On Tuesday, 10 October 2023 at 06:39:14 UTC, Dmitry Ponyatov wrote:
> Reading some posts about the D language here and there I found some opinion that D is not popular because it still did not find its kill features set and application domain.
What do you think about promoting D lang as a main development language for embedded, IoT, and real-time multimedia & automation applications?
Is D ready in its current state (including runtime, stdlib and side libraries) to follow the cross-compile way as a main method of its usage? (GDC/LDC)
Many decades the classical C and some limited set of C++ plays in this area, but nowadays embedded (Arduino, Raspberry, etc) raised its usage among hobbits and not so qualified and non-professional programmers and users. Maybe this directon can push the D language in its evolution and popularity, as people now needs some multiplatform optimizing compiler for rich and handy language but not so complex as classical C, or mbed/Arduino-like C++ dialects?
D is about in the same league as C++. D has better C (or stripped object.d) in order to compile directly to object code without the need of any library. When you try to port the library, C++ and D both has the problem with that you need to port a lot of functionality in the STL/Clib first.
You have to keep in mind you need to separate small embedded systems (about 128K and less) IoT, multimedia. IoT and multimedia requires a full "rich OS" with a graphics stack and networking, which means full D and you would probably not use better C or similar.
For Arduinos and such which is commonly call microcontrollers, D can serve a purpose with better C. To be honest, the advantage of D starts to pay off when complexity goes up. If you want to blink a LED, then additional features of D isn't that much worth it and you probably will use the SDK that comes with the microcontroller.