Lars Ivar Igesund:
> It must be stated that "cleaner" is in the eye of the beholder - IMO Python does _not_ produce cleaner programs. It is harder to say how the implicitly statically typed stuff of ShedSkin affects mantainability, but I guess one could expect/hope for it to be better than normal Python.<

Oh, sorry, I have forgotten to add something in my post: In the end I don't like ShedSkin much, because it used a huge amount of type inference, this makes it slow, and maybe not scalable to programs larger than few thousand lines. (So I like statically both typed languages and dynamically typed ones, and ones with quick and smart type inferencing, but I don't like the heavy type inferencing of ShedSkin).

Note that ShedSkin programs are quite less mantainable (and less safe) than Python ones.

So I was talking about something more like Boo (that is mostly statically typed).

Bye,
bearophile

"Jarrett Billingsley" <jarrett.billingsley@gmail.com> wrote in message news:mailman.24.1227190464.22690.digitalmars-d@puremagic.com...
> On Thu, Nov 20, 2008 at 1:33 AM, Tony <tonytech08@gmail.com> wrote:
>> (...lots of stuff...)
>
> I'm not actually going to reply to your post.  Not because I feel you've "beaten" me or something, but because, well, you're obviously unconvincable,

At least you admit that you had an agenda. Good for you man.

> and I don't feel like responding to each and every one
> of your seventy-four thousand comments.

Sometimes I feel cordial enough to address peoples' responses thoroughly (read: procrastination). It's fun, I like to think.

> You post a thread asking if
> people think D is the next "PASCAL"

And give the context, for me, that makes me ponder that. Don't miss that, it is the gist of the whole post!

>  (it IS NOT all CAPS, by the way),

OK, Pascal it is. (But I'll bet there was at one time long ago, some attempt be some people to disambiguate the meaning that way).

> never really defining what you mean by that,

pffft! I write paragraphs of context and you can't tell where I was coming from? I guess "context-free" grammars are for you! ;)

> and then promptly
> disagree with most everything I say in my reply.

Admit it, THAT irks you. 1. I am honest. 2. I know what I want. (The side notes to 1 and 2 are that I can be facetious and that I don't know what is impossible).

>   Okay.  I guess if
> that works for you..

I understand: if thinking will make your head explode, don't do that! (hehe).

Tony

"bearophile" <bearophileHUGS@lycos.com> wrote in message news:gg4iuu$2soh$1@digitalmars.com...
> Jarrett Billingsley:
>> Okay.  I guess if that works for you..
>
> D is a fringe language,

Which can be good or bad and says nothing?

> and it's not an easy one (system language and all that),

D is not easy (sayeth you). Sayeth you moreso: "system level languages", must be inherently difficult, complex, etc.

>  so there's never shortage of unusual people in this newsgroup :-)

:P That's adhominem. (Personally, boring people don't intrigue me much). :)

> Java groups are so boooring compared to this one :-)

"What an odd comparison. DEATH and taxes? Hmm."

Tony

"dsimcha" <dsimcha@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:gg4tbk$ne9$1@digitalmars.com...
> == Quote from bearophile (bearophileHUGS@lycos.com)'s article
>> D is a fringe language, and it's not an easy one (system language and all that),
> so there's never shortage of unusual people in this newsgroup :-)
>> Java groups are so boooring compared to this one :-)
>> Bear hugs,
>> bearophile
>
> Do people seriously consider D a "difficult" language?  Given that it has
> garbage
> collection out of the box, builtin arrays, etc. I would have guessed that
> most
> people only consider it to be of moderate difficulty.  Yes, you *can* do
> down-and-dirty programming with pointers, manual memory management, etc.
> in it,
> but you don't *have to* unless the nature of your problem domain would
> require it
> no matter what the language.

So I have heard: that one can drop the GC and program correctly (hehe). But if that's one's preferred style, that kinda means C++ is the tool of choice, huh? (Not to belabor the point though).

Tony

"Dave" <Dave_member@pathlink.com> wrote in message news:gg5dgl$277i$1@digitalmars.com...
> "Jarrett Billingsley" <jarrett.billingsley@gmail.com> wrote in message news:mailman.26.1227226037.22690.digitalmars-d@puremagic.com...
>> On Thu, Nov 20, 2008 at 6:54 PM, dsimcha <dsimcha@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>> == Quote from bearophile (bearophileHUGS@lycos.com)'s article
>>>> D is a fringe language, and it's not an easy one (system language and all that),
>>> so there's never shortage of unusual people in this newsgroup :-)
>>>> Java groups are so boooring compared to this one :-)
>>>> Bear hugs,
>>>> bearophile
>>>
>>> Do people seriously consider D a "difficult" language?  Given that it
>>> has garbage
>>> collection out of the box, builtin arrays, etc. I would have guessed
>>> that most
>>> people only consider it to be of moderate difficulty.  Yes, you *can* do
>>> down-and-dirty programming with pointers, manual memory management, etc.
>>> in it,
>>> but you don't *have to* unless the nature of your problem domain would
>>> require it
>>> no matter what the language.
>>>
>>
>> Or if you're absolutely obsessed with microperformance and attempt to subvert the GC at every possible opportunity.
>>
>> (Consider who you're replying to ;) )
>
> It seems that bearophile basically wants a GP / systems language and tools that are nearly as productive as the likes of Python but can also produce blazingly fast code. A pretty worthy goal, and I think that was the orginal blanket idea behind D anyway. To win mindshare I think D has to be able to do better than more established languages in both areas.
>
> Look at the time and $$$ spent on making Java "fast". Not a trivial subject.
>
> Besides, there has been in previous years a good deal of initial interest from members of two important groups where performance is vital: numeric and game software developers. Over the years and more often than not it seems, various members of both groups drop in to the NG's but end-up showing only a fleeting interest in D. Most of the reason I think is because performance isn't stellar, and even more that D (the language, as specified) doesn't offer any advantage in that regard over the tried and true like Fortran and C/++.

I think you need to "compile" a longer list of categories of development/developers. D is as old as C++ ("virtually"). Time has changed things. WB told me he finds GC compelling. I do not. Call me immature if you want to, but I have specific requirements, and GC doesn't fit into those. (Damn, this GC thing comes up soooo much, not only in D rooms, but certainly, this is where one would expect it to be thrashed out).

>
> I don't think D will succeed without healthy backing from at least one of those groups. After all, if you're developing a "high-performance" language, customers of organizations who sell Fortran compilers, math and physics libraries and HPC hardware are pretty desirable to have on your side..

Is D a solution looking for a problem?

Tony

"BCS" <ao@pathlink.com> wrote in message news:78ccfa2d35a6d8cb19421c2c1a78@news.digitalmars.com...
> Reply to dsimcha,
>
>> == Quote from bearophile (bearophileHUGS@lycos.com)'s article
>>
>>> D is a fringe language, and it's not an easy one (system language and
>>> all that),
>>>
>> so there's never shortage of unusual people in this newsgroup :-)
>>
>>> Java groups are so boooring compared to this one :-)
>>> Bear hugs,
>>> bearophile
>> Do people seriously consider D a "difficult" language?  Given that it has garbage collection out of the box, builtin arrays, etc. I would have guessed that most people only consider it to be of moderate difficulty.  Yes, you *can* do down-and-dirty programming with pointers, manual memory management, etc. in it, but you don't *have to* unless the nature of your problem domain would require it no matter what the language.
>>
>
> Compared to C or C++ it's down right easy,

That begs the question: Is it viable if no one will underwrite it?

Tony

"Robert Fraser" <fraserofthenight@gmail.com> wrote in message news:gg5bfo$20n5$1@digitalmars.com...
> Christopher Wright wrote:
>> On a more serious note, the standard library and available IDEs often have more to do with ease of use of a language than the language itself (assuming the language is reasonable).
>
> I disagree. I still find D _much_ easier than C++ even though C++ has tons of "standard" libraries and at least one passable IDE (SourceInsight; don't get me started on VS).

On IDEs:

I like VS a lot: I was using and developing my own IDE system (makefile based with outlining text editing... never got to syntax highlighting but had the hooks) until the new version of VS came along. I find it VERY productive AFTER setting the environment up to AVOID MS technologies such as .net. I am using VS Pro (trial) and Express. I used to be a Borland fan, but one key IDE issue made me drop them.  That said, I can envision a much better IDE, but it is more than adequate right now for me. I am still doing much architectural rearrangement/rework/design though, so I don't know what other peoples' style is.


On libraries:

I am replacing (lots done already) the C++ std library. It's icky.

Tony.

== Quote from Tony (tonytech08@gmail.com)'s article
> So I have heard: that one can drop the GC and program correctly (hehe). But
> if that's one's preferred style, that kinda means C++ is the tool of choice,
> huh? (Not to belabor the point though).
> Tony

Actually, there is an advantage to this.  GC makes language and library design a lot more flexible, and C++'s opt-in design hinders this.  At the same time, there are some use cases for which garbage collection is slow, such as when a function requires O(N) scratch space to perform a calculation on an object that can reasonably be arbitrarily large.  In these cases, where objects are large and lifecycles are trivial, it can be a worthwhile optimization to delete this scratch space manually, even though you simply let the GC manage the vast majority of your memory.

Tony wrote:
> On libraries:
> I am replacing (lots done already) the C++ std library. It's icky.

You must be a bored masochist.

"Christopher Wright" <dhasenan@gmail.com> wrote in message news:ggbpam$e5c$2@digitalmars.com...
> Tony wrote:
>> On libraries:
>> I am replacing (lots done already) the C++ std library. It's icky.
>
> You must be a bored masochist.

 Contraire: C++'s std library is of masochistic bent. (Surely no one sane or
not abusive would do that!).

Tony