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Using D to Create the World’s Fastest File System

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Re: Using D to Create the World’s Fastest File System

#31

Post by nimmer »

hardwaresofton wrote: post #8

I would have liked to hear more about what exactly made D so great -- reading through it it's kind of vague. He mentions generics and finally getting LLVM support working as a target, and being able to use D at a high and low-level but I don't see anything here that's groundbreaking. Could someone who uses D Hate to be that guy, but if you could compare it with rust that would be double A++ good... I know the targets…

Here's a comparison with Nim. In my experience Nim is one of the fastest both in terms of execution and compile time.

https://github.com/timotheecour/D_vs_nim

Re: Using D to Create the World’s Fastest File System

#32

Post by arunc »

yvdriess wrote: post #23
hardwaresofton wrote: post #8

I would have liked to hear more about what exactly made D so great -- reading through it it's kind of vague. He mentions generics and finally getting LLVM support working as a target, and being able to use D at a high and low-level but I don't see anything here that's groundbreaking. Could someone who uses D Hate to be that guy, but if you could compare it with rust that would be double A++ good... I know the targets…

D feels much more like a 'sane' C successor, dropped from a parallel dimension where C++ could evolve without caring much about breaking its legacy code running the world. It has a few warts, some D v1 leftovers, but overall feels much more coherent than modern C++; even as the latter has grown much closer to D by piling more on top of its templating system. What I personally found the stand out feature of D to be, i…

Not to forget, C++ template meta-programming was discovered by accident. That's probably the only feature (and C++ is the only language) that I can think of in any language that's discovered by accident and is of utmost essential for introspection capabilities.

Re: Using D to Create the World’s Fastest File System

#33

Post by arunc »

skocznymroczny wrote: post #25
yvdriess wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

D feels much more like a 'sane' C successor, dropped from a parallel dimension where C++ could evolve without caring much about breaking its legacy code running the world. It has a few warts, some D v1 leftovers, but overall feels much more coherent than modern C++; even as the latter has grown much closer to D by piling more on top of its templating system. What I personally found the stand out feature of D to be, i…

I like D, but I'd draw different conclusions. D 1.0 was kind of like a "native C#" for me - a language that combines performance, pointers, direct access and ease of garbage collection, batteries included standard library. I loved it. D 2.0 though, I have more mixed feelings about. It's trying to be a better C++, but in an effort to woo C++ programmers it's slowly becoming C++ itself. D's curse and blessing is that i…

If a function is pure, it is automatically inferred by the compiler and it will be marked for purity (sorry for the lack of words). We don't have to annotate with pure attribute. Also D offers the right balance of functional programming that I can think of. Can you elaborate on what's missing from that point?

Re: Using D to Create the World’s Fastest File System

#34

Post by giancarlostoro »

hardwaresofton wrote: post #8

I would have liked to hear more about what exactly made D so great -- reading through it it's kind of vague. He mentions generics and finally getting LLVM support working as a target, and being able to use D at a high and low-level but I don't see anything here that's groundbreaking. Could someone who uses D Hate to be that guy, but if you could compare it with rust that would be double A++ good... I know the targets…

D is a work of love by WalterBright and the community. I like to think of D as a true successor to C++ when people compare Go to a C++ alternative. It is between Rust and Go but it doesnt do away with Object Oriented programming or the many paradigmns that exist for different programming approaches. I usually tell people if you can grasp C, C++, C# or Java you are going to understand plenty of Go.

Rust has a larger learning curve, Go gains plenty of traction over this simple fact.

You hear it often enough "I wanted to learn Rust but Go was simpler to get into" but if those same people gave D a shot they might never look back. D is best understood once you start hacking away at D code because you will appreciate the beauty in D. Different people love different things about it. I love that it is compiled and dont get phased by the optional GC, it doesnt stop Java, C#, or Go from being awesome...

Re: Using D to Create the World’s Fastest File System

#35

Post by firebacon »

arunc wrote: post #32
yvdriess wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

D feels much more like a 'sane' C successor, dropped from a parallel dimension where C++ could evolve without caring much about breaking its legacy code running the world. It has a few warts, some D v1 leftovers, but overall feels much more coherent than modern C++; even as the latter has grown much closer to D by piling more on top of its templating system. What I personally found the stand out feature of D to be, i…

Not to forget, C++ template meta-programming was discovered by accident. That's probably the only feature (and C++ is the only language) that I can think of in any language that's discovered by accident and is of utmost essential for introspection capabilities.

> Not to forget, C++ template meta-programming was discovered by accident

That's a bit of an uncharitable reading, no? For others that would like to make up their own mind: https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/1253...

Re: Using D to Create the World’s Fastest File System

#36

Post by yvdriess »

iddan wrote: post #6

Sounds to me like they would be better off with Rust as they are actively avoiding GC. How are the two languages compare in this problem space?

You avoid GC in D in the same way you avoid GC in C++. If you are using D to do rapid prototyping or scripting, at least you have a GC that allows you not to think about it.

If you are on a project where performance is a feature, you already think about your memory management, no matter the language. Standard library have to be generic, and will unlikely match your requirements. That said, STL's allocation strategies are a good step in the right direction in this space.

Re: Using D to Create the World’s Fastest File System

#37

Post by agumonkey »

arunc wrote: post #32
yvdriess wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

D feels much more like a 'sane' C successor, dropped from a parallel dimension where C++ could evolve without caring much about breaking its legacy code running the world. It has a few warts, some D v1 leftovers, but overall feels much more coherent than modern C++; even as the latter has grown much closer to D by piling more on top of its templating system. What I personally found the stand out feature of D to be, i…

Not to forget, C++ template meta-programming was discovered by accident. That's probably the only feature (and C++ is the only language) that I can think of in any language that's discovered by accident and is of utmost essential for introspection capabilities.

lisp was kind of a set of accidents too. remember Mexp ?

Re: Using D to Create the World’s Fastest File System

#38

Post by [deleted] »

yvdriess wrote: post #23
hardwaresofton wrote: post #8

I would have liked to hear more about what exactly made D so great -- reading through it it's kind of vague. He mentions generics and finally getting LLVM support working as a target, and being able to use D at a high and low-level but I don't see anything here that's groundbreaking. Could someone who uses D Hate to be that guy, but if you could compare it with rust that would be double A++ good... I know the targets…

D feels much more like a 'sane' C successor, dropped from a parallel dimension where C++ could evolve without caring much about breaking its legacy code running the world. It has a few warts, some D v1 leftovers, but overall feels much more coherent than modern C++; even as the latter has grown much closer to D by piling more on top of its templating system. What I personally found the stand out feature of D to be, i…

[deleted]

Re: Using D to Create the World’s Fastest File System

#39

Post by p0nce »

hardwaresofton wrote: post #8

I would have liked to hear more about what exactly made D so great -- reading through it it's kind of vague. He mentions generics and finally getting LLVM support working as a target, and being able to use D at a high and low-level but I don't see anything here that's groundbreaking. Could someone who uses D Hate to be that guy, but if you could compare it with rust that would be double A++ good... I know the targets…

> I would have liked to hear more about what exactly made D so great

This WIP article explains very well the USP of D:

http://erdani.com/hopl2020-draft.pdf (section 3)

This article highlight the value of "design-by-introspection" applied to a particular problem space: https://blog.thecybershadow.net/2014/03/21/functional-image-...

This talk present a concrete example of such: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LIb3L4vKZ7U (mind bending stuff)

You might not understand what is new about it, but soon your competitors will understand it.

Re: Using D to Create the World’s Fastest File System

#40

Post by WalterBright »

arunc wrote: post #33
skocznymroczny wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like D, but I'd draw different conclusions. D 1.0 was kind of like a "native C#" for me - a language that combines performance, pointers, direct access and ease of garbage collection, batteries included standard library. I loved it. D 2.0 though, I have more mixed feelings about. It's trying to be a better C++, but in an effort to woo C++ programmers it's slowly becoming C++ itself. D's curse and blessing is that i…

If a function is pure, it is automatically inferred by the compiler and it will be marked for purity (sorry for the lack of words). We don't have to annotate with pure attribute. Also D offers the right balance of functional programming that I can think of. Can you elaborate on what's missing from that point?

Being able to mark a function as pure means the compiler will check it for you - it's a guarantee. Inferring purity is useful, but it is not visible if it is actually pure or not.
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