On Tuesday, September 28, 2010 10:22:09 bearophile wrote: > Jesse Phillips: > > This is exactly how it should be marketed. It has the productivity > > of Python, other dynamic languages, with the performance and power > > of a natively compiled language. > > Most programmers are able to see that's very false, today. > > The main and maybe only advantage of D over C# is that it's multi-platform. > But today the Web is very important, and D can't be used in browers. > > I think that if D wants a chance to not die as many other C-inspired > languages have done in past, Walter needs lot of perseverance and to keep > slowly improving D for 8-10 more years. When D will be "good enough" maybe > some people will start to use it. But the implementation of D2 is > currently far from that point. > > Bye, > bearophile
Well, there's certainly plenty of more work to be done on dmd, but it won't take 8 - 10 more years for it reach the point where it's fully stable and feature- complete and completely reasonable for using in production code. What it really lacks in comparison to other languages such as C#, python, Java etc. are libraries and tool support. The number of libraries out there for most popular languages is enormous. D just doesn't have that (though the fact that it can call C, and to some extent C++, definitely helps). Phobos is continuing to move forward, and work on tools for D is being done, and at some point we may be closer to more established languages, but that will definitely take time, and it could very well be 8 - 10 more years before the D ecosystem is really on par with that of many popular, more established languages. But it could get there. For instance, it's taken years for python to get where it is today. But steady growth in usage has gotten it to the point where it's a major and popular language. As it stands, I think that the statements of about D's productivity are true for many tasks, but compiler bugs and the lack of libraries (much as both are improving) can really take a toll on productivity in comparison to languages which are completely stable and have lots of existing library code available. If we stick with it, though, we should get there eventually. - Jonathan M Davis
