Why is D unpopular?

[Ola Fosheim Grøstad]

On Wednesday, 18 May 2022 at 08:56:40 UTC, Paulo Pinto wrote:
> This is what D lacks, the killer use case, ImportC on its own 
> will hardly change the current adoption state.

Adoption does not seem to be the main issue, retention appears to 
be the main issue.

So first: tie up the loose ends, plug the potholes, get a 
coherent memory management story, put some makeup on the syntax, 
project a clear vision, keep the forums active with buzz and 
emotion (so it does not look like a dead language that nobody 
cares about), make sure the help forum is more visible and 
accessible and keep it friendly. Then worry about adoption.

As you can see with Rust, a strong narrow semantic vision can 
create enough gravity to attract enough similar users and then it 
will gain traction in some niche(s). The "killer app" follows 
from that. So, vision first, the "killer use case" follows from 
the vision (after 10 years of people gravitating towards you and 
you being able to retain those users)…

Being an upgrade path from C (and other Cish languages) for 
people looking for something higher level, is a viable vision. 
But then upgrading from C to D must be comparable to upgrading 
from C to C++/Vala/etc… So you need near perfect macro expansion, 
basically a more advanced approach to parsing.

Linux and the Vala use case would be an obvious target, with gdc 
now being in the GNU suite etc.

Is it likely to happen? Probably not. Is it viable. I think so. 
What is required? Focus!