<p><pre><code> We nailed it with arrays (Jan Knepper’s idea), the
basic template design, compile-time function execution
(CTFE)
</code></pre>
One of my favourite things about D is that it has a full compile-time D interpreter. You can do "template metaprogramming", so to speak, in the same language as D itself (it's probably a bit more fair to compare it to how lisp macros are "compile-time").<p>It's a bit sad that Rust is getting all of the attention in the spotlight, because D is a great, modern, safe language. If you've only heard about D 15 years ago and never tried it again, give it another look. The current D is really a new language, which was briefly called "D2" for a while.<p>Now, if Symantec could just fix the stupid licence of the reference compiler...<p><a href="https://forum.dlang.org/thread/lodjbuvdhimrvrdngldy@forum.dlang.org?page=1" rel="nofollow">https://forum.dlang.org/thread/lodjbuvdhimrvrdngldy@forum.dl...</a>
I took a look again at D this last couple of weeks and it was a way better language than I remembered.<p>It seems like a very solid language. You can write low level C like code if you really want to, but it defaults to safer, higher level code without losing much efficiency.<p>I'm going to try it out with some bigger projects.
I have some issues. Windows support seems a little flakey but it's ertainly usable (the default dmd compiler works very well on windows but the code it makes isn't the best it could be, and ldc makes much higher quality code, but isn't <i>quite</i> stable on windows. (Although it's certainly looking good enough to use).<p>I think it's well worth a look. I like it a great deal more than Rust
<i>You were 42 when you started working on D and I guess it is the first language you designed? Talk about why you started working on it so late...</i><p>What kind of question is that? Anders Hejlsberg was what, 39 when he started working on C# and 52 with Typescript? It's the same as with screenplays. You start writing when you have experience.
I like a lot of things about D, but I don't like the fact that it seems stuck in the OOP fad from 15 or so years ago. Go and Rust have both abandoned this whole idea of making "classes" in favor of constructs like structs, enums, traits and interfaces. I wish D had gone this route as well, but other than that it seems like a nice language.
This video of a panel discussion at a conf was interesting to me:<p>Video: C++, Rust, D and Go: Panel at LangNext '14:<p><a href="http://jugad2.blogspot.in/2016/08/video-c-rust-d-and-go-panel-at-langnext.html" rel="nofollow">http://jugad2.blogspot.in/2016/08/video-c-rust-d-and-go-pane...</a><p>Key team members or inventors of those languages, speak.
Hows the Dlang GC these days? A year ago andralex stated that he was going to work on it[1], but I haven't heard of that since.<p>[1] <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/2g03af/ds_garbage_collector_problem/ckent8c" rel="nofollow">https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/2g03af/ds_garb...</a>
> I don’t worry too much about that. I spend my efforts making D the best language possible, and let the metrics take care of themselves. It’s like being a CEO; he shouldn’t be sweating the stock price, he should be working on making money for the company, then the stock price will take care of itself.<p>I wish this mindset was more prevalent in open source. I find that the best (most well-designed and useful) projects are those that don't concern themselves with marketing.