Continuation of `Having "blessed" 3rd party libraries may make D more popular` DIP thread

[Mike Shah]

On Thursday, 3 July 2025 at 02:21:46 UTC, WraithGlade wrote:
> As indicated by Mike Parker (a D forum moderator) at the end of 
> the original [Having "blessed" 3rd party libraries may make D 
> more popular and stable for building real 
> software.](https://forum.dlang.org/thread/wmjxsrkpvkwwtbhdznff@forum.dlang.org) thread from the D improvement (DIP) subforum, further discussion of the topic is required to placed here in the general subforum instead.
>
> Thus, since I created the original thread, I figured I should 
> create the new thread here for anyone who still wished to 
> comment on that thread. People might have waited for either me 
> or a moderator to recreate the thread otherwise, hence it 
> seemed polite to go ahead and make it on behalf of anyone still 
> interested in that so as to not leave anyone waiting on it or 
> confused about whether they could or should make their own 
> thread resurrecting the issue.
>
> So, here you are, for anyone who wants that.
>
> --------
>
> **Tangentially, here's also some side commentary of a more 
> personal nature:**
>
> As for myself, I am not sure what the future holds.
>
> I am very tired of drifting from programming language to 
> programming language over the years always trying to find a 
> reasonable balance of factors (both expressive and native-level 
> performance, etc... vs sometimes thinking I'll just disregard 
> that and focus on just expressiveness or just project 
> completion pragmatism) and D has looked for the past few months 
> like that language but I have become much less sure of that in 
> light of some of the things mentioned in the original thread.
>
> Even if the precipitous drop in contributions to D is isolated 
> to the Phobos standard library, there still seem to be reasons 
> to be wary. In particular, it still remains unclear whether the 
> language and library ecosystem is a stable base to build upon 
> for real software, which remains the central concern.
>
> I don't even know if the dependencies of many third party 
> libraries are even in a form that can actually be shipped. It 
> is hard to anticipate that in advance, so "jumping at shadows" 
> or going by "feel" or "smell" (such as extrapolating based on 
> whether a library's process seems easy and polished and well 
> documented or not) seems like the strategy I have had to employ 
> in making such estimates. There are many unknowns and there's 
> no way of knowing in advance what will be genuinely usable and 
> shippable in practice or not, since anything could have a 
> hidden pragmatically unfixable problem lurking in it for all I 
> know.
>
> Credit where credit is due: doubtlessly D has had lots of 
> wonderful work put into it and is very worthy of admiration and 
> wider use. I want/wanted to believe in it and intended to build 
> out my own tools for both a game dev idea and an art software 
> tool idea in it (plus miscellaneous personal scripting and 
> utility use), and perhaps even a simple reusable open source 
> GUI engine or a community book eventually if all went 
> especially well, but I am not sure what to think anymore in 
> that regard.
>
> Honestly, taking an even more personal note:
>
> **Being a "programming language dilettante" is sort of ruining 
> my life.** The cycle of indecision I've been trapped in for 
> many many years has become a destructive pattern that has done 
> more to harm me than almost anything else in my life.
>
> I have squandered practically the entire past decade just 
> running in circles switching between different programming 
> languages and reading countless programming language tutorials 
> and books and messing around in them in aimless ways and 
> basically hardly creating anything real or substantive. That's 
> not the life I wanted for myself, nor is it even a responsible 
> way of living for me at this point given how much time I've 
> lost doing that.
>
> Yet, my personality is apparently so tightly wound that even 
> though I have repeatedly told myself in my own mind and in 
> countless vigorous notes to myself that the final outcome for 
> end users is what really matters I still continue to be trapped 
> in the cycle of indecision and hypervigilance directed at 
> ensuring that my time is not wasted especially given how much 
> time I've already wasted this way.
>
> I feel like I am still waiting for my life as a programmer to 
> begin, but instead have just been spinning in circles ad 
> infinitum while a large part of my lifespan just has slipped 
> away without actually doing any of the things I've intended to 
> do and planned to do for my whole life in regards to software 
> and such. I feel like I'm treading water and making no progress 
> and even slipping backwards regarding some skills and knowledge 
> from disuse.
>
> I don't know what to do honestly.
>
> I wish I could turn back the clock to when working in *any* 
> programming language or system was pure joy and wonder and not 
> just some *amorphous sense of looming liability and risk*, but 
> here I am anyway, wishing for years that I could break that 
> cycle of stagnation.
>
> Do you know what I mean? Anyone else here been through the same 
> struggle as a programmer?
>
> To make matters even worse, this is no mere diversion for me. 
> I'm not a hobbyist. I used to work in the AAA game industry 
> briefly but I resigned from that many years ago thinking I'd 
> easily make my own software and games but instead have been 
> trapped in bizarre self-defeating seemingly perpetual 
> indecision for years doing practically nothing real.
>
> I did other things along the way such as working part-time to 
> make ends meet of course and also wrote a couple books, but I 
> seriously need to actually make income from what I program, yet 
> instead I just can't seem to settle on a foundation that feels 
> right and stable enough. That is my overbearing perfectionism 
> in part, surely, but also other kinds of unease mixed in there.
>
> Perhaps other members of the D programming forum (or even just 
> of the whole programming community, independent of language) 
> have also struggled with similar issues here.
>
> What are your thoughts on how to deal with that as individuals 
> and/or as a community?
>
> Who else has struggled in these regards? Has anyone here 
> overcome such self-defeating behavior successfully before?
>
> What paths seem wise to take for those seeking better outcomes?
>
> I know some of that is personal, but I have a feeling 
> programmers of less known languages like here are fairly likely 
> to find this relatable and so perhaps that is a good additional 
> tangent to explore relative to the old thread, if people feel 
> like it. Just throwing that out there as an option.
>
> Anyway, I hope the best for everyone for our future, myself 
> included.
>
> I'm tired of the churn and feeling of always risking building 
> on quicksand. I want what I make to last. I've got to find an 
> effective path forward somehow, whatever it is. I'm not sure 
> what that's going to be at this point though. Today has 
> definitely been a big letdown for me, but that also isn't 
> outside the norm for my pattern of unease and switching 
> languages and approaches faster than I can get anything 
> meaningful done for years on end...
>
> Why I'm like that despite intending so very strongly to be 
> otherwise and even knowing consciously that I am putting too 
> much emphasis on language and tool ideology and not enough on 
> just getting real outcomes created continues to elude me.
>
> Regardless though, I bid you all a good night. Sleep well and 
> thanks for reading.

I forgot to mention in the other thread that perhaps an 
actionable thing would be to again check this page out or perhaps 
update it in regards to new libraries: 
https://wiki.dlang.org/Libraries_and_Frameworks

I think the greater discussion is to your bottom point however, 
about worrying about investing a lot of time/energy/code to D.

> I want what I make to last.

The D compiler being open source, and having the LDC and GCC 
backends means D is here to stay. Learning D and spending time 
with the language will not go to waste . An exercise metaphor 
might be that of 'cross-training' -- spending time biking will 
help you with running and vice versa. But I think with 
programming it's even more direct a benefit. I have some talk 
about this with D and C++ here as some proof 
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CnKsOak0DHU&t=1s).

Skills learned in D transfer quite well to a range of C, C++, 
Java, and newer and older languages are still catching up with D. 
I was playing around with Mojo most recently, and many of the 
same language ideas that are worth understanding are available in 
D. D does a really nice job of having many features work 
harmoniously -- it's something not all new languages get quite 
right, and the older languages aren't able to achieve for 
backwards compatibility reasons. It's certainly interesting how 
the aesthetics of code influence how motivated you are to write 
code in that language (and aesthetics are of course subjective 
and change over time, so to each their own when it comes to 
picking a favorite language, whether that is D or something else).

I also very much like to think of knowing other languages that 
aren't in the say 'top ten' list of TIOBE (for some metric) as a 
competitive advantage -- not a weakness :) Whenever I'm in a 
position to hire and I see someone has ventured outside of 
standard languages taught in school, that's a big indicator that 
person really cares about exploring/expanding their craft (i.e. 
they enjoy programming, and probably because they enjoy it, they 
will spend more time improving/working on their skills!). It 
always makes for an interesting discussion when asking folks why 
they're learning some new skill, etc.

Some other random note: If it's also helpful, the OpenD, Snazzy D 
Compiler (SDC) are examples of other D 
compilers/projects/extensions to show that the language itself 
has staying power.

Another random note: Try to give yourself some small projects. 
e.g. Build a raytracer in a day (sounds like you have some 
game/graphics experience), build a small game, set a clock for 
1-hour and write a tutorial for some topic, etc.  These small 
little projects add up to big wins and motivation over time :) 
Good luck!