The ensloppification of D is a grave mistake

[Dejan Lekic]

On Friday, 3 July 2026 at 10:55:19 UTC, solidstate1991 wrote:
> result with extra lines. GenAI code also led to an epidemic of 
> "library slop": libraries created just because someone could, 
> not because of someone needed them. Every time I thought of 
> making a new library, I checked what's available rather than 
> diving deep into making them myself. Now the new standard is 
> making everything yourself just because it's more trendy that 
> way.
As someone who is/was waiting for libraries I need for my work 
for years (some even for decades), as I do not have time to 
implement them myself (also some of them I am not competent 
enough to write by myself), I can tell you that there is a 
bigger, and more subtle problem that you probably noticed too, 
but for some reason decided not to mention it. - Many D projects 
are done by single person who in most cases just barely scratched 
the surface and implemented bare minimum of whatever the library 
is supposed to do, examples are numerous. Often the scope is so 
big that developers just leave those projects in their "starting" 
state because they just "burned out". There are also those who 
implemented only what they need and clearly stated "this is it, 
if you want more, make PRs". Sure it is fair. Thing is, those 
projects often stay in the same state for years and are often 
simply abandoned.

LLMs give those people who do not want to wait 20 years for full, 
solid implementation of something to be finally released, 
opportunity to have a fully tested, working code, and if you are 
not convinced you can quickly add as many new tests as you think 
are necessary to get your full confidence in the project, or 
refactor part of the implementation to meet new criteria. This is 
what companies do currently anyway (those who embraced LLMs). 
Most of them still generate revenue last time I checked.

Finally, people should wonder why you can count companies using D 
with fingers on both hands, and that number is shrinking. - 
Because companies do not want to invest time, as "time is money", 
needed to have all the D "building blocks" for their projects 
ready on time, so they simply abandon the idea to use D and go 
back to a language they typically already use, that already has 
everything. As much as it pains me to say this, LLMs are D's last 
hope of becoming relevant again as they can help building 
necessary libraries fast enough for the ever-shrinking community 
(yes, I firmly believe D community is getting smaller 
year-by-year).