how is D different from C/c++/rust/zig for system programming? what's the major selling point? is it good for embedded(no GC) use cases? what stopped it from becoming universally used?
I don't know Zig yet.
I had an opinion long time ago that nobody should use C anymore; I would suggest C++ at least because it has constructors and templates. D's [Better C](https://dlang.org/spec/betterc.html) would be my go-to at this time.
C++ is getting better but it's still very difficult to get right: It depends mainly on programmer attention e.g. to follow 400+ [guidelines](https://isocpp.github.io/CppCoreGuidelines/CppCoreGuidelines).
Rust is "different" but it has the borrow checker as a safety tool. D's [live functions](https://dlang.org/spec/ob.html) and other [memory safety](https://dlang.org/blog/2022/10/08/dip1000-memory-safety-in-a...) features are closing the gap there.
> major selling point
I am copying slide 59 here: D provides competitive advantage by helping happy programmers produce correct programs pragmatically.
Slide 8 lists what D does not have, which can explain why D has not gained popularity that it deserves. For example, nobody can sell D as "Google's language" or "Apple's language".
As I understand it, for safe-by-default to work, either all C libraries would have @trusted D bindings written, or all of them would have to be assumed to be @trusted. Most of the community wanted explicit @trusted annotations, Walter and others favored assuming them to be @trusted (or was it assumed @safe?) was the way to go. So, no safe-by-default at this time. :/
@safe nogc:
auto myFunc() { // do stuff }
struct Blah {}
It's useful for structs/classes
struct MyThing {
auto unsafeFunc() {}
@safe:
auto safeFunc1() {}
}D had a lot of momentum in the beginning, but the license around the compiler scared away some people, then there was the whole standard library split with phobos and tango (irrelevant now and has been for over a decade), and from my understanding in the beginning (I wasn't around during that time) Walter added features by request as there wasn't a DIP process yet (D improvement proposals), and some people felt it was unfair. These have all been rectified.
anything safer than C, easier than c++ and rust is interesting.
i will build some code and check out its memory usage and binary size, both are important for embedded.
Don't forget the -betterC compiler switch please. ;)
I mean... Modules versus header files, 13 times faster compilation, introspection, unittest, etc. etc. etc. Okay, it's more like death by a thousand cuts but once you produce with D, you can't even touch C++ anymore. I am in that state...