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As far as I know D's original design strategy, was to be a simpler to use C++ with a GC, but with the same expressive power

Over time, this proved to be a bad strategy, C++ key strength became RAII (deterministic memory management), so the GC became a failed strategy

The maintainers tried to move in different directions, adding manually memory management, making the GC optional, moved D to be a C replacement, with the -betterc compiling option, and many other tweaks and features added overtime, but nothing really caught on

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This isn't a very good summary of how the language evolved.

D has basically always had the ability to not use the GC, it's only recently that we've taken an interest in replacing C. The GC has been written in D for a very long time, that wouldn't be the case if the language didn't allow manual memory from day 1.

BetterC is a nice-to-have rather than a language dialect.

Having a GC is an absolute godsend for getting clean code out of the door quickly.

Would it be fair to say that for some time (I wouldn't know exactly when it started) D has evolved to serve the needs of the D community rather than to attract new people?

Attracting new people is basically never (with exception of the C stuff) been the driving force behind efforts influencing D's design.

Another anecdote - Someone who hires people in D has told me definitely that D being small means that hiring for them is usually just seeing some code, i.e. there hasn't been an eternal September let's say. They can onboard people who don't know the language, but knowing D is a very good cultural (programming is easy!) filter.

Thanks, that's interesting.

No it wouldn't be fair to say that.

Lots of stuff exist specifically to help with onboarding people into the community. Like the recent announcement of adding a C parser into the frontend.

on the point of the GC being a good thing to have, this is true, but not when your main objective is to replace C++, C++ key advantage being RAII deterministic manual memory management

You cant replace C++ with GC language, even 10 years ago this should have been evident to a seasoned developers such as Walter Bright and Andrei Alexandrescu

Sometimes great developers are bad product managers

Anyway, with Rust and Go, D have no where to go, I don't think it should be fixed to appeal to a wider user base, the only good strategic move they can do today, it make it better for the current user base, they have few big users, they should focus on them and the language will fade once those users move on to something else

Then don't use the GC? Ignoring that a lot of C++ developers are practically incompetent and completely unable to separate their ideology from the actual requirements of their software (I note that not one single even anecdote has been mentioned regarding the GC in this thread), D gives you the tools to do that already. I work argue not as polished as C++, but that really doesn't matter if you set out to write a new project.

Also, if you think existing D users are going to replace D with Go I don't know what to say to you. Go and Rust are literally punchlines without a need for a joke in discussions I've had with many senior people at these companies (Mostly Go). The reasons why people use D are so utterly detached from everything that has been discussed in this thread that I don't know what to say to you. Go is a bad programming language, pure and simple, good ecosystem, awful language.

> your main objective is to replace C++

D's main objective is to be useful. I did some hobby C++ that I replaced with D, but my main D migration was actually from PHP.

You surely can, it depends on the domain.

"Lockheed Martin reviewed various options for the Aegis Open Architecture including the programming language and execution environment for the system. In their experiments, they found that HotSpot Java code ran comparable to C++ on an experimental 250 millisecond periodic workload. At the same time, they found that the Java language provided superior abstraction and encapsulation than C++, and they judged that retraining their existing staff of CMS-2 programmers to become effective in Java would have lower risks than attempting to train them in C++."

https://www.ptc.com/en/blogs/plm/ptc-perc-virtual-machine-te...

So there you have it, Java powering battleship weapons targeting systems, after replacing C++.

HotSpot was not the mainstream JVM I see now its been opensourced, and apparently, np longer in active development, and I dont know how much of it made it into mainstream Java

Java is one of the top 3-5 most popular languages, and have huge backing

So its understandable that people found a way to make it fast, and honeslty, i dont really know how much effort does this require, but it seems from your example, it less than what C++ need

This all in all, seem counter intuitive, if Java is really as fast as C++, why is it that mainstream knowledge suggest otherwise

Either, your example is hiding something, or there is other reasons people still use C++ when they need high performance

D was meant to replace C++ not be a fast Java like language, I would argue, it achieved neither

D wanted to be a mainstream language, this is why the adopted the C/C++/Java style of programming, and again they didnt achieve this objective

D is not instinct, it still have a small dedicate user base, I just wholeheartedly think, today, you have far better options: Rust, Go, OCaml , C# , Kotlin

My example is not hiding anything beyond the fact that most people are clueless about how big Java ecosystem actually is.

Not everyone is doing Websites or Android apps.

PTC isn't using Hotspot, rather their own JVM implementation.

Just like C++, Java enjoys multiple implementations.

Just like C++, the best ones for embedded deployment with soft real time capabilities, are commercial, directly supported by hardware vendors.

D's biggest failure so far is not having a Google or Apple behind it, that would push the language no matter what naysayers have to say against the language.

Just like on iOS and Android, wanna play? Here are the allowed list of toys.

D had Andrei Alexandrescu behind it for years, he worked at facebook for a while and tried to push D there, and they did used D for while

Andrei is a big deal i would say

Since then FB moved on the build their own Ocaml based language reasonml

Julia doesn't have a big company behind, yet the language is steadily climbing the popularity ladder (and i doubt they have anyone at the calibre of Andrei Alexandrescu, but again, good pogrammer is not a good program manager)

D is not popular, because its leader failed at making it popular, they failed to give the qualities that would make it popular

Last time I checked MIT is rather big.

Facebook never really adopted D beyond a C++ preprocessor written in D.

And yes the community is rather lousy with language marketing, which is completely unrelated to technical achievements.

A product failed, blame the product owner (designer, maker, etc..)

Why are you refusing to blame the product owner

D is not a good language, it really is not, it doesn't offer any compelling advantage to justify accepting its flaw

Or simply put, its a bad product A bad product doesnt have to be trash, just enough bad design issue to make it bad I would strongly recommend new developers not to touch it there are far better option

Say it as it is, its simple, its the truth

Its functional, people use it, but its bad C++ is also bad, but its so overwhelmingly popular that you might want to learn it D is bad, and is unpopular

>D was meant to replace C++ not be a fast Java like language, I would argue, it achieved neither.

Cannot comprehend your logic here, one of the Java objectives was also to replace C++. It kind of achieved the objective by consistently being top 3 languages since its introduction and it achieved that by not even natively compiled, unlike D. Based on Java story, it seems that having no GC is not a required condition for success. I'd had imagined if Java is not being invented the entire Android eco-system (the world's most popular operating system) will be written in C++.

>D wanted to be a mainstream language, this is why the adopted the C/C++/Java style of programming, and again they didnt achieve this objective

Not sure what is your point here since almost every programming languages wanted to be a mainstream language including Ruby, regardless whether the author admit it or not.

>D is not instinct, it still have a small dedicate user base, I just wholeheartedly think, today, you have far better options: Rust, Go, OCaml , C# , Kotlin

I think you meant 'extinct'. Time will eventually tell and no need to be so negative. When Python was 20 years old (about the same age as D today), it literally was playing a 2nd or 3rd fiddle to PHP, TCL, Perl, R, Ruby and Matlab in their respective domains, and look where is Python now? I believe even Guido did not have predicted the astronomical rise of Python at the time.

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