On Sunday, 25 August 2013 at 23:26:19 UTC, Ramon wrote:
But then, maybe D's beauty in part lies in the fact that it offers a lot regarding safety/reliabilty - and - very nice performance, too ;)
One of the theories as to why there are no bears to be found on the African continent is that they are omnivores - i.e. generalists - which in a hugely competitive environment such as Africa, there is no niche in which they will not be beat out by a more specifically adapted animal. My understanding of D is that is like a bear, trying to be good at everything. (Maybe that's why bearophile likes it so much!)
But the environment for programming is sufficiently competitive that a language which is merely good at everything without being the best at something could be beaten out of the race simply by not having a niche. Therefore I see an emphasis on one thing to be a strategic advantage even if one's ultimate goal is to build something which is actually good at everything.
It certainly seems to turn a lot of heads when D rivals the fastest languages in a performance comparison. Having caught their attention, D can introduce its other advantages. The two which seem most prominent to me are compile time (often 10% of C++'s) and overall expressiveness, but it seems like almost nothing has been completely ignored.
I'm more or less a fanboy, so I'm sort of on-board for better or worse. Even so, I sometimes feel like this community is building some kind of Cyberdyne Systems Terminator in their garage or something.
