But if it can be done, why hasn't it been done already, hmm?
There are thinkers and doers, and very few who are both.
The principle ideas behind designing/developing D are good. They represent years of experience programming and implementing compilers. I don't doubt that Walter Bright will release D one day. He has the obvious technical expertise to do so.
But if you build it, will they come?
As good as those ideas are, we must remember: the design goals for D represents Mr Bright's many years of experience developing compilers, and discipline/opinions/bias formulated from working in those languages.
Experience and discipline.
Exactly. You don't build better software by using a better language. You build better software by using better programmers. Building robust software with maintainable code isn't achieved by constraining the features of the language and adding features which make the programmer's life easier. There are plenty of coders out there with half-assed ideas about what "good" code is, coupled with half-hearted attempts to write it.
Like a Dead Sea Scroll...
D is doomed to become yet another one of those obscure languages. Certainly, as others have pointed out, there's no marketing muscle or drool-factor behind D. There will also be management resistance to a new language (i.e., for medium-to-large scale applications, on the order of a million lines of code, you don't introduce additional risk into a project by using a new language). And from what I've read, there's a lack of compelling technical reasons to switch, since much is either found in C++, or can be added to it (e.g., STL).
Slashdot Mirror
But if it can be done, why hasn't it been done already, hmm?
There are thinkers and doers, and very few who are both.
The principle ideas behind designing/developing D are good. They represent years of experience programming and implementing compilers. I don't doubt that Walter Bright will release D one day. He has the obvious technical expertise to do so.
But if you build it, will they come?
As good as those ideas are, we must remember: the design goals for D represents Mr Bright's many years of experience developing compilers, and discipline/opinions/bias formulated from working in those languages.
Experience and discipline.
Exactly. You don't build better software by using a better language. You build better software by using better programmers. Building robust software with maintainable code isn't achieved by constraining the features of the language and adding features which make the programmer's life easier. There are plenty of coders out there with half-assed ideas about what "good" code is, coupled with half-hearted attempts to write it.
Like a Dead Sea Scroll...
D is doomed to become yet another one of those obscure languages. Certainly, as others have pointed out, there's no marketing muscle or drool-factor behind D. There will also be management resistance to a new language (i.e., for medium-to-large scale applications, on the order of a million lines of code, you don't introduce additional risk into a project by using a new language). And from what I've read, there's a lack of compelling technical reasons to switch, since much is either found in C++, or can be added to it (e.g., STL).