Why is D unpopular? (page 18)

On Tuesday, 9 November 2021 at 11:58:37 UTC, Dukc wrote:

What do "interfacing types" mean?

All builtin types should be present in the bottom layer. The layer above should predominantly be built by builtin-types and meta-programming + syntactical sugar.

Dmd should be rewritten in idiomatic D style, so that it's easier to experiment with.

Not a requirement. Just a more modular architecture of the compiler, greater independence of compilation stages.

After that, a grand rework of the whole language.

Adjustments.

A small simple core for the reworked language, much like Lisp or Forth.

No, nothing like Lisp or Forth. Move as much as possible to meta-programming, does not mean Forth or Lisp. It also does not mean that a minimalistic syntax. You can have syntactical sugar for common constructs.

A different fork for the language rework, instead of having all that in the same codebase behind version declarations or -preview switches or such.
No serious priority to stability and backwards compatibility before the language rework is complete.

If I got those even nearly right, You're in essence proposing D3.

That is a faster path than evolving the current compiler structure, and also faster than dealing with all the bickering about even the smallest adjustment. There is a reason for why they work on Golang2.

On Tuesday, 2 November 2021 at 17:27:25 UTC, Dr Machine Code wrote: > ...trying to understand why it's unpopular. > ...But I'd like to know you all opinions. Does not being popular, mean it's unpopular?? That's a philosophical question I suppose. ..in any case... Is this comment (below) a 'possible' contributing factor? "Regrets? I should have made it open source from the beginning! Stupid me." - Walter Bright https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27102584

On Wednesday, 10 November 2021 at 00:49:43 UTC, forkit wrote: > On Tuesday, 2 November 2021 at 17:27:25 UTC, Dr Machine Code wrote: >> ...trying to understand why it's unpopular. >> ...But I'd like to know you all opinions. > > Does not being popular, mean it's unpopular?? > > That's a philosophical question I suppose. > > ..in any case... > > Is this comment (below) a 'possible' contributing factor? > > "Regrets? I should have made it open source from the beginning! Stupid me." - Walter Bright > > https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27102584 And to my point and Kapps (?) point, this quote: "But dlang has a long problem of change constantly without backward compatibility and a lot of projects just die because of it, for example the mentioned https://github.com/facebookarchive/warp :"

On Wednesday, 10 November 2021 at 06:35:08 UTC, harakim wrote: > > And to my point and Kapps (?) point, this quote: > "But dlang has a long problem of change constantly without backward compatibility and a lot of projects just die because of it, for example the mentioned https://github.com/facebookarchive/warp :" And Walter's reply to that: > That isn't why Warp was discontinued. His fork: https://github.com/DigitalMars/dmpp

On Wednesday, 10 November 2021 at 07:15:56 UTC, Mike Parker wrote: > On Wednesday, 10 November 2021 at 06:35:08 UTC, harakim wrote: > >> >> And to my point and Kapps (?) point, this quote: >> "But dlang has a long problem of change constantly without backward compatibility and a lot of projects just die because of it, for example the mentioned https://github.com/facebookarchive/warp :" > > And Walter's reply to that: > >> That isn't why Warp was discontinued. > > His fork: > > https://github.com/DigitalMars/dmpp Why it was discontinued? I didn't even know that

On Wednesday, 10 November 2021 at 17:00:19 UTC, Dr Machine Code wrote: >> And Walter's reply to that: >> >>> That isn't why Warp was discontinued. >> >> His fork: >> >> https://github.com/DigitalMars/dmpp > > Why it was discontinued? I didn't even know that Facebook stopped using it. I don’t know anything beyond that.

On 2021-11-09 3:32, arco wrote: > On Tuesday, 9 November 2021 at 07:53:19 UTC, Mike Parker wrote: > >> Not even close to similar. Digital Mars a one-man company and D a one-man project. Rust had and continues to have the resources of Mozilla behind it. > > Rust also started as a one man show (Graydon Hoare). Mozilla initially supported it as a research project, not as a large investment, and its resources are limited anyway compared to the likes of Google. The comparison holds in my opinion, it's what came after that made the difference. and nope

November 14, 2021

Re: Why is D unpopular?

Posted by forkit
in reply to Dr Machine Code

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forkit

Posted in reply to Dr Machine Code

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

It got asked on reddit sub but for those that aren't active too, I'd like you opinions. Please don't get me wrong, I also love D, I've used it everywhere I can and I'd say it's my favourite language (yes I have one...) but I'm as as the reddit's OP, trying to understand why it's unpopular. Rust and Go seeming to be getting more and more users. I think it's due to large ecosystem and the big corporations with deep pockets that pushes them. But I'd like to know you all opinions

One of the creators of Go, said, and I quote "you can actually write quite nice code in C++" https://youtu.be/sln-gJaURzk?t=868

"... if you write in a subset of it..."

Another interesting comment during the few minutes of that video, where they were discussing C++, was one a comment about being able to better reason about the code (in Go) vs C++.

I wonder if that is why C++ is becoming much less popular - despite it being everywhere - cause it's soooo hard to reason about the code in C++ (vs Go, is their argument) - even more so for newcomers.

My 'first point' being, will being able to 'reason about the code', be (or is it already) a reason why D won't ever become 'popular'?

Is there an equivalent 'subset' in D, where 'you can actually write quite nice code'?

Also, I found an interesting part of this video relevent too, where 'Dave' basically has a go at Herb, for trying to 'rephrasing' user complaints about C++ being to complex. Herb's argument is that we're making it simpler (by adding to it). Dave's argument is, not your NOT - https://youtu.be/raB_289NxBk?t=5486

My 'second point' being, has D already become to complex? And is there any way to make it simpler, other than 'adding to it'?

I personally do not like simple. To me, that equates to restricted. But I doubt most are like me, hence why D may never, ever, become 'popular'.

I'd welcome comments that respond to my 'first point' and my 'second point'.

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