The reference D compiler is now open source • Hacker News Board

Re: The reference D compiler is now open source

#31

Post by gmfawcett » Fri, Apr 07, 2017, 5:07 PM UTC

saosebastiao wrote: post #23

qznc wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

D is easier than Rust and safer than C++. That is a valuable point IMHO.

I agree it is valuable. But I still think there are better alternatives now. Depending on your priorities and constraints, OCaml, Go, F#, Scala, and Swift all fit the same description (easier than Rust, safer than C++) and they're in the same realm for performance (slower than C, C++, Rust, etc., but not by much). D could have been there if they had a decade or so with a bigger community.

Sure, but it's not just about whether you fit in the range or not, it's about language design and tradeoffs. Not everyone will appreciate D, but I really think it hits a sweet-spot of language features that I haven't found elsewhere.

I've enjoyed programming in Ocaml, Rust, C++, Haskell, many Lisps, etc. -- they are all excellent languages. But I find (to my own surprise) that I often come back to D when playing with a new design, exactly because of that sweet-spot. I highly recommend giving it a try if you haven't already.

Re: The reference D compiler is now open source

#32

Post by saosebastiao » Fri, Apr 07, 2017, 5:12 PM UTC

gmfawcett wrote: post #31

saosebastiao wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree it is valuable. But I still think there are better alternatives now. Depending on your priorities and constraints, OCaml, Go, F#, Scala, and Swift all fit the same description (easier than Rust, safer than C++) and they're in the same realm for performance (slower than C, C++, Rust, etc., but not by much). D could have been there if they had a decade or so with a bigger community.

Sure, but it's not just about whether you fit in the range or not, it's about language design and tradeoffs. Not everyone will appreciate D, but I really think it hits a sweet-spot of language features that I haven't found elsewhere. I've enjoyed programming in Ocaml, Rust, C++, Haskell, many Lisps, etc. -- they are all excellent languages. But I find (to my own surprise) that I often come back to D when playing with…

That's fair. I love Scala but hate the JVM and all the compromises Scala has made to shoehorn itself into the JVM. Even though there is now a scala-native, I'd still probably not use it until it matures to the level that D is at, and D (or OCaml) would probably be a better choice for me for those usecases.

Re: The reference D compiler is now open source

#33

Post by jordigh » Fri, Apr 07, 2017, 5:15 PM UTC

gmfawcett wrote: post #26

softinio wrote: post #22

Whats special about D? why should i learn it?

Except for perhaps Lisp languages, almost no language makes compile-time computing and code-generation so easy. This allows for some really powerful language features that can be designed as libraries, and puts this power in the hands of "regular developers" rather than only in the hands of template wizards.

Yeah, I really love that at compile time you can meta-program in almost the same language that you use for normal run-time things. I think the comparison to lisp is apt. It almost feels like lisp macros.

Think C++ template metaprogramming but much, much easier and thus, seemingly more powerful. It's not that you couldn't do the same in C++, but D's metaprogramming is so much more accessible that it makes you want to use it.

Re: The reference D compiler is now open source

#34

Post by johndubchak » Fri, Apr 07, 2017, 5:16 PM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #24

jordigh wrote: post #11

Walter, thank you so much for finally doing this! I am so happy that Symantec finally listened. It must have been really frustrating to have to wait so long for this to happen. I have really been enjoying D and I love all the innovation in it. I'm really looking forward to seeing the reference compiler packaged for free operating systems. Thanks again, this news makes me very happy!

You're welcome! It makes me happy, too. I've wanted to do this for a very long time.

In addition to your great work, Walter, Symantec really needs extra acknowledgement for the effort on their side in releasing their right to claim in order to make this happen.

It seems we haven't had a lot of good things to say lately about Symantec and I hope this gives them something positive to celebrate.

Re: The reference D compiler is now open source

#35

Post by MichaelGG » Fri, Apr 07, 2017, 5:16 PM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #20

hashkb wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would be careful calling it the "least encumbering"- there are definitely shorter, easier to understand licenses with fewer restrictions (i.e. zero).

We investigated public domain, but that has international legal problems with it. Boost was the best solution.

Do you have any comment son international legal issues with public domain? Is that not recognized in some places?

Re: The reference D compiler is now open source

#36

Post by MichaelGG » Fri, Apr 07, 2017, 5:16 PM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #20

hashkb wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would be careful calling it the "least encumbering"- there are definitely shorter, easier to understand licenses with fewer restrictions (i.e. zero).

We investigated public domain, but that has international legal problems with it. Boost was the best solution.

Do you have any comment son international legal issues with public domain? Is that not recognized in some places?

Re: The reference D compiler is now open source

#37

Post by jacques_chirac » Fri, Apr 07, 2017, 5:16 PM UTC

saosebastiao wrote: post #30

qznc wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no quantitative metric for safety and easyness. If you can afford a garbage collector, D easily wins over Rust. If you really need the safe manual memory management, Rust wins. In between is still a large grey area.

There are plenty of reasons why Rust could win outside of requiring safe manual memory management. It is an expression based language with ad-hoc polymorphism, algebraic data types, hygienic macros, first class functions, and race-free concurrency. I don't use rust because I don't need manual memory management and I require subtype polymorphism for a lot of things, but I choose Scala over D.

Neither Rust nor Scala hold a candle to D in terms of compile-time introspection. You can do things with it that are near unbelievable - "you must ask yourself if some law of nature was broken" quoted from memory in http://dconf.org/2015/talks/alexandrescu.html

Re: The reference D compiler is now open source

#38

Post by jacques_chirac » Fri, Apr 07, 2017, 5:18 PM UTC

jordigh wrote: post #33

gmfawcett wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except for perhaps Lisp languages, almost no language makes compile-time computing and code-generation so easy. This allows for some really powerful language features that can be designed as libraries, and puts this power in the hands of "regular developers" rather than only in the hands of template wizards.

Yeah, I really love that at compile time you can meta-program in almost the same language that you use for normal run-time things. I think the comparison to lisp is apt. It almost feels like lisp macros. Think C++ template metaprogramming but much, much easier and thus, seemingly more powerful. It's not that you couldn't do the same in C++, but D's metaprogramming is so much more accessible that it makes you want to…

There's plenty you can do with D but not C++, see regex, bitfields, swap member-by-member with checks for mutual pointers, the pegged library for grammars, etc etc.

Re: The reference D compiler is now open source

#39

Post by nialv7 » Fri, Apr 07, 2017, 5:19 PM UTC

tombert wrote: post #8

Honestly, since I'm slightly psychotic about these things, this is a kind of huge to me. Part of the reason I never learned D was because the compiler was partly proprietary. Now I have no excuse to avoid learning the language, and that should be fun.

There have been fully open source compiler for D for a long time: LDC and GDC.

Re: The reference D compiler is now open source

#40

Post by WalterBright » Fri, Apr 07, 2017, 5:23 PM UTC

MichaelGG wrote: post #35

WalterBright wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We investigated public domain, but that has international legal problems with it. Boost was the best solution.

Do you have any comment son international legal issues with public domain? Is that not recognized in some places?

It was not recognized in some countries, as I recall. Maybe things have changed since we decided on Boost a decade ago, but who cares. Boost works.