Future of memory management in D

[H. S. Teoh]

On Wed, Nov 17, 2021 at 01:06:57AM +0000, zjh via Digitalmars-d wrote:
> On Wednesday, 17 November 2021 at 00:55:33 UTC, H. S. Teoh wrote:
> 
> Thank you for reminding me. I don't know that point.
> However, suppose others are like me. As soon as they hear GC, they shake
> their heads and leave. What should we do?

What *can* we do?  Lie to them that there's no GC, and when they find
out they leave *and* get angry that we lied to them?

You cannot argue with GC-phobia, it's an irrational fear. No amount of
argument will change anything.  You cannot reason with the unreasonable;
you lose by definition.


> How to expand D's user base?
> We should provide a way for users to never use `GC`, such as
> `embedded`, which is a good market. This is the territory of `C`.

Years ago, before @nogc was implemented, people were clamoring for it,
saying that if we could only have the compiler enforce no GC use, hordes
of C/C++ programmers would come flocking to us.

Today, we have @nogc implemented and working, and the hordes haven't
come yet.

Now people are clamoring for ref-counting and getting rid of GC use in
Phobos.  My prediction is that 10 years later, we will finally have
ref-counting and Phobos will be @nogc, and the hordes of C/C++
programmers still will not come to us.


T

-- 
Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence. -- Napoleon Bonaparte