On Monday, 7 January 2013 at 22:21:59 UTC, Chris wrote:
Another thing, IMO, is that there is an overemphasis on C++ vs. D. Usually people have to choose between systems programming (learn C/C++) or high level (learn Python, Ruby etc.). Most non-programmers who need to write a piece of software opt for Python and other scripting languages, because nobody wants to learn C/C++ only to write a small parser for data files. With D you no longer have to choose. You can write both quick and dirty script-like stuff and stuff that is close to the machine. Python and Ruby took off, I think, because they appealed to people who are not fully fledged programmers but who want or need to do some programming. This is the crowd the D community has to get on board. Don't forget that this is what has made JavaScript one of the most widely used languages (alas!).
A really important advantage that scripting languages provides that D does not currently provide, is direct runtime interpretation of the language. This is very important for the use cases of script languages such as Ruby and PHP, because often they are used for coding and testing on the fly, ie., used in an environment that requires frequent changes with almost instant feedback.
You can also embed a scripting language directly into other applications, and store "code" as data, which can be transmitted from one machine to another over the wire. We can store and transmit D code too, but getting it to automatically run on the other end is not so easy or convenient.
All of these things D, as a language, probably can do (although perhaps only as a subset of the full language), but the tools are simply not there yet.
A language such as C++ seems like a bad fit for a scripting language because of it's complexity and the difficultly with parsing through it. Also a scripted language probably should not have low level access that is provided by languages such as D and C/C++.
--rt
