Is D an Underrated Programming Language?

Posted by Soulskill on Tuesday January 20, 2015 @08:52AM from the single-letter-names dept.

Nerval's Lobster writes: While some programming languages achieved early success only to fall by the wayside (e.g., Delphi), one language that has quietly gained popularity is D, which now ranks 35 in the most recent Tiobe Index. Inspired by C++, D is a general-purpose systems and applications language that's similar to C and C++ in its syntax; it supports procedural, object-oriented, metaprogramming, concurrent and functional programming. D's syntax is simpler and more readable than C++, mainly because D creator Walter Bright developed several C and C++ compilers and is familiar with the subtleties of both languages. D's advocates argue that the language is well thought-out, avoiding many of the complexities encountered with modern C++ programming. So shouldn't it be more popular? The languages with the biggest gains this time around include JavaScript, PL/SQL, Perl, VB, and COBOL. (Yes, COBOL.) The biggest drops belonged to the six most popular languages: Objective-C, C, Java, C++, PHP, and C#.

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Re:The thing about new languages... by Anonymous Coward · 2015-01-20 09:04 · Score: 5, Insightful

And that's just on a personal level.
On a business level you've got to offset the risk associated with using a less known language with probably a much smaller toolstack around it, a smaller pool of available developers, and a less certain future. There has to be a very compelling reason for a business to not just go with c++ or java or .NET.