Re: C++17

[Wilson via Digitalmars-d]

I wouldn't be using D if there wasn't a way around the GC. I 
don't have a grudge against Garbage Collection, I just can't have 
all my threads paused in a real-time application for practical 
reasons. If a user is running my program on a slow machine and I 
need to run a lot of code per frame then I don't have time for a 
collection to run, not ever. I do have to jump through a few 
hoops but with each update of the language and standard library 
I've definitely noticed improvements in getting around the GC.

If you want C++ programmers then you need to make messing around 
with D be near _zero_ commitment. By that I mean that if you 
write some code in D you should be able to make it compatible 
with a C++ project with very little effort. I don't know how D 
handles this as I haven't needed to make my D code work in a 
project that's mostly written in C++, but I haven't seen a 
feature like this heavily marketed, which is what you'd want to 
do when appealing to C++ programmers.

The reverse sweetens the deal. If you can easily use your 
favorite C++ library when writing D code then there are no 
worries about having to roll your own. Having alternatives, 
ports, and bindings for major libraries is great, and D does have 
these for many libraries a C++ developer might want... but I'm 
not sure how someone would go about binding their own C++ code... 
I don't know if it's easy or a huge pain?

D looks better and feels better to write than C++ so retaining 
C++ developers isn't going to be an issue, just getting them to 
try it and providing them with access to the libraries they need 
is all you need to really do... and yeah, making coding without 
the GC more viable would help a lot. I mean, jumping through all 
the hoops to get around the GC is still better than working with 
C++, template semantics alone make up for that, but my life could 
be make a lot easier with less hoops.

The other thing that would really help is better IDE support... 
It might just be because I'm using Linux but I've really had to 
hack together something that supports my needs. Most C++ 
programmers are going to want an easy plugin solution into their 
IDE of choice, which might be VS, or it might be whatever fringe 
IDE that doesn't bug out on their system.