What started out as C with classes started acquiring this
feature and
that feature until the whole thing is just a haphazard heap of
misfitting self-contradictory pieces, which requires an
enormous amount
of essentially-arbitrary rules just to clarify something as
simple as,
for example, automatic type conversions.
Partially, this also can be told about D, too. It started as a
cleaner C++ (I think) and grew up a bit complicated.
Before arguing the contrary, please remember that C++ looks not
complicated to Stroustrup.
Maybe simply addressing the most bitter drawbacks and
inconsistencies of C++ (and when I say that, I say notably syntax
stupidities, *then* conceptual stupidities) was enough for, let's
say, D_v1. Then, more, for D_v2. Maybe trying to address too much
at once?
My feeling (I tried to port and work something in D) is that it
is a good language. But a complicate one and the learning time
tends to be limited today.
C caught in the first place for its simplicity. Java, too ("hey,
no pointers!"). Annotations and other hell were added later,
*after* the naguage got assimilated. C# too ("hey! C++ made
*simpler*!"). Then it was C#2, 3, 4 etc. True, C++ grew up a
complicated beast, but *gradually*. At the beginning, it was not.
D does not have that gradualism in growing complicated. Not for
its developers, but for its (mass) users.
