== Quote from Sean Kelly ([email protected])'s article > retard Wrote: > > Thu, 19 Nov 2009 11:47:46 -0800, Bill Baxter wrote: > > > > > > > It seems to me that MS expects C++ to go the way of FORTRAN and > > > COBAL. Still there, still used, but by an increasingly small number of > > > people for a small (but important!) subset of things. Note how MS still > > > hasn't produced a C99 compiler. They just don't see it as relevant to > > > enough people to be financially worthwhile. > > > > Even the open source community is using more and more dynamic languages > > such as Python on the desktop and Web 2.0 (mostly javascript, flash, > > silverlight, php, python) is a strongly growing platform. I expect most > > of the every day apps to move to the cloud during the next 10 years. > > Unfortunately c++ and d missed the train here. People don't care about > > performance anymore. Even application development has moved from library > > writing to high level descriptions of end user apps that make use of high > > quality foss/commercial off-the-shelf components. Cloud computing, real- > > time interactive communication, and fancy visual look are the key > > features these days. > Performance per watt is a huge issue for server farms, and until all this talk of low power, short pipeline, massively parallel computing is realized (ie. true "cloud computing"), systems languages will have a very definite place in this arena. I know of large-scale Java projects that go to extreme lengths to avoid garbage collection cycles because they take upwards of 30 seconds to complete, even on top-of-the-line hardware.
Yes, and similarly, when I write code to do some complicated processing of gene expression data or DNA sequences, and it uses RAM measured in gigabytes, I go to similar lengths to avoid GC for similar reasons. (That and false pointers.) It's not unique to server space. The reason I still use D instead of C or C++ is because, even if I'm using every hack known to man to avoid GC, it's still got insane metaprogramming capabilities, and it's still what std.range and std.algorithm are written in.
