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Comment by arcadia_leak | Hacker News Reader

> C# C interop is pretty smooth

True, but you still need to either generate or manually write the bindings. In D, you just import the C headers directly without depending on the bindings' maintainers.

> If it was an actual C++ modernization attempt that stayed C compatible it would have seen much better

Any D compiler is literally also a C compiler. I sincerely don't know how can one be more C compatible than that.

> Yes, and the no-gc stuff was just attempts to backpedal on the wrong initial decision

I think that it was more of an attempt to appease folks who won't use GC even with a gun to their head.

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I'm not saying D didn't have nice features - but if D/C#/Java are valid options I'm never picking D - language benefits cannot outweigh the ecosystem/support behind those two. Go picked a niche with backend plumbing and got Google backing to push it through.

Meanwhile look at how popular Zig is getting 2 decades later. Why is that not D ? D also has comp-time and had it for over a decade I think ? Zig proves there's a need that D was in the perfect spot to fill if it did not make the GC decision - and we could have had 2 decades of software written in D instead of C++ :)

> D/C#/Java are valid options I'm never picking D

This is perfectly fair.

> D was in the perfect spot to fill if it did not make the GC decision

I just find it hard to believe that the GC is the one big wart that pushed everyone away from the language. To me, the GC combined with the full power of a systems language are the killer features that made me stick to D. The language is not perfect and has bad parts too, but I really don't see the GC as one of them.

go had a similar early trajectory where c++ programmers rejected it due to the gc. it gained traction among python/ruby/javascript programmers who appreciated the speed boost and being able to ship a single static binary.

Its not the GC, its that D has no direction. Its kitchen sink of features and the optionality just fragments the ecosystem (betterC, gc) etc, making reusing code hard.

this is the main issue I think with D, yeah.

regarding kitchen-sink-ness it's at least nowhere near as bad as C++, but that bar is basically below the ground anyway so it's not much to write home about.

> Why is that not D ?

You never get a second chance at making a good first impression.

I believe that many people that gladly use Rust or Zig or Go nowadays would be quite happy with D if they were willing to give it a fair evaluation. But I still often find people going "D? I would never use a language where the ecosystem is split between different standard libraries"/"D? No thanks, I prefer compilers that are open source" or similar outdated claims. These things have not been true for a long time, but once they are stuck in the heads of the people, it is over. And these claims spread to other people and get stuck there.

If you do not want to use a GC, it is trivial to avoid it and still be able to use a large chunk of the ecosystem. But often avoiding GC at all costs is not even necessary - you mostly want to avoid it in specific spots. Even many games today are written with tasteful usage of GC.

The one thing that really is a fair disadvantage for D is its small community. And the community is small because the community is too small (chicken/egg) and many believe in claims that have not been true for a long time ...

> You never get a second chance at making a good first impression.

There's a good number of younger programmers like myself who've never heard of D, say, before 2017 when those false claims were still true. Our first impression of D comes from its state today, which is not that far behind from other emerging languages.

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