My Long Term Vision for the D programming language

[Ola Fosheim Grøstad]

On Tuesday, 16 November 2021 at 22:46:24 UTC, bachmeier wrote:
> I'm not sure about "GC only", but yes, D is only relevant if it 
> has a GC. Going after the GC-free segment of the market is like 
> releasing OpenBSD-only binaries. It's just too small to be 
> worth the effort, especially with a well-funded competitor 
> already in that space.

This is not true at all. Lots of people want a cleaned up C++, 
with C-like syntax. *Without* global GC.

C++ will never be productive for application level programming. I 
don't think Rust will either.

What is primarily holding D back is that the project is not run 
by sound *software engineering* practices. If you were a 
professional, would you put a tool in your foundation where the 
design and development practices are not better than your own 
practices? I would think not.

One reason that developers trust tools made by Google, Apple and 
Mozilla is that they assume that they use proven software 
development methods. Small projects have to prove that they do. 
If they don't they are off the table.

Restructuring the compiler, cleaning up the language and having 
*zero* regressions in releases is the first step to producing a 
tool that appeal to professional use.

Right now, D appeals to hobbyists, and that is ok. It is a nice 
hobby. Nothing wrong with that. And the big advantage of D 
primarily appealing to hobbyists is that the cost of breaking 
changes are small, if you don't do them all the time, but collect 
them and do them at once.