D Language Support Cleared For Being Added To GCC

[caligula]

D has place 22 and Rust has place 37 in https://www.tiobe.com/tiobe-index

Ok, now how reliable is the TIOBE score? What does it really tell you? Object Pascal has been placed 13th on that list. Even if I tried really hard, I would not be able to name a single Object Pascal / Delphi / FreePascal / Lazarus project out there although I'm very familiar with all of those Pascal environments. Same issue with Visual Basic. The cool new kids of the block (Scala, Rust, Haskell) are located at the 30th, 37th, and 39th positions. Some things don't add up here.

BTW, I actually found threads from the D forums discussing how to improve their popularity and TIOBE scores. I suspect they've done some SEO on their part, inflating the scores.

[Brix]

One epic mistake was to keep the compiler closed source. Thus there used to be some availability issues under Linux. This alone was enough for me to not even bother about it ...

Closed source? Afaik the source has always been available. Wikipedia seems to confirm this.

[caligula]

Today D is mostly a failed language. It intended to be a more modern and safer C++ but it never took of and the time went on. Today we have Rust which is more popular, goes further on memory safety and features a very well designed standard library with many modern features and no cost abstractions. D should have started to get big traction ten years ago if it ever were to go somewhere.

I guess GCCs interest in it mostly is to have some modern language to combat with LLVM which is what Rust is using.

If I understand things correctly, D "invented" some "new" things the D committee and comp.lang.c++.moderated usenet forums were already widely familiar with such as template metaprogramming, concepts, ranges etc. With C++, there weas the issue with backwards compatibility, both syntactically and also a wide range of commercial compilers and legacy code, D could just copy the recently discussed ideas and come up with new ad-hoc syntax. It looks like C++ has now gained most of the template and lambda magic which makes D tick. Makes me wonder, is it worth switching to D anymore?

[peppercats]

Today D is mostly a failed language. It intended to be a more modern and safer C++ but it never took of and the time went on. Today we have Rust which is more popular, goes further on memory safety and features a very well designed standard library with many modern features and no cost abstractions. D should have started to get big traction ten years ago if it ever were to go somewhere.

I guess GCCs interest in it mostly is to have some modern language to combat with LLVM which is what Rust is using.

except for the whole part where programmers are paid a premium and rust is terrible for productivity I guess

[Azultra]

The authors of D used to care way too much about the perception of the public, especially on Reddit and HN, and I hope they've realized since then that it often equals ignorant trashtalking which shouldn't even be bothered with, this thread is another piece of evidence for that.
Personally I don't feel like enlightening the likes of people who love to speak out of ignorance so, stay safe in your assumptions and don't ever bother looking closer.

[jacob]

Today D is mostly a failed language. It intended to be a more modern and safer C++ but it never took of and the time went on. Today we have Rust which is more popular, goes further on memory safety and features a very well designed standard library with many modern features and no cost abstractions. D should have started to get big traction ten years ago if it ever were to go somewhere.

I guess GCCs interest in it mostly is to have some modern language to combat with LLVM which is what Rust is using.

I wouldn't be so harsh. In a way, the take off of Go and Rust indirectly benefits D too. Since at long last it is no longer "compulsory" to develop in C++, Java or C#, it makes sense to properly consider all the options, not just the hip language of the day, and D has a lot going for it. It may never have the "cool" factor of Rust & co., but as a language that really delivers on the idea of a C++ without the insanity, it is much easier for mainstream coders to move to, has a low learning curve and fits into an existing environment in a way no other language currently can.

[pkphilip]

On the other hand, Pascal is an older language. It has history, for example its wide use in university and school education, which might be contributing to its position in the Tiobe index.

There are actually quite a few projects written in object pascal - see below:

Lazarus gallery - http://wiki.freepascal.org/Lazarus_Application_Gallery
From Quora - https://www.quora.com/What-are-some-...tten-in-Pascal

[L_A_G]

On the other hand, Pascal is an older language. It has history, for example its wide use in university and school education, which might be contributing to its position in the Tiobe index.

I don't think Pacal variants are very common in education anymore. BASIC was also pretty big in education on account of also being developed for that purpose, but eventually fell out of favor as well. I do have to admit that the first programming language I got any experience in was Pascal, but this was in middle school and I haven't heard of it being used anywhere else since then.

I have a feeling the rankings are really just picking up on a lot of old and abandoned sites teaching Pascal to kids and students. From what I've understood most of the popularity stemmed from the pretty aggressive pricing Borland used to push their TurboPascal development suite (which for me was my first introduction to programming) to schools and universities.

[Vistaus]

The only piece of software I know of in the 21st century that was written in Pascal was the (unfortunately) failed cross-platform Pixel image editor app: http://www.kanzelsberger.com/pixel/?page_id=12

[kpedersen]

Since at long last it is no longer "compulsory" to develop in C++, Java or C#

In the case of C++, it kinda still is though.

Android - C++ via NDK
iOS - C++ via Objective-C++
WinStore - C++ via C++/cx
Web / HTML5 - C++ via Emscripten (Very powerful, UE4 and Unity also use this)
Blackberry - C++ via official SDK or Marmalade
Desktop platforms - C++ via Anything can be used (also hundreds of C/C++ compilers)
Embedded platforms - C++ via GCC based cross compiler
Game Consoles (Xbox,PS, Wii) - C++ via Official SDKs, Codeplay, GCC based homebrew compilers

I honestly cannot justify writing software in anything else due to the fantastic portability C++ offers. The language isn't particularly a joy to use but the only other option would be C so it is a good trade off.

The only things that C++ doesn't work on is artificially locked down platforms such as XBox 360 Live Arcade (Now impossible due to dead DRM) or the PS Vita Indie stuff (Also now impossible due to dead DRM). (Thanks guys, that was a fscking waste of time!)

The only next best thing currently is C# but that is purely because of the marketing work by Microsoft, Unity and Xamarin. Once these companies move onto something else, it is game over. Plus if any of you have experience using C# for a complex cross platform project, you will probably remember the amount of time wasted just writing sodding binding layers between the platform's native C/C++ library and the .NET runtime. It is just a pointless exercise. C# is fine if you like it, but I wouldn't use it as a portability solution. I would say the same goes for Java but frankly they are the same language / technology so it goes without saying doesn't it .