On Sunday, 3 January 2016 at 15:38:18 UTC, Dibyendu Majumdar
wrote:
I am looking to choose between D, Swift and Rust for a project
that I am currently coding in C++. So far D seems the
alternative but I guess I won't know until I try out a few
things.
Why I now choose D, even for commercial jobs...
C++ had been my primary language (personally and professionally)
for 20 years, and it was effective and enjoyable for me. But, I
was naive. I didn't realize that what made it enjoyable for me,
is that I always used effective and complete frameworks/toolsets
(IBM VisualAgeC++ on OS/2, BeOS standard API, Qt on everything)
with effective base classes and data structures that all worked
together. When forced out of my comfortable space, by a project
a couple years ago that allowed no dependencies on Qt, I
discovered the grief of C++.
So, time to give D a try. I'd watched it through the tumultuous
years, and saw that it had settled down. I like the pedegree of D
- a pragmatic approach from a creator of a commercial C++
compiler. Also, I was encouraged to see Alexander jump in to
contribute to D (even before the D foundation announcement), as
he's been tirelessly working to improve C++ over the years.
I, like you, wanted to "try out a few things" before committing
to D on commercial effort. I found myself fantastically
productive (more than C++, even with Qt) using rdmd to begin
script-like and refactor as it grew. Easy, like Python that
produces fast compiled single executables that are easy to deploy
(even to folks without a Python development environment
installed), especially with the 'import' feature to embed
external resources. It is so easy to keep unit tests current and
running, and so easy to see testing code coverage, that I felt
always safe refactoring. I appreciate the ability to mark any
scope @safe, and have the compiler keep me honest.
And I found myself using more "esoteric" features that were a
pain in C++. I loved the concept of meta-programming in C++, but
always found myself using features in my framework - which had
taken the great pains to provide the necessary functionality. I
found implementing threads and concurrency in D every bit as
simple and safe as Qt.
Admittedly, GUI stuff in D is a mixed bag. I've settled on
creating D console applications that transmits json data, via
stdin/stdout, directly into Qt base model classes so the rest of
the Qt framework works seamlessly. I quite like the solution,
and I'm actually glad there was no "standard" gui interface that
bound me. But, gtk and sdl bindings seemed to work easy enough
for simple things, and dlanggui is looking promising.
As for future commercial efforts, I'll continue with D. I feel
safe that straight C is relatively easy to integrate. Having
access to proven libs like sqlite, redis, libgit2, nanomsg makes
little incentive to ever feel like replacing them. Even many of
the interesting Python libs are just linked to a standard C lib
underneath.
Anyway, I'm just more productive at producing robust, fast code
in D.
Best of luck in your efforts.
