On Saturday, 11 November 2017 at 09:47:32 UTC, Patrick Schluter
wrote:
Indeed, the strength of D is that it is portable among the big
platforms remaining. One of its drawbacks can be seen somehow
as an asset. Its lack of preferred GUI kit means that it is not
intimately bound to the user interface of that platform. Swift
and Objective-C are glued to Apple and outside of it are niche.
Same for C# on Windows. Java is portable but is a bitch to
distribute, especially on Windows where more often than not it
poses security risks that IT departments do not like.
Yeah, integrating gui's into a programming language is
complex....there are some gui kits for D in github, but none I
find compelling at this stage - even though they're authors are
doing a great job.
It's not that it's too complex technically, but the corporates
I've done work for would never allow you to bring in your own gui
anyway. Everything has to be standardised, and look familiar to
users.
same with vibe.d - great idea, great implementation - but none of
the corporates I've done work for are ever going to do anything
with vibe.d - ever.
Startups are a good potential market for D - but it still faces a
lot of competition.
I'd like D to think bigger than just duplicating what's out
there, and being 'compatible' with this and that operating system
- or just be marketed as a quicker way to compile your slow c++
code.
I'd wouldn't mind seeing a new open source operating system, lets
call it 'System D'....just slips of the tongue doesn't it ;-)
(micro) Kernel : written in D
Development tools: written in D
Userland/Gui : written in D
Webserver: written in D
...
.....
.......
D is a systems programming language, and has the potential to do
all of this, and more.
Then let others look at D, instead of D looking to others.
Of course, it's easy to have such a grand vision.....
But I'm really struggling to see any compelling vision at the
moment, other than D just being another language to choose from.
The vision, based on what I've been reading on these forums,
seems to be about 'grabbing stuff from this and that language,
and integrating this and that feature, or this and that syntax' -
as if all of this will make D more attractive out in the real
world. I don't see that mindset leading anywhere. It will just
lead to an even more complex language, with even more features.
At that is the point where people start to envision something
simpler and easier...and the cycle starts all over again... in
2030, Go will be so complex someone will have to invent GoLess.
But, I'm happy nonetheless...cause I only program for recreation
these days, and D provides a really nice playground for me, with
lots of new toys to play with....and many are yet to be
discovered.
And most importantly, it runs on FreeBSD!
