I look at the internet-image that is a flow chart.
flow chart have a name, that is "all of the programming language"
then I find a 'D'.
D is upgrage of the C++ ?
it carries out and is w?
D is kinda neat, much better than C++ and "truer" to C, with a lot of nonsense and cruft taken out. However it does have its share of wtf to it. Overloading is kinda flaky, but then again I think it's just a bad idea because it promotes "clever", rather than clear and efficient, code. Unicode is fairly broken which is fairly annoying; you'd think people would have learned to get it right by now, but it still uses char[] for strings and byte-addresses everything.
Nitpicks aside, it's a refreshingly clean language in comparison to the hellish syntax, inconsistency, and all-around shoddiness of C++, and it's got the elitism advantage too: since it's not very widely used, the average D coder is smarter and writes better code.
http://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~cs8k-cyu/index_e.html
This guy writes some of his stuff in D. He also provides the sources to the public.
I think D has missed its windows of opportunity. It's still a better C++ than C++ though.
What makes you think so?
I have given D only a cursory glance and have never closely followed its development. But in the back of my mind I thought one day I might see it burst on to the scene as a serious alternative to C++. Perhaps C# beat D in that regard?
>>5
Sadly I think that's the case. I really really wish MS had provided a decent D implementation instead of perpetuating their NIH nonsense, but they'd never do something like that because it involves admitting that the software world doesn't solely consist of them.
C# is a dumb idea in so many ways.
I'm curious to hear what you dislike about C#. I am beginning to play around with it through Mono and haven't gotten very far. Initial impression is that it's alright, but as always those impressions can be deceiving.
Well first off, their reason for making the language is bogus to begin with. It wasn't because they had any particularly good ideas for a programming language; it was because Sun sued the crap out of them for violating the licence agreement with J++.
More so, and my fundamental issue with the whole existence of Mono, is that it's essentially a one-way ticket into the .Net platform. MS are basically allowing Mono to exist merely because it's currently beneficial to them. Really, if you think about it, the current situation between MS and the Mono project is actually very similar to that between Java and MS with J++: a more-or-less different implementation of a language, under very different licensing terms. The difference is, this time Microsoft have the upper hand, and historical precedent does not lend me to being optimistic about the future of Mono.
The other, more unsettling aspect of the existence of Mono is it touts itself as the way to get a C#/.Net application onto Linux. Presently that's the case, but it basically puts the development of any .Net application at risk. First off it sends the entirely wrong message to developers: "Hey, you don't have to care about cross-platform development, because Mono will make everything Magically Work!" I've run across this misconception with a handful of .Net programmers who have never so much as seen a Unix command line, who have this assumption that .Net is the perfect platform because it runs on Linux. Second, in theory it allows for migration to Linux -- Mono's goal -- but I see it more as migration back to Windows for developers -- which I think is Microsoft's goal, and their true reason for supporting Mono. I have been around long enough to know that MS never do anything for the "good of the group". They do what they deem profitable and benefical to them.
I'm sorry if I come off as some sort of open-source zealot here, as that generally is not at all the case, but I don't think it is at all a good idea to have any corporation in charge of designing a programming language, standard library, and user interface bindings for a particular OS, when their primary moneymaker is the OS itself. It's a conflict of interest.
As for the language itself, it isn't too bad, but there's nothing new about it. It's just the same features that other mainstream languages already have. There are a few design decisions I disagree with (e.g. the same let's-make-everything-a-class model as Java, and also the same brain-dead interface scheme instead of proper multiple inheritance; can't reuse variable names in an enclosing scope; and the propensity to use CameCaseForEverything is somewhat irritating) but mostly, it comes down to the language as a whole not being my cup of tea.
> I don't think it is at all a good idea to have any corporation in charge of designing a programming language, standard library, and user interface bindings for a particular OS, when their primary moneymaker is the OS itself.
the OS isn't their primary moneymaker:
http://www.microsoft.com/msft/earnings/FY07/earn_rel_q4_07.mspx
> Client offerings consist of premium edition and standard Windows operating systems. Premium offerings are those that include additional functionality and are sold at a price above our standard versions. Premium offerings include Windows XP Professional, XP Media Center Edition, XP Tablet PC Edition, Vista Business, Vista Home Premium, and Vista Ultimate.
Revenue $3,808 $3,347 14% $14,972 $13,089 14% > MBD offerings consist of the Microsoft Office system and Microsoft Dynamics business solutions.
Revenue $4,633 $3,905 19% $16,396 $14,486 13% also, apple (os x, objective c) and bell labs (unix and plan 9, c) did the same thing.
>>9
Apple did not design Objective C. They maintain it, but it's still a part of GCC and would continue to exist even if Apple dropped development. Further, Objective C was already used in several places before OS X existed.
C was created by one person who was working in the research department of a telephone company, which just so happened to be developing an operating system. Further, C's specific purpose was for portability - exactly going against the reasoning I described in my post, i.e. that .Net only provides pseudo-portability.
Also, you're splitting hairs. Without the OS, Microsoft's software would be irrelevant.
(In any case, this thread is supposed to be about D, so let's try and steer back onto course...)
>C was created by one person who was working in the research department of a telephone company, which just so happened to be developing an operating system.
This is just so wrong in so many ways I can't even start to comment on it. You are probably a troll.
>>11
What exactly are you calling wrong? That Dennis Ritchie created the C language? That he worked for AT&T Bell Labs? That it was first used in programming the Unix kernel? Or that Bell Telephone is, in fact, a telephone company? Or is it possible that you simply have no idea what you're talking about? I eagerly await your response.
Well, C was developed as an improvement of the B programming language, which was designed -- by Ken Thompson -- for the specific purpose of being used to write most of Unix so that it would be portable. And once C was ready, they rewrote all the B code of Unix in C. So I'd say C and Unix were two pretty closely related projects.
>>12 You haven't caught up in the newest trend?
It's now socially acceptable to refute an argument simply by calling someone a troll.
"It seems to me that most of the "new" programming languages fall into one of two categories: Those from academia with radical new paradigms and those from large corporations with a focus on RAD and the web. Maybe it's time for a new language born out of practical experience implementing compilers." -- Michael
It's those "radical new" languages -- a misnomer since the concepts in many of them are as old as the discipline -- that make me believe D's window of opportunity is closed. It's stuck between the massive inertia of C++ and the rise of the academics.
Until a few years ago the "academic" languages, for lack of a better categorization, were left out in the cold. But then the two web booms saw an army of programmers using tools that were no longer bound by the needs of compilation and efficiency -- nobody cared what ran on your servers as long as it served requests fast enough.
I think this trend has only accelerated. Those who won't explore will stick with the stalwarts C++ / Java / C#. Those who do will get probably get sucked into the Python / Ruby / Javascript / Haskell worlds. And then there are the weirdos who play with Clojure / Erlang / Factor / Scheme/ Ocaml / Io / Newspeak...
D's niche could be in games, but that depends heavily how well it can play with engines and middleware, which are in C++. D is one of the few languages that can work with C++ to some degree, but I don't know if it can do so well enough.
I wish Walter Bright the best of luck -- he's a bright and hard-working fellow -- but I'm dubious there's space left for a better C++.
Is there something beyond D within the 5-10 year future? like even if you don't know, is the nature of languages to evolve at a certain pace?
Well there will always be new languages come around to replace the old, and D will not be an exception to that process. I have to agree with dmpk2k that D has missed its window and I will honestly be surprised if we are talking about it five years from now, let alone ten.