On Fri, 2015-05-22 at 16:00 +0000, Jonathan M Davis via Digitalmars-d wrote:
> On Friday, 22 May 2015 at 14:11:49 UTC, H. S. Teoh wrote:
> > +1, finally, something other than the usual bickering on the forum. ;-)
> 
> LOL. Don't worry. I'm sure that someone will come along and start griping about something soon.
> 

I think much of the problem is pure angst. And bad email list etiquette. In other language mailing lists I am, on a gripe thread lasts about five to 10 emails and then fades away. With this list it generally gets to about 300 or more. Usually covering, over time, seven or 20 different topics completely unrelated to the original posting and retained subject line.

Anyway now D has Rust to content with, as well as Go and C++.

-- 
Russel. ============================================================================= Dr Russel Winder      t: +44 20 7585 2200   voip: sip:russel.winder@ekiga.net 41 Buckmaster Road    m: +44 7770 465 077   xmpp: russel@winder.org.uk London SW11 1EN, UK   w: www.russel.org.uk  skype: russel_winder

On Saturday, 23 May 2015 at 14:20:40 UTC, Russel Winder wrote:
> On Fri, 2015-05-22 at 16:00 +0000, Jonathan M Davis via Digitalmars-d
> wrote:
>> On Friday, 22 May 2015 at 14:11:49 UTC, H. S. Teoh wrote:
>> > +1, finally, something other than the usual bickering on the forum. ;-)
>> 
>> LOL. Don't worry. I'm sure that someone will come along and start griping about something soon.
>> 
>
> I think much of the problem is pure angst. And bad email list etiquette.
> In other language mailing lists I am, on a gripe thread lasts about five
> to 10 emails and then fades away. With this list it generally gets to
> about 300 or more. Usually covering, over time, seven or 20 different
> topics completely unrelated to the original posting and retained subject
> line.

Self-criticism is necessary for improvement.

> Anyway now D has Rust to content with, as well as Go and C++.

Rust's syntax dooms it to the same niche as Haskell.  Go isn't full-featured enough to really go after the king, C++.  There is only one challenger to C++ and it's D.  It's a good sign that C++ has been copying D features recently, it means they're feeling the heat.

On Sunday, 24 May 2015 at 07:21:19 UTC, Joakim wrote:
> It's a good sign that C++ has been copying D features recently, it means they're feeling the heat.

I suspect that it's not so much that they're really feeling any pressure from D so much as that when they see a cool feature that they think could be made to reasonably fit into C++ and improve it, they do it (or at least try to - obviously, not everything actually makes it in). And some of the improvements that D made are natural enough that the C++ guys could have easily come up with them on their own (whereas others almost had to have come from someone who had seen them in D).

The fact that C++ has taken some of D's features is definitely a good sign for D in that it shows their value, and it means that we're getting some good cross-pollination going on between languages, but I very much doubt that all that many serious C++ folks feel that D is much of a threat to them - not at this point anyway. D is a magnet for folks wanting something better than C++, but we haven't grown enough yet to challenge C++ in any serious way as far as market share goes.

- Jonathan M Davis

On Sunday, 24 May 2015 at 08:05:37 UTC, Jonathan M Davis wrote:
> On Sunday, 24 May 2015 at 07:21:19 UTC, Joakim wrote:
>> It's a good sign that C++ has been copying D features recently, it means they're feeling the heat.
>
> I suspect that it's not so much that they're really feeling any pressure from D so much as that when they see a cool feature that they think could be made to reasonably fit into C++ and improve it, they do it (or at least try to - obviously, not everything actually makes it in). And some of the improvements that D made are natural enough that the C++ guys could have easily come up with them on their own (whereas others almost had to have come from someone who had seen them in D).
>
> The fact that C++ has taken some of D's features is definitely a good sign for D in that it shows their value, and it means that we're getting some good cross-pollination going on between languages, but I very much doubt that all that many serious C++ folks feel that D is much of a threat to them - not at this point anyway. D is a magnet for folks wanting something better than C++, but we haven't grown enough yet to challenge C++ in any serious way as far as market share goes.
>
> - Jonathan M Davis

IMO I think the worst thing C++ has done is blatantly ignore features that have been 'killer' in D(see: the reaction to the static_if proposal)

On Sunday, 24 May 2015 at 07:21:19 UTC, Joakim wrote:
> Rust's syntax dooms it to the same niche as Haskell.

They'd have been better off to go with XML. I think the developers got comfortable with the syntax as they went along, and they have no idea just how ugly it is.

On Sunday, 24 May 2015 at 09:43:38 UTC, bachmeier wrote:
> On Sunday, 24 May 2015 at 07:21:19 UTC, Joakim wrote:
>> Rust's syntax dooms it to the same niche as Haskell.
>
> They'd have been better off to go with XML. I think the developers got comfortable with the syntax as they went along, and they have no idea just how ugly it is.

Maybe let Apple (Swift) and Microsoft (F#, F*, Haskell, OCaml) know about it.

On 5/24/15 1:20 AM, weaselcat wrote:
> IMO I think the worst thing C++ has done is blatantly ignore features
> that have been 'killer' in D(see: the reaction to the static_if proposal)

http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg21/docs/papers/2015/n4461.html -- Andrei

On Sunday, 24 May 2015 at 11:59:00 UTC, Paulo Pinto wrote:
> On Sunday, 24 May 2015 at 09:43:38 UTC, bachmeier wrote:
>> On Sunday, 24 May 2015 at 07:21:19 UTC, Joakim wrote:
>>> Rust's syntax dooms it to the same niche as Haskell.
>>
>> They'd have been better off to go with XML. I think the developers got comfortable with the syntax as they went along, and they have no idea just how ugly it is.
>
> Maybe let Apple (Swift) and Microsoft (F#, F*, Haskell, OCaml) know about it.

I'm not sure what you're saying. Apple and Microsoft are responsible for Rust's syntax?

On Sunday, 24 May 2015 at 17:22:26 UTC, bachmeier wrote:
> On Sunday, 24 May 2015 at 11:59:00 UTC, Paulo Pinto wrote:
>> On Sunday, 24 May 2015 at 09:43:38 UTC, bachmeier wrote:
>>> On Sunday, 24 May 2015 at 07:21:19 UTC, Joakim wrote:
>>>> Rust's syntax dooms it to the same niche as Haskell.
>>>
>>> They'd have been better off to go with XML. I think the developers got comfortable with the syntax as they went along, and they have no idea just how ugly it is.
>>
>> Maybe let Apple (Swift) and Microsoft (F#, F*, Haskell, OCaml) know about it.
>
> I'm not sure what you're saying. Apple and Microsoft are responsible for Rust's syntax?

All those languages are based in the ML syntax.

Which means many do find such syntax pleasant and it is being adopted by companies with major impact in the industry.

--
Paulo

On Sunday, 24 May 2015 at 18:40:49 UTC, Paulo Pinto wrote:
> On Sunday, 24 May 2015 at 17:22:26 UTC, bachmeier wrote:
>> On Sunday, 24 May 2015 at 11:59:00 UTC, Paulo Pinto wrote:
>>> On Sunday, 24 May 2015 at 09:43:38 UTC, bachmeier wrote:
>>>> On Sunday, 24 May 2015 at 07:21:19 UTC, Joakim wrote:
>>>>> Rust's syntax dooms it to the same niche as Haskell.
>>>>
>>>> They'd have been better off to go with XML. I think the developers got comfortable with the syntax as they went along, and they have no idea just how ugly it is.
>>>
>>> Maybe let Apple (Swift) and Microsoft (F#, F*, Haskell, OCaml) know about it.
>>
>> I'm not sure what you're saying. Apple and Microsoft are responsible for Rust's syntax?
>
> All those languages are based in the ML syntax.
>
> Which means many do find such syntax pleasant and it is being adopted by companies with major impact in the industry.
>
> --
> Paulo

Rust's issue isn't the ML syntax, it's the explicit lifetime management and extremely verbose error system.
A typical rust block is nested 10 levels deep of matches and full of random 'a 'b 'c annotations everywhere.

I think ML-based syntax has a very clean feeling about it and IMO Rust has definitely not inherited that[1].

Furthermore, I strongly dislike that Rust has made it completely impossible to opt out of bounds checking without annotating your code with unsafe. Bounds checking can absolutely destroy a tight loop's performance(as has already been seen quite a few times in scientific/mathematical Rust benchmarks against other native languages.)

FWIW I'm not picking on Rust, I used it for a rather long time(while in beta, obviously) before I switched to D full time for my academic work and I don't regret my decision. I thought Rust would get more improvements than it did. I feel like they made so many poor decisions as the development went on, cut so many good features etc just to cater to the non-ML crowd that the language ended up being a frankenstein mess.

[1] - https://github.com/andreaferretti/kmeans/blob/935b8966d4fe0d4854d3d69ec0fbfb4dd69a3fd1/rust/src/point/mod.rs#L54 this is fairly typical Rust code, I found it by a random Google search.



>Programs must be written for people to read, and only incidentally for machines to execute.