On Wednesday, 3 November 2021 at 14:38:39 UTC, Guillaume Piolat wrote:

with* source available

On Wednesday, 3 November 2021 at 14:02:52 UTC, Ola Fosheim Grøstad wrote:

In contrast, I knew about D for many years before even looking at it, because I didn't want a better C++. I wanted something that wasn't C++. Go and Rust clearly separated themselves from C++, so I used them both before trying D. The only reason I even downloaded DMD was because Go and Rust had a certain kind of suckiness to them that I kept searching.

On Wednesday, 3 November 2021 at 15:42:17 UTC, bachmeier wrote:

Yeah, I get the suckiness thing, but when did you start to use D? I think D presented itself differently up to about 2014?

On Tuesday, 2 November 2021 at 17:27:25 UTC, Dr Machine Code wrote:

i don't care if a language is popular. i want to share a real world example that i believe answers a few questions related to language adaptation.

years ago i was asked to develop an app for both mobile platforms (ios, android), they didn't care which language[s] was being used. swift was obvious choice for ios. for android i first checked clojure. android support was there but not seamless. then i found out a language called kotlin. not only that kotlin supported android, it had tools to convert java code to kotlin. i immediately tried the tools and results were beautiful. this much quality at the alpha/beta stage of a language... it was obvious that this language i just found out about will dominate the android-developement, and soon enough it was the official language.

now, if D had supported android/ios half as good as swift or kotlin, i would not think twice. i find these language wars silly, it is always about tooling/support. i am using c++ for my current project because i have to. if i could use D as painless as C++ (again, not about language quality. tool quality, os-support, seamless ecosystem) i wouldn't think twice. for the project i am working, experiements and live coding is vital. so, my obvious choice would be lisp right? but i can't.

On Wednesday, 3 November 2021 at 06:08:57 UTC, harakim wrote:

This is my new favorite quote.

On Wednesday, 3 November 2021 at 14:38:39 UTC, Guillaume Piolat wrote:

Yes sure. I also remember that when I followed /. I generally paid little attention to the article and was more interested in reading the opinions and experiences that the users shared in their comments. Kinda like reddit. So, in some sense the /. population created their own hype machine fed by the editors… If reddit was more structured I guess it could have some of the same effect.

Yes, especially since Walter pointed out on the website (IIRC) that the D compiler was built on the same core as a C++ compiler and that he had set out on a personal «mission» to create an easier language in the C++ family (he probably used different words, but that was the impression his «story» left in me). That made the goal believable, even though I hit some show-stopping experiences the first year I tried to use it. «Ok, let me wait and see how it looks when those compiler issues are dealt with.» Then D2 came with raised ambitions and things got more complicated.

On Wednesday, 3 November 2021 at 16:14:48 UTC, Ola Fosheim Grøstad wrote:

Pretty sure it was 2013, in the aftermath of DConf. Back then D was all about "C++ done right".

On Wednesday, 3 November 2021 at 16:25:55 UTC, kot wrote:

But do you feel productive in C++? I find that even for simple things, in C++ it will take 10x longer than in Python and a language like D is somewhere in-between. I guess that to some extent this is because I usually don't do things in C++ unless speed is critical, but the main gripe I have with C++ is that changing code is very costly. So that does not encourage you to avoid premature optimization. This is basically an area where a language like D (perhaps also Rust) might do better. So when you say that you do a project that requires experimentation, what made you reject other languages than C++?

I think D is positioning itself wrongly. It tries to be useful to a very narrow circle of highly skilled developers (mostly C++) by betting on an advanced compiler. But, such developers are hampered by GC, there are few of them and they don't promote D.

On the other hand, beginning developers do not need it because D grew up with C++ and beginning developers are repulsed by the very mention of C++.

D should be positioned for intermediate developers. There is a big plus here GC. The bulk of development does not require serious knowledge of the C++ level. The main slogan: The power of C++ and the ease of programming as in Python.

To do this, you need:
1 - try to "freeze" compiler changes that break compatibility with the written code.
2 - ask the developers to update the packages for the modern version of the compiler.
3 - clearly show groups of packages by direction, CLI, GUI, WEB, NET, etc. on the homepage. The developer should take an example from any group and with minimal effort get a demo version.
4 - Try to "stick" to the mainstream, such as Qt. Now Qt fully supports only C++ and Python. If we can position D as the third power in Qt, the rise in popularity of the D language is guaranteed.

On Wednesday, 3 November 2021 at 16:42:01 UTC, MGW wrote:

In another thread Guillaume pointed out that D was suitable for developing cross platform desktop applications. That could be, right now there are no good options for that (unless you consider Java to be a good option). Dart/Flutter is preparing to cover the desktop with C++ interop. So that could be a contender in the future.

You are right, an easy to use application framework is needed if you want to attract intermediate developers. Being limited to web and command line utils isn't all that attractive. Something like Qt is ok, but I don't think Qt is all that attractive. I think taking the engine in Flutter and tailoring it to the language and giving it better 2D graphics capabilities might be the best option. Then you have something current and generic that can be used for both simple games and desktop UI.

But you need maybe 5 developers to do it well. Are they here? I don't know.