On Wednesday, 4 July 2018 at 19:49:00 UTC, Ecstatic Coder wrote:
For instance, to be a perfect C++ alternative, D would probably
need to be 100% :
1. usable (strings, slices, etc) without GC
2. interoperable with any existing C++ library
For for game development :
3. compilable on all game development platforms
(Win/Mac/Linux/Android/iOS/Switch/PS4/etc)
I don't know if this can be achieved, or if this is really
worth the effort.
I think it isn't. Language is only a small part of the equation
nowadays. The ecosystem is more important. If you made strings,
slices etc. usable without GC, you'd probably make it
incompatible with 90% of the existing code. The ecosystem would
be split into "no GC" and "GC" libraries. And then you'd have the
"C++ folks" complaining about how it's hard to tell what is
supported, what isn't.
If you aren't decisive, you open yourself to others doubting you.
Look at C#, Java, Javascript. They have GC, do people complain
about it? For the most part no, they just learned to deal with it
and other language features make it worth it for them. These
languages don't really consider adding advanced manual memory
management options to lure in "C++ folks". Neither Unity is
rewriting their engine in Rust as of this moment.
