We're basically finding ourselves in the same position C++ has found itself in, where the old concepts are no longer suitable for a modern language, but there's no practical way to resolve the situation without redesigning the whole language into a new one. D tried to make a better C++, and it has done a good job of that up to a point, but since it has made use of many of the old paradigms as its base, it can only do so much.

That is what I have been noticing as well, unfortunately. As a long time lurker, I like many of the concepts that D introduces, but the many little quirks here and there add up and probably make adoption by a large community much less likely.

It would be great if we had more programming languages competing to change the systems programming landscape. The popular systems languages we have been stuck with (namely C and C++) are a mess, and the "replacements" I see announced every once in a while never seem to become bigger than side projects. Currently, the only other potential option I see is Rust.

Why not take it all the way? Start with a proper release plan, be willing to break backward compatibility (maybe even by changing the name of the language -- perception matters), take into account all what was learned from the past 10+ years of D's history, potentially try to get corporate backing, and maybe we will have something that is practically viable to push aside C and C++.

Then again, maybe I dream too much...

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Ziad