D vs Zig

[Peter C]

On Tuesday, 9 December 2025 at 03:06:51 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:
>...

D is primarily community and foundation-driven.

It's not that the D programming language is not viable in a 
production setting, it's that it doesn't address the practical 
realities of industry.

In 'the real world', industry prioritizes availability of talent, 
depth of the library ecosystem, and the assurance of corporate 
backing (i.e. risk management), over pure language elegance.

It's technical merit is irrelevant to hiring managers.

Excellent (C/C++ like speed) is not a differentiating factor (Go, 
Rust, C++ exist)

These are some of the reasons why D struggles here compared to 
its competitors.

Zig, while having a different design philosophy than D, faces the 
same fundamental challenges regarding widespread industry 
adoption.

To me, as useful as it is, D is essentially the disorganized 
"kitchen sink" of programming languages.

Of course, that is not what will bring about widespread adoption 
these days.

The successful modern languages define themselves by what they 
exclude and the specific problem they solve best.

New modern programming langauges need to differentiate themselves 
with a clear, specialized focus.

So if D is going to self promote, then it makes sense to do that 
on platforms where you can potentially expand the D community.

But forget about widespread industry adoption. It's just no going 
to happen.