weaselcat:
"I feel like I could write a book on why I use D, so I'm going to
stop now : )"
Actually, kidding aside, I do believe that it would make sense to
collect some personal warts-and-all accounts of the experience of
individuals working in academe, the corporate sector, and
elsewhere in switching to D. One can think of it as a Studs
Terkel type exercise, or something more like a Stanford case
study. But either way, a narrative is very powerful in making
the prospect of switching vivid, because in those little details
and with the benefit of the natural coherence to which humans are
used to thinking there is power that may supplement a drier, more
factual presentation of the benefits of D. I personally found
Don's account at a dconf a year or two back rather powerful.
(Who he was representing helped, but less than one might think).
I would also mention the very good talk by the German games
developer whose name I have unfortunately forgotten this second -
and in a rush.
There is an empty page here if anyone cares to get the ball
rolling. I'll add something myself when I have time in a few
days, but if anyone cares to add their own experience, perhaps
that might be of considerable benefit over time:
http://wiki.dlang.org/?title=User_narratives_on_switching_to_D&action=edit&redlink=1
bachmeier:
I'm not weaselcat, but I'm an academic and I also tried out
Rust before using D. I came to the conclusion that there was no
way I could ever expect any collaborator to use Rust. The
syntax was crazy. The requirement to study memory management
issues (something completely irrelevant) before even reading
the code was a non-starter. It's just a complicated language
that is not suited for the average programmer.
I very much appreciate your taking the time to share your
perspective (and I always enjoy reading your posts). I looked at
Rust, but it doesn't address the problems I have, and I find the
complexity off-putting.
D is different. As long as I avoid templates, it's easy to read
the code I've written, without any experience with the language.
My own curve has been flattish, up until the point I got to
templates, which are a bit more of a challenge. Until recently
the most advanced part of language design I was familiar with was
ANSI C prototypes, so it's worse for me than for most others, I
suppose!
weaselcat again:
"I truly believe that D is easier to port C code to than C++
because you
can write D in a "cleaned up" C for the most part, and slowly
turn it into D whereas C++ is essentially a completely different
style".
Yes - exactly what I have found (I don't know C++, although as I
learn D it becomes easier to read C++ code).
Thanks for sharing the thoughts. In a hurry, but I wanted to say
something quickly now.
