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Programming in D: Tutorial and Reference

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Re: Programming in D: Tutorial and Reference

#61

Post by abenga »

creata wrote: post #54
abenga wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To a beginner who is used to ordinary imperative languages, that Ruby line is extremely difficult to understand. Is `.filter` a method or a property of `xs`? Is `{ |x| x.odd? }` an argument to a method or just a statement that comes after `xs.filter`? If it is passed to `.filter`, why does it not have parentheses around it but the `", "` passed to `join` does? This all makes sense to a person who knows the language a…

The Ruby syntax doesn't seem that different to many other languages. For example: xs.filter(x => x & 1).sort().join(", ") // JavaScript xs & filter odd & sort & map show & intercalate ", " -- Haskell Python seems to be the odd one out. Imo, its list comprehensions are confusing as hell to "newcomers". For example, when a list comprehension has multiple `for`s, what order are they nested in?

Those both seem a little bit more consistent than the Ruby example, however. To understand the JS example for example, you only need know that to call a method on an object, you do `object.method(arguments)`, and this is chained in a straightforward manner, with methods called on the returned values left to right. Ditto for the Haskell example. Maybe the Ruby one does the same thing, but even in this extremely simple example, we still have two different ways of doing the same thing.

For Python, you don't really have to use list comprehensions in the place of multiple for loops, you can sacrifice the brevity afforded to write the same thing in a more easily understandable fashion.

Re: Programming in D: Tutorial and Reference

#62

Post by WhereIsTheTruth »

mariusor wrote: post #56
monkeyelite wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Just use the “better C” mode

... which is not D any more though.

It's like saying "C is no longer C if you don't link with libc", it just is not true at all, and honestly, a pretty stupid thing to say

Re: Programming in D: Tutorial and Reference

#63

Post by abenga »

kouteiheika wrote: post #50
abenga wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To a beginner who is used to ordinary imperative languages, that Ruby line is extremely difficult to understand. Is `.filter` a method or a property of `xs`? Is `{ |x| x.odd? }` an argument to a method or just a statement that comes after `xs.filter`? If it is passed to `.filter`, why does it not have parentheses around it but the `", "` passed to `join` does? This all makes sense to a person who knows the language a…

> To a beginner who is used to ordinary imperative languages, that Ruby line is extremely difficult to understand. I don't understand this argument. You are a beginner only for a tiny fraction of your time using a given programming language. Why are we optimizing a programming language for people who don't know it, instead of optimizing it for people who actually program in it?

> Why are we optimizing a programming language for people who don't know it, instead of optimizing it for people who actually program in it?

Everyone who actually programs in a language was once a person who didn't know it. Languages which optimize for succinct terseness might be powerful once you master them, but they will never enter mainstream use, which I guess is not necessarily the aim.

Re: Programming in D: Tutorial and Reference

#64

Post by pjmlp »

usrbinenv wrote: post #28

I constantly feel like inferior languages are picked up, while superior languages are discarded. It's almost as if the universe had a law: "inferior technology is always preferred no matter how hard you seethe". Examples: * Python preferred over Ruby * TypeScript preferred over Dart or even JavaScript (which is fine and, as a bonus, doesn't require compilation step like TS) * Go is preferred over Crystal and D. While…

What pains me in Python adoption, beyond its use as Perl replacement, is that we have so much better dynamic languages with advanced JIT implementations, but have to reach out writing extensions in native languages instead.

At least Python as DSL for GPU JIT compilers is a thing now.

Yes, I know about PyPy in the corner looking for attention.

Re: Programming in D: Tutorial and Reference

#65

Post by pjmlp »

old-gregg wrote: post #31
usrbinenv wrote: post #28

I constantly feel like inferior languages are picked up, while superior languages are discarded. It's almost as if the universe had a law: "inferior technology is always preferred no matter how hard you seethe". Examples: * Python preferred over Ruby * TypeScript preferred over Dart or even JavaScript (which is fine and, as a bonus, doesn't require compilation step like TS) * Go is preferred over Crystal and D. While…

Languages do not matter as much as you think. Ecosystems are everything. Twice in my life I started companies (the first one took all my life savings) and in both cases the right call was what you called an "inferior language". I actually liked D very much, and WB had been a personal hero of mine when I was in college. But I am not betting my career on an ecosystem built around by a single brilliant guy. For high-sta…

I belive asking the favorite LLM to generate an executable will be the future, just like high level languages drove Assembly development into a niche.

Yes it isn't here today, just like it took several decades for optimizing compiler backends to do a very good job.

In fact one of the reasons why Matt Goldbolt created Compiler Explorer was to have a way to settle arguments he was having in the games industry.

Re: Programming in D: Tutorial and Reference

#66

Post by Neku42 »

creata wrote: post #26
zascrash wrote: post #23

D deserves more recognition. It's a cool language under the radar for too long. I wish a major corporation backed it. I had a great time learning D. Also I admire Walter Bright If I could achieve even a fraction of his productivity, that would be awesome.

Sincere question, not meant to be a shallow dismissal: Where is D a better choice than C++? In what aspects is it enough of an improvement over C++ to justify using a niche language?

Programming in D after C++ is like the opposite of death by 1000 cuts - its just a constant stream of finding nice little things that simplify your life or avoid footguns. You become accustomed to all the niceties very fast and its hard to justify going back haha.

D is by no means perfect (and over the years it has accumulated lots of warts) but if you know what you are doing it enables amazing productivity and almost never gets in your way. If you have an idea about solving a problem in a particular way there's almost always a path available to do just that without running into "computer says no" situations (stares at Go).

Re: Programming in D: Tutorial and Reference

#68

Post by mariusor »

WhereIsTheTruth wrote: post #62
mariusor wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

... which is not D any more though.

It's like saying "C is no longer C if you don't link with libc", it just is not true at all, and honestly, a pretty stupid thing to say

Instead of being an ass, maybe you can take the time to educate me why you think I'm wrong?

I think that at least the garbage collection not being available qualifies my statement as somewhat being true. For game development, as it's closer to what grand-parent asked, classes not being usable would also be an issue...

Re: Programming in D: Tutorial and Reference

#69

Post by mariusor »

monkeyelite wrote: post #67
mariusor wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

... which is not D any more though.

What essential features are missing for you?

For game development? I imagine having to use only structs but not classes would be something that forces a "non idiomatic D" experience. Dynamic arrays sound like something that's very useful for a game. I don't know, there are plenty of features that are incompatible with better C that makes D, D. Generally speaking, garbage collection would be the biggest in my opinion.

Re: Programming in D: Tutorial and Reference

#70

Post by creata »

pjmlp wrote: post #64
usrbinenv wrote: post #28

I constantly feel like inferior languages are picked up, while superior languages are discarded. It's almost as if the universe had a law: "inferior technology is always preferred no matter how hard you seethe". Examples: * Python preferred over Ruby * TypeScript preferred over Dart or even JavaScript (which is fine and, as a bonus, doesn't require compilation step like TS) * Go is preferred over Crystal and D. While…

What pains me in Python adoption, beyond its use as Perl replacement, is that we have so much better dynamic languages with advanced JIT implementations, but have to reach out writing extensions in native languages instead. At least Python as DSL for GPU JIT compilers is a thing now. Yes, I know about PyPy in the corner looking for attention.

> we have so much better dynamic languages with advanced JIT implementations

What are some of these better languages that you're referring to? (The usual dynamic language JITs I hear people praise are LuaJIT and Chez. And V8. And the JVM?)

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