Hi,

Today someone sent me this video: https://www.youtube.com/embed/ABg4_EV5L3w
(C++ Weekly - Ep 313 - The `constexpr` Problem That Took Me 5 Years To Fix!).

It's a 26 minute long video of a guy trying to generate a concatenated string during CT in C++.

I was flabbergasted by the problems this poor guy had in front of him for a thing that shouldn't seem so complex (In my opinion of course). And more yet that he has being struggling with this for 5 years.

So I decided to try the same with D, it was 14 lines[1] of code written in less than a minute and it just worked on the first try. Then I looked the Assembly code:

.L.str:
        .asciz  "hello world, hello world, hello world, "

After that I even asked over the D IRC channel if it was just this? And a user confirmed that my string was being generated through CT as the Assembly indicated.

Again incredible. My first programming language was C, then in 2000-ish I had my first contact with C++ and I just hated and went back to C and then while looking for alternatives I stumbled on D which I use till this day as a "super C".

But now after so many years I couldn't believe the C++ is still struggling even to this day with this type of thing.

I'd like to quote this comment from the video:

> meowsqueak:
> "Well done solving this puzzle, but I’m left in shock. The need to employ a template, static constexpr variables, a lambda function, and four utility functions just to compile-time generate a static string in C++ is an embarrassment."[2]

And indeed it is an embarrassment. Well D may have it flaws but I always found it lot time better or less restrictive language compared to others, especially C++.

Finally I'd like to take this moment and thank for all the effort.

Matheus.

[1] - Here is the snippet I wrote: https://godbolt.org/z/MsT36Prx4
[2] - Youtube comment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABg4_EV5L3w&lc=Ugzb7kTLS8GNS9bK07F4AaABAg

PS: I'm a ESL, sorry for any English mistakes.

We can shorten that even further!

```d
import std.range : repeat, join;

pragma(msg, "hello world, ".repeat(3).join);
```

On Thursday, 10 March 2022 at 02:01:01 UTC, matheus wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Today someone sent me this video: https://www.youtube.com/embed/ABg4_EV5L3w
> (C++ Weekly - Ep 313 - The `constexpr` Problem That Took Me 5 Years To Fix!).
>
> It's a 26 minute long video of a guy trying to generate a concatenated string during CT in C++.
>
> I was flabbergasted by the problems this poor guy had in front of him for a thing that shouldn't seem so complex (In my opinion of course). And more yet that he has being struggling with this for 5 years.
>
> So I decided to try the same with D, it was 14 lines[1] of code written in less than a minute and it just worked on the first try. Then I looked the Assembly code:
>
> .L.str:
>         .asciz  "hello world, hello world, hello world, "
>
> After that I even asked over the D IRC channel if it was just this? And a user confirmed that my string was being generated through CT as the Assembly indicated.
>
> Again incredible. My first programming language was C, then in 2000-ish I had my first contact with C++ and I just hated and went back to C and then while looking for alternatives I stumbled on D which I use till this day as a "super C".
>
> But now after so many years I couldn't believe the C++ is still struggling even to this day with this type of thing.
>
> I'd like to quote this comment from the video:
>
>> meowsqueak:
>> "Well done solving this puzzle, but I’m left in shock. The need to employ a template, static constexpr variables, a lambda function, and four utility functions just to compile-time generate a static string in C++ is an embarrassment."[2]
>
> And indeed it is an embarrassment. Well D may have it flaws but I always found it lot time better or less restrictive language compared to others, especially C++.
>
> Finally I'd like to take this moment and thank for all the effort.
>
> Matheus.
>
> [1] - Here is the snippet I wrote: https://godbolt.org/z/MsT36Prx4
> [2] - Youtube comment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABg4_EV5L3w&lc=Ugzb7kTLS8GNS9bK07F4AaABAg
>
> PS: I'm a ESL, sorry for any English mistakes.

Well, a language alone doesn't make ecosystems, D is a good language, but after 10 years doesn't hold a candle to CUDA, Metal, Unreal, SYSCL, AUTOSAR/MISRA certifications, iOS/Android/Windows SDK, High Energy Physics research, PyTorch/Tensorflow, LLVM/GCC, ....

Before bashing C++'s design, which does indeed have plenty of flaws with several books describing them, what about finishing all those previews that are already 5 years and longer in the making and finally decide what domain D is good at?

The way I see it, C# 10 and C++ 20 have mostly catched up in where D was 10 years ago, Rust and Go have found out a way to push them into devs regardless of what they think about them, thanks all those Cloud Native Foundation projects, Khronos is slowly adopting Rust alongside C++ on some of their ongoing standard discussions.

Creating such ecosystems is what D should worry about, not how great a bare bones compiler is against the competition.

This would make a great post on HackerNews or Reddit! Please do so.

P.S. I sent you email about this, but your email address doesn't work.

On Thursday, 10 March 2022 at 06:44:47 UTC, Paulo Pinto wrote:
> Before bashing C++'s design, which does indeed have plenty of flaws with several books describing them, what about finishing all those previews that are already 5 years and longer in the making and finally decide what domain D is good at?
>

Why? D being flawed does not take away one whit from C++'s issues. The C++ people are free to bash us right back. I don't follow this logic of "nobody is allowed to complain unless their own record is spotless." Nobody is ever spotless. Every language has warts. But of course you can complain about other languages' warts at any time you want! If I couldn't complain about the inadequacy of the tools that the profession considers adequate, I would certainly go crazy.