I don't think it's fair to lump D1 into the 15 years, since D2
went in a different direction and broke compatibility. In any
case, ruby was around for a decade before it took off, and it
didn't have to deal with a version break and all the stuff that
went with it.
To answer your question, here's my guess as to the plan:
- Make D efficient, that already rules out competition from ruby,
python, and all the interpreted languages.
- Add a bunch of features that are either C++ done better or
pulled from the more dynamic languages but done at compile-time,
ie CTFE and mixins.
- Hope commercial support comes along and cleans up a bunch of
bugs and clashing features.
Commercial support might consist of companies contributing to the
D core, a mob of users putting up bounties for bugs they want
fixed or features they'd like, or a language vendor closing up
parts of the D core and selling a paid version.
The hope is that some commercial entities like the first two
aspects of D so much that they think it's worthwhile to invest in
fixing and polishing it up. Otherwise, D has no hope of becoming
a "used" language.
