On Tuesday, 7 June 2016 at 14:16:03 UTC, Chris wrote:
It's not like 20 years + Apple or Google behind it. Given how slowly big languages like Java have progressed over the years, one can only admire the wealth of (sometimes innovative) features D has, implemented by a small number of core developers.
The problem with that reasoning is that the standard libraries of languages like C++, Java and Python are less likely to contain undocumented bugs. Which is more important than features.
The sole purpose of a standard library is to have something very stable to build your own libraries upon. A large number of features in a standard library is not really a selling point for production work.
Having a large number of independent narrow high quality maintained 3rd party libraries is a selling point. The role of a good standard library is to enable writing narrow independent libraries that can be combined.
This is an area where many languages go wrong. Basically, if there is no significant demand for a feature from library authors then it probably should not be added to a standard library.
Arcane bloat becomes baggage down the line and can even keep the language itself from evolving. (breaking your own standard library is much worse than breaking 3rd party frameworks)
