While this analysis of language popularity on Github is enlightening:

http://www.benfrederickson.com/ranking-programming-languages-by-github-users/

I found the older analysis of how programmers transition (or adopt new languages) more interesting:

https://blog.sourced.tech/post/language_migrations/

Like how people move from Rust to Go. And from Go to Python:

https://blog.sourced.tech/post/language_migrations/sum_matrix_22lang_eig.svg


Also the growth of Java is larger than I would anticipate:

https://blog.sourced.tech/post/language_migrations/eigenvect_stack_22lang.png

Granted, Java has gotten quite a few convenience features over the years.

On Friday, 26 January 2018 at 09:02:03 UTC, Ola Fosheim Grøstad wrote:
> While this analysis of language popularity on Github is enlightening:
>
> http://www.benfrederickson.com/ranking-programming-languages-by-github-users/

What i found interesting is the comparison between the "newer" languages and D ( see the reddit thread ).

9   Go      4.1022
15  Kotlin  1.2798
18  Rust    0.7317
35  Julia   0.0900
46  Vala    0.0665
50  Crystal 0.0498
53  D       0.047%

While i can understand Rust ( Mozilla ), Kotlin ( Jetbrain ), Go ( Google ).
Even Vala and Crystal are ranked higher then D.

Very cool stuff, thanks for sharing.

On Friday, 26 January 2018 at 17:24:54 UTC, Benny wrote:
>
> What i found interesting is the comparison between the "newer" languages and D ( see the reddit thread ).
>
>  9  Go      4.1022
> 15  Kotlin  1.2798
> 18  Rust    0.7317
> 35  Julia   0.0900
> 46  Vala    0.0665
> 50  Crystal 0.0498
> 53  D       0.047%
>
> While i can understand Rust ( Mozilla ), Kotlin ( Jetbrain ), Go ( Google ).
> Even Vala and Crystal are ranked higher then D.

One niche I could see D establishing some popularity is in GNU/Linux GTK desktop apps. Especially now that GDC will be part of GCC.

On Friday, 26 January 2018 at 18:46:12 UTC, John Gabriele wrote:
> On Friday, 26 January 2018 at 17:24:54 UTC, Benny wrote:
>>
>> What i found interesting is the comparison between the "newer" languages and D ( see the reddit thread ).
>>
>>  9  Go      4.1022
>> 15  Kotlin  1.2798
>> 18  Rust    0.7317
>> 35  Julia   0.0900
>> 46  Vala    0.0665
>> 50  Crystal 0.0498
>> 53  D       0.047%
>>
>> While i can understand Rust ( Mozilla ), Kotlin ( Jetbrain ), Go ( Google ).
>> Even Vala and Crystal are ranked higher then D.
>
> One niche I could see D establishing some popularity is in GNU/Linux GTK desktop apps. Especially now that GDC will be part of GCC.

With GNOME in the process of adopting Rust, I don't have big hopes for it.

https://wiki.gnome.org/Hackfests/Rust2017

https://wiki.gnome.org/Hackfests/Rust2017-2

On Friday, 26 January 2018 at 20:08:15 UTC, Paulo Pinto wrote:
> On Friday, 26 January 2018 at 18:46:12 UTC, John Gabriele wrote:
>>
>> One niche I could see D establishing some popularity is in GNU/Linux GTK desktop apps. Especially now that GDC will be part of GCC.
>
> With GNOME in the process of adopting Rust, I don't have big hopes for it.
>
> https://wiki.gnome.org/Hackfests/Rust2017
>
> https://wiki.gnome.org/Hackfests/Rust2017-2

With Rust's extra complexity (over D) of ownership/borrowing, lifetimes, and no GC, although we may currently see a push for more Rust in Gnome for system-level code, I think D may beat it for writing *applications*.

I'm planning on learning more D, then trying out GtkD to see how it compares with Python + PyGObject for some little apps.

On Friday, 26 January 2018 at 20:31:30 UTC, John Gabriele wrote:
> With Rust's extra complexity (over D) of ownership/borrowing, lifetimes, and no GC, although we may currently see a push for more Rust in Gnome for system-level code, I think D may beat it for writing *applications*.

Adding to that, it was comments like this on the Rust reddit group that really reinforce my decision to stay far away from Rust for desktop app development: https://www.reddit.com/r/rust/comments/7gg7lm/what_is_currently_the_best_options_for_gui/dqjo1c4/

On Friday, 26 January 2018 at 17:24:54 UTC, Benny wrote:
> What i found interesting is the comparison between the "newer" languages and D ( see the reddit thread ).
>
> 9   Go      4.1022
> 15  Kotlin  1.2798
> 18  Rust    0.7317
> 35  Julia   0.0900
> 46  Vala    0.0665
> 50  Crystal 0.0498
> 53  D       0.047%
>
> While i can understand Rust ( Mozilla ), Kotlin ( Jetbrain ), Go ( Google ).
> Even Vala and Crystal are ranked higher then D.

Yes, those stats are interesting too, but Go seems to do much better than Rust. And if the trend is that people move from  Rust to Go and from Go to Python it might mean that people might start out trying out new languages with performance goals in mind, but eventually go for productivity when they realize that they pay a fairly high price for those performance gains? Anyway, with Python 3.6 you get fairly good type annotation capabilities which allows static type checking that  is closing on what you get with statically typed languages.  Maybe that is a factor too.

On Sat, 27 Jan 2018 00:32:21 +0000, Ola Fosheim Grøstad wrote:

> ... Anyway, with Python 3.6 you get fairly good
> type annotation capabilities which allows static type checking that  is
> closing on what you get with statically typed languages.  Maybe that is
> a factor too.

If you use an IDE or analysis/lint tool, you'll get type checking. The interpreter will happily ignore those annotations.

No complaints here:
```
somevar : int = 'my string'

def func() -> int:
    return 'some string'
func()
```

On Friday, 26 January 2018 at 17:24:54 UTC, Benny wrote:
> On Friday, 26 January 2018 at 09:02:03 UTC, Ola Fosheim Grøstad wrote:
>> While this analysis of language popularity on Github is enlightening:
>>
>> http://www.benfrederickson.com/ranking-programming-languages-by-github-users/
>
> What i found interesting is the comparison between the "newer" languages and D ( see the reddit thread ).

>
> While i can understand Rust ( Mozilla ), Kotlin ( Jetbrain ), Go ( Google ).
> Even Vala and Crystal are ranked higher then D.

Even vala? You have no idea what the guys at elementary.io are doing to get more developers to use Vala and GTK for elementary OS (Linux) apps. They are developing an IDE in addition to their straight forward Granite toolkit for making app development in vala much more easier and productive. They've managed to get over 70 fully-native apps designed for their OS from independent developers since second half of last year, when they launched their app center.

I don't know how the D Foundation think or know about growing the developer community and tools, but I don't see a good job done in that aspect. And...elementary makes less money than D Foundation (I think, besides, they don't spend money on their community growth... just the obvious "non-technical" stuff).

The committee really need to have a modern approach to this community and tools thing.

There have been several complaints about tools, and certain important stuff missing in the standard library (HTTP/HTTP2, rpc, etc) and no 'official' response or some blog post from them about it (whether they even care). Several efforts have been made...(the std_* stuff in the dub registry)... still nothing much. At least input from committee show they care. I feel like its always compiler stuff alone.


Or pay someone good at developer community stuff to take charge. I said this some 2 yrs ago (my language about "female" won me some insults from some people in the forum, remember? It was discussed at the conference with the exception of the idea I was trying to communicate). I watched the D 2017 Conference and nothing about tools and community growth was discussed (except it was not "video-ed"). Unless its not important that much.