Manu has pointed to some issue behind the obvious issue that will
come up again and again unless it's settled once and for all.
Let's call it "To please everyone somewhat (and never really
enough) - vs - to stick to a clear and well founded concept".
My personal view is that we should make D a mixed pickles with
lots of "but C++ has that" and then some more gadgets thrown in
for good measure.
The point that triggered me was "quick and dirty throw away
code". Frankly, I don't care batshit about that. Don't get me
wrong, Manus desire is doubtlessly valid and I wish him the best
of luck to achieve maximum happyness. But I also see that comfort
for "throw away code" has a strong tendency to run counter
reliability.
There's a gazillion C++ compilers, pretty printers, analysers and
other tools out there. And C++ has proven to be useful as a throw
away code language - just look at mountains of throw away code
out there (they won't call it that, of course).
And there is C#, $Basic, Perl (a perfect language to create
trobletickets - or to not even care to), etc, etc.
The issue is not to please crowd A or crowd B. The issue is to
make up ones mind and to establish a clear definition of what D
is meant to be - and than to bloody stick to it.
D had "reliability" and "safety" written in quite big letters in
it's PR. It's a *major* reason for (sure enough not only) me to
be here. Comfort and some luxury is important, too, when you make
your living using a tool, sure. But that's no contradiction. One
can have both.
If I wanted to play a mixture of hide and seek and lottery I'd
use C++ in the first place (and would have tools thrown at me).
In case I missed it, could someone kindly point me to a more or
less binding priorities list of what D is meant to be and in what
order of priorities. Maybe it's my fault and I just didn't see
that list. But in case #1 on the list was "to please everyone and
then glue some more gadgets to it" I wouldn't be here.
Thanks -R
