On Friday, 13 March 2015 at 00:20:40 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu
wrote:
A friend of mine needed to complete a small project and thought
of using a language he didn't know for it. He already knew I
work on D so he considered it alongside Go. He ended up
choosing the latter, and documented his decision making process
in a few notes that he subsequently shared with me. I'll paste
below a sort of transcript of his handwritten notes.
In my opinion it is better to focus on tempting users with D
strong bits than oversell it by trying it compete in topics it
has inherent disadvantage. There is not point in try to compete
with Go on topic of simplicity - they have crippled the language
tremendeously to get that simplicity. Simple D has no value - I
would simply prefer Go instead of it as it has head start
advantage in toolchain.
Instead it is better to focus on explaining users that they don't
want what they think they want, akin to that Bjarne quote. And
don't be afraid to admit to certain users that D is not a best
choice for them. It doesn't mean that such valuable feedback
should be ignore - there is indeed a lot that can be improved in
the learning curve. But trying to fight for user who makes choice
with "trendy" and "simplicity" in mind is a battle lost from the
very beginning.
