To get it onto one's system, a bootstrapping step is required. Either building gcc 9 (and only gcc 9) with D support, then using that gcc to bootstrap a later version, or bootstrapping dmd with itself.

In the former case I'm already having to bootstrap Ada onto the system, so D just adds another level of pain. It also doesn't support all the same architectures as other gcc languages.

In the case of dmd, last I checked they just shove a tarball at you containing vague instructions and dead FTP links. Later I think they "updated" this to some kind of fancy script that autodownloads things. Neither is acceptable for my purposes.

I just want a simple tarball containing everything needed with clear instructions, and no auto downloading anything, like at least 90% of other packages provide. Why is this so hard?

Tip: pretend it's still the BBS days and you are distributing your software. How would you do it? That's how you should still do it.

I haven't tried the LLVM D compiler, and at this point quite frankly I don't want to waste any more time with the language, in its current form at least--with apologies to Walter Bright, who is truly a smart and likeable guy. Like I said, it's regrettable.

The only way to revive interest in D is through a well planned rebranding and marketing campaign. I think the technical foundation is pretty sound, but the whole image and presentation needs a major overhaul. I have an idea of how to approach that, were there interest.

The first step would be to revive and update the C/C++ version of the D compiler for gcc so as to remove the bootstrapping requirement and allow the latest D to be built, plus a commitment to keeping this up to date indefinitely. It needs to support all architectures that GCC does.

Next, a rebranding focused on the power of D without garbage collection.

I'm willing to offer ongoing consultation in this area and assistance in the form of distro support and promotion, in exchange for a Broadwell or later Xeon workstation with at least 40 cores. (Approx $350 on Ebay.) That's the cost of entry for me as I have way too much work to do and too few available CPU cycles to process it.

Otherwise, I sincerely wish the D folks best of luck. The language has a lot of good ideas and I trust that Walter knows what he is doing from a technical standpoint. The marketing has not been successful however, sadly.

I think there's also something called ImportC. Not sure what that is either.

I read the D blog sometimes, and have written some programs in D, but am not quite clear about these two terms.