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OpenD, a D language fork that is open to your contributions

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Re: OpenD, a D language fork that is open to your contributions

#221

Post by soniczentropy »

fiddlerwoaroof wrote: post #68
satvikpendem wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then I guess you don't have to write Rust? It seems like it doesn't solve any new problems for you so don't feel forced or pressured to use it (for any technology, really), and I say this as someone who really likes and uses Rust.

Yeah, what’s frustrating is (a) I wanted to like it; (b) it’s taking up a lot of the job market relative to other alternative languages I’d rather use; and (c) I like the language Graydon describes as “the language I wanted” https://graydon2.dreamwidth.org/307291.html

B is exactly how I've felt about, in order: C, C++, Java, C#, Javascript. I spent almost 20 years writing languages I did not like because I couldn't find jobs in anything else.

Rust saved some of us from a lifetime of exactly the problems you have with Rust, maybe let us have this one :)

Re: OpenD, a D language fork that is open to your contributions

#222

Post by otabdeveloper4 »

verall wrote: post #73
bsdpufferfish wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, by that criteria C++ was successful over C. And C was successful over fortran. There are small communities that prefer the older stuff, but they were better enough to move the entire industry. D isn't, and neither is Rust. > I meant that D could have been in the position of Rust today if done right. My point was Rust is just a completely different audience. I suppose D could have sold itself as a better JavaScri…

I think you're correct for D, but for Rust, we'll see. It's a very slow moving industry. I do C++ work all day (embedded) and while there's no current plans to move to Rust (which means it won't happen within the next 3-5 years), I could see it occurring someday. We're finally (usually) allowed to use C++17. I had to use C++03 at times circa 2019 - we're finally done with that. It's _really_ slow moving.

> I could see it occurring someday

"Someday" is on the order of decades here. By that time Rust will be a hoary legacy language with a list of warts longer than an ISO standard.

Re: OpenD, a D language fork that is open to your contributions

#223

Post by fasterik »

Starlevel004 wrote: post #203
chromatin wrote: post #2

My research group left D for Rust several years ago due to nonresponsiveness and poor language development trajectory. While I wish Adam and the others success with OpenD, I hope they can take the opportunity to pick a more unique/memorable name.

If they want to focus it more on systtems programming, maybe SystemsD...

Given one of their stated goals is "Embracing the GC and improving upon it, disregarding betterC and nogc in the process", it seems like their goal is explicitly to move it away from being a system programming language.

And no, I didn't miss the joke :)

Re: OpenD, a D language fork that is open to your contributions

#224

Post by tuna74 »

Const-me wrote: post #136
resonious wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What kind of solution would you propose to folks like your boss? One positive aspect I see about "rewrite it in Rust" is that you can to some degree expect a random Rust project to not leak and crash and expose vulnerabilities quite as much as a random C++ project. It's silly, but "written in Rust" acts somewhat as a badge of safety and performance, whereas "written in Java" and "written in C++" each only carry one o…

> What kind of solution would you propose to folks like your boss? Rewrite it in C#. It’s safer than Rust, because VM. Both standard and third party libraries are often way better. With modern versions of the language, GC allocations are avoidable if that’s what needed for performance reasons. C interop is equally simple.

Could you expand on how to avoid using GC in C#?

Re: OpenD, a D language fork that is open to your contributions

#226

Post by otabdeveloper4 »

teleforce wrote: post #92
countWSS wrote: post #84

My suggestions: completely get rid of GC(use refcounts or borrowed pointers), add macros(see FreeBasic extensions of C macros), migrate everything complex/optional out of stdlib to specific packages(Rust ecosystem is centered on packages not stdlib), and you will have a solid competitor to C++ and perhaps Rust. Rust of course has better macros and type system, but D looks simpler and more approachable for rapid proto…

Your suggestions are moving backward, and GC by default and no macro made D intuitive and Pythonic that are big plus in any modern programming language construct. The non GC is not really needed unless you're working on OS control primitives but again D give you alternative unlike Go. Every modern languages should avoid macro like a plaque otherwise you will sooner or later create a ghetto inside your community not u…

> intuitive and Pythonic

"Pythonic" hasn't been "intuitive" for 15 years now. Even old-school Perl is more cohesive and coherent than modern Python.

Re: OpenD, a D language fork that is open to your contributions

#227

Post by Conscat »

fasterik wrote: post #219
xpressvideoz wrote: post #38

I witnessed a similar case while touring D as an outsider. When Rust was new and the concept of lifetime was brought to the D community, it was deemed unnecessary by Walter. A few years later, he brought his own lifetime proposal that is sufficiently different to Rust's and thus even less verified compared to the previous suggestion from the community. Now that I lost my interest in D, I'm not sure of the maturity of…

I'm not too familiar with either Rust's or D's approach to lifetimes, but from some quick forum searching, it appears that adding Rust-like lifetimes to D would have required significant changes to the design of the language. Every potential feature has tradeoffs in terms of how it interacts with other language features, adds cognitive overhead, decreases compilation speed, complicates the design of the standard libr…

Given that Sean Baxter already has lifetimes in Circle that work very similarly to Rust's, I'm skeptical that the very similar D language wouldn't be able to express the same thing.

Re: OpenD, a D language fork that is open to your contributions

#229

Post by riwsky »

bsdpufferfish wrote: post #47
neilv wrote: post #28

In the last decade, we've had many learning experiences around governance of programming languages. Most of the changing languages that come to mind, I realize, that they, too, had a big upset or oops related to governance. I now think one of the key things to look for in a programming language is governance -- what they say about how they do it, what they actually do, how that's working out so far, and how you think…

Things have not gotten better. The 1960s-80s model of writing standards was so much better and restricted the politicking to a brief period.

cries in ALGOL-68

Re: OpenD, a D language fork that is open to your contributions

#230

Post by softirq »

D is a real anomaly to me because it should have had the same trajectory as Rust, it vastly improved upon other systems languages at conception, the authors evangelized it, including at FAANG, and yet, Rust seems to have gained traction everywhere D failed to do so. Even in places where C++ has historically been shunned, Rust has some traction (Linux Kernel). I now believe that language adoption is just a product of the right news cycles and timing, and perhaps hype over the creators or a certain feature. I am sad we got Rust and not D. D is so much easier to grok as a C++ person, and I think Rust is incredibly verbose looking.
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