On Wednesday, 2 October 2019 at 09:57:50 UTC, Chris wrote:
> On Tuesday, 1 October 2019 at 10:05:31 UTC, Ola Fosheim Grøstad wrote:
>> On Tuesday, 1 October 2019 at 08:47:19 UTC, Chris wrote:
>>> 1. Walter admits that D only caters for a few users with very specific use cases (niches).
>>
>> Which niches are these?
>>
>> My impression is that D primarily caters for users that want the feature-set of C++, but find C++ to be too inconvenient or complicated.
>
> See what I've found, a very wise man:
>
> "[managed languages] will have their share, but native languages will also get a part of the cake. Here most developers seem to be satisfied with the available choices: Go, Rust, C++, C, X (place your favorite one in here).
>
> So why should D now (suddenly) get the attention (which it would certainly deserve)? My guess is that it won't be about making D more attractive to new developers. I feel that the mission will be to make D more powerful for a variety of very special scenarios, which will give the language a piece of the cake that [is] not in the mainstream area." (8/29/2015)
> https://florian-rappl.de/News/Page/310/is-it-d-comeback
>
> Funnily enough, it wasn't too long after that, in 2017, that I was getting increasingly frustrated with D and started to look for alternatives to D as I was beginning to realize that D had become a language for "special scenarios" and that other use cases (e.g. mobile) would never happen.

That same wise man has this interesting post.

https://florian-rappl.de/News/Page/385/designing-programming-language-for-2019

On Wednesday, 2 October 2019 at 10:16:45 UTC, Ola Fosheim Grøstad wrote:
> Or to phrase it differently:
>
> In  which niche can Nim or D hope to obtain 1% market share of within 10 years?

Pew! That's a tough one.

> Which niches are out of reach?
>
> Clearly, web, iOS, Android are all out of reach. But maybe there are some other niches where a focused effort could lead to market-capturing progress.

I wouldn't write off Nim here. Nim could be an option for iOS and Android development if you can compile it to C libs or some sort of OS specific format.

> What would have to change (in terms of technology) to increase the probability of capturing one such market?

Something like GraalVM? Write in any language you like and you can interact with any language you like, but I don't really see it for D. Nim, perhaps. I don't know.

On Wednesday, 2 October 2019 at 11:12:29 UTC, Chris wrote:
> On Wednesday, 2 October 2019 at 10:16:45 UTC, Ola Fosheim Grøstad wrote:
>> Or to phrase it differently:
>>
>> In  which niche can Nim or D hope to obtain 1% market share of within 10 years?
>
> Pew! That's a tough one.
>
>> Which niches are out of reach?
>>
>> Clearly, web, iOS, Android are all out of reach. But maybe there are some other niches where a focused effort could lead to market-capturing progress.
>
> I wouldn't write off Nim here. Nim could be an option for iOS and Android development if you can compile it to C libs or some sort of OS specific format.
>
>> What would have to change (in terms of technology) to increase the probability of capturing one such market?
>
> Something like GraalVM? Write in any language you like and you can interact with any language you like, but I don't really see it for D. Nim, perhaps. I don't know.
Actually Nim may be pretty fine for web as it compiles to JS as well. I believe that they have a full stack framework already, where you do both backend and frontend in Nim.

On Wednesday, 2 October 2019 at 12:43:30 UTC, Rel wrote:
>>
>> I wouldn't write off Nim here. Nim could be an option for iOS and Android development if you can compile it to C libs or some sort of OS specific format.
>>
>>> What would have to change (in terms of technology) to increase the probability of capturing one such market?
>>
>> Something like GraalVM? Write in any language you like and you can interact with any language you like, but I don't really see it for D. Nim, perhaps. I don't know.
> Actually Nim may be pretty fine for web as it compiles to JS as well. I believe that they have a full stack framework already, where you do both backend and frontend in Nim.

I wouldn't write off Nim here either. Nim has the benefit of being "young", so they've been able to see and adapt to the latest developments (e.g. web client + server, JS etc.).

On Wednesday, 2 October 2019 at 11:00:55 UTC, Paulo Pinto wrote:
>
> That same wise man has this interesting post.
>
> https://florian-rappl.de/News/Page/385/designing-programming-language-for-2019

Sounds good, in theory, but even the author can foresee problems:

"Great thing about this design is that any version of the language works with any version of the compiler (well, at least if the base part has been done correctly - in practice we will certainly see some dependency here)."

But basically I think it's a sound approach.

On Wednesday, 2 October 2019 at 12:53:49 UTC, Chris wrote:
> On Wednesday, 2 October 2019 at 12:43:30 UTC, Rel wrote:
>>>
>>> I wouldn't write off Nim here. Nim could be an option for iOS and Android development if you can compile it to C libs or some sort of OS specific format.
>>>
>>>> What would have to change (in terms of technology) to increase the probability of capturing one such market?
>>>
>>> Something like GraalVM? Write in any language you like and you can interact with any language you like, but I don't really see it for D. Nim, perhaps. I don't know.
>> Actually Nim may be pretty fine for web as it compiles to JS as well. I believe that they have a full stack framework already, where you do both backend and frontend in Nim.
>
> I wouldn't write off Nim here either. Nim has the benefit of being "young", so they've been able to see and adapt to the latest developments (e.g. web client + server, JS etc.).

Nim seems to also be plagued by Rust envy, so not sure about it.

Thanks to http://pling.jondgoodwin.com/post/cyclone/ I arrived to https://github.com/nim-lang/RFCs/issues/144

The comments regarding dropping GC and mixed mode libraries will feel remarkably familiar.

On Wednesday, 2 October 2019 at 13:45:46 UTC, Paulo Pinto wrote:
>
> Nim seems to also be plagued by Rust envy, so not sure about it.
>
> Thanks to http://pling.jondgoodwin.com/post/cyclone/ I arrived to https://github.com/nim-lang/RFCs/issues/144
>
> The comments regarding dropping GC and mixed mode libraries will feel remarkably familiar.

Hope Nim devs have learned their lesson from D.

On Wednesday, 2 October 2019 at 11:12:29 UTC, Chris wrote:
> I wouldn't write off Nim here. Nim could be an option for iOS and Android development if you can compile it to C libs or some sort of OS specific format.

That is a very good point. If you can compile to C or C++ then you can become part of most existing build chains (as a specialized tool) with limited effort.

On Wednesday, 2 October 2019 at 11:00:41 UTC, Chris wrote:
> I don't know, but I'm sure they have carefully crafted special purpose tooling around their D code (else you cannot work with D anyway).

That is the impression I am getting.

> Apparently, Facebook has dropped active D development. I'm always skeptical when I hear "X is using D now." People often say that D needs a big player behind it, but the big players actually have to be very careful with exotic languages. If it doesn't scale, they cannot use it. It's not that they're all knobs adopting the latest hipster fashion or sticking to old technologies. They simply cannot risk to be stuck with an exotic language.

Right, most larger companies have used multiple languages, but there is a big difference between trying out a new tool on some smaller projects and going for it for larger critical applications.

> Smaller organizations that operate within very special scenarios can afford to use D and it might give them an edge over their competitors.

Startups is not the best canary as startups have less risk-aversion and technology choices are more influenced by the preferences of the initial staff. They usually don't have enough experience with the task at hand when they start out to properly evaluate the tradeoffs, although since they often are cash-restricted they might go with what they think is the cheaper alternative (or "productivity" as you mentioned). How that works out is difficult to assess. No (sane) company will speak in negative terms about their tech-choices publicly of course, as it would undermine themselves in terms of PR. Thus it is also very difficult to assess what they say (they tend to speak positively about the tech they choose) and one has to assess how they expand into the tech platform as time goes on.

On Wednesday, 2 October 2019 at 21:31:17 UTC, Ola Fosheim Grøstad wrote:
> On Wednesday, 2 October 2019 at 11:00:41 UTC, Chris wrote:
>> I don't know, but I'm sure they have carefully crafted special purpose tooling around their D code (else you cannot work with D anyway).
>
> That is the impression I am getting.
>
>> Apparently, Facebook has dropped active D development. I'm always skeptical when I hear "X is using D now." People often say that D needs a big player behind it, but the big players actually have to be very careful with exotic languages. If it doesn't scale, they cannot use it. It's not that they're all knobs adopting the latest hipster fashion or sticking to old technologies. They simply cannot risk to be stuck with an exotic language.
>
> Right, most larger companies have used multiple languages, but there is a big difference between trying out a new tool on some smaller projects and going for it for larger critical applications.
>
>> Smaller organizations that operate within very special scenarios can afford to use D and it might give them an edge over their competitors.
>
> Startups is not the best canary as startups have less risk-aversion and technology choices are more influenced by the preferences of the initial staff. They usually don't have enough experience with the task at hand when they start out to properly evaluate the tradeoffs, although since they often are cash-restricted they might go with what they think is the cheaper alternative (or "productivity" as you mentioned). How that works out is difficult to assess. No (sane) company will speak in negative terms about their tech-choices publicly of course, as it would undermine themselves in terms of PR. Thus it is also very difficult to assess what they say (they tend to speak positively about the tech they choose) and one has to assess how they expand into the tech platform as time goes on.

As for startups I really like NoRedInk's story, who started with Ruby and React and eventually gradually switched to Haskell and Elm and never looked back. There are few talks on YouTube by Richard Feldman about this story, which is kinda interesting.