 came with raised ambitions and things got more 
complicated.