Future of D

[Abdulhaq]

On Sunday, 29 October 2023 at 12:54:33 UTC, Imperatorn wrote:
> We are merging companies and our new product will be integrated 
> in all our devices.
>

> However, we are becoming unsure if D is really an option for us 
> given the response we got trying to making almost the smallest 
> change imaginable to phobos (changing a single word).
>
> The product manager (who has a programming background) is very 
> concerned.
>

I can't think of any 'serious' programming language where the 
maintainers will modify the core libraries just to accommodate a 
relatively small user.

> Can we count on that if we find an issue with D that it will be 
> taken care of? And if so, how, and by whom? That it will not be 
> silently ignored for years? How can we safeguard against that?
>

It's clearly a business decision that is heavily dependent on 
what you need the language ecosystem to do. 9k lines of 
application code and 1k of drivers? Just use C++ and be done with 
it.

300k LOC with wide-ranging algorithms that need to be coded up in 
2 years and supported for just 3 yrs before a rewrite? x86? Use D.

200k LOC with 20 yrs support? C++.

80k LOC embedded that depends on libraries written by a couple of 
D hobbyists? Ehhh, maybe not.

> Is the recommended course of action to fork dmd, druntime and 
> phobos and have a completely parallel version of D, a bit like 
> Weka? Is that what companies normally do?
>

Sounds like you're not a big business. Concentrate on your core 
competence, which isn't writing compilers.