3 ms·

New D language pumps up programmer productivity

14 points by pius 19y ago

pius 19y ago
There's a D book out (finally): http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=100391 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=100391
tx 19y ago
D is a great "systems language", but Walter is marketing it wrong: he should have catered to influential and growing community of C/Linux devs, as opposed to dying breed of corporate drones who do C++/Windows. I have been one of those drones myself, and they aren't interested: they're moving to C#/.NET. DigitalMars does not even have a typical Linux-friendly download, instead there is a zip with mixed bag of Win/Linux binaries, WTF? The name sucks too: it's not search engine friendly, try googling for "exceptions in D" for instance. Sorry for the rant. I just want D to succeed.
Zak 19y ago
It's certainly a step up from C++ or Java. Notably, it has anonymous functions and lexical closures. I'm not a big fan of static typing though, especially with explicit type declarations, but I'd certainly like to see D replace C++. If speed is a concern, everybody's favorite language benchmark[0] shows D being about 20% slower than GCC. Within 100% of GCC are implementations of ML, Ocaml, Haskell, Common Lisp and Scala. So what should you use if you want speed with your power? My first recommendation would be a good profiler. [0] http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/gp4/benchmark.php?test=all&lang=all http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/gp4/benchmark.php?test=all...
- jey 19y ago
  That's the Digital Mars D compiler being benchmarked. I bet the GDC compiler is really, really close to GCC's performance since it uses the same optimizers and backend.
  - pius 19y ago
    I think it's within 20%.
bayareaguy 19y ago
Is anyone here actually using it for anything?
- pius 19y ago
  I'm picking it up now for one my company's products. We're doing some encoding that integrates extant C headers; I figured this would be a great time to pick up D.
  - aswanson 19y ago
    What does it give you that Ruby doesn't?
    - Kaizyn 19y ago
      Compilation of your applications to binary for one. Also, it enables you to do the bit twiddling necessary to write device drivers and other lovely systems programming things. Maybe we'll see a better scripting language VM in D one of these days?
    - pius 19y ago
      That remains to be seen. I'm doing some pretty hardcore video encoding and processing that will use and extend some existing C libraries. I was tempted to just use the FFI to call them from Ruby (which I still may end up doing), but I figured that this is a great chance to test-drive D.
      - aswanson 19y ago
        Sounds like your working along the lines that I am, except I am using (gasp) c++. Are you doing H.264/263 or some custom stuff?
        pius 19y ago
        Interesting. My stuff is pretty niche and custom. No H.264 for me. :)
jmzachary 19y ago
If Paul and Walter could merge their two efforts, we would have a programming language called "DArc". I'm planning to use C++ and Python for my startup this year. It's a little interesting to think about using D and Arc instead.

14 points by pius 19y ago

pius 19y ago

There's a D book out (finally): http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=100391 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=100391

tx 19y ago

D is a great "systems language", but Walter is marketing it wrong: he should have catered to influential and growing community of C/Linux devs, as opposed to dying breed of corporate drones who do C++/Windows. I have been one of those drones myself, and they aren't interested: they're moving to C#/.NET. DigitalMars does not even have a typical Linux-friendly download, instead there is a zip with mixed bag of Win/Linux binaries, WTF? The name sucks too: it's not search engine friendly, try googling for "exceptions in D" for instance. Sorry for the rant. I just want D to succeed.

Zak 19y ago

It's certainly a step up from C++ or Java. Notably, it has anonymous functions and lexical closures. I'm not a big fan of static typing though, especially with explicit type declarations, but I'd certainly like to see D replace C++. If speed is a concern, everybody's favorite language benchmark[0] shows D being about 20% slower than GCC. Within 100% of GCC are implementations of ML, Ocaml, Haskell, Common Lisp and Scala. So what should you use if you want speed with your power? My first recommendation would be a good profiler. [0] http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/gp4/benchmark.php?test=all&lang=all http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/gp4/benchmark.php?test=all...

jey 19y ago
That's the Digital Mars D compiler being benchmarked. I bet the GDC compiler is really, really close to GCC's performance since it uses the same optimizers and backend.
- pius 19y ago
  I think it's within 20%.

bayareaguy 19y ago

Is anyone here actually using it for anything?

pius 19y ago
I'm picking it up now for one my company's products. We're doing some encoding that integrates extant C headers; I figured this would be a great time to pick up D.
- aswanson 19y ago
  What does it give you that Ruby doesn't?
  - Kaizyn 19y ago
    Compilation of your applications to binary for one. Also, it enables you to do the bit twiddling necessary to write device drivers and other lovely systems programming things. Maybe we'll see a better scripting language VM in D one of these days?
  - pius 19y ago
    That remains to be seen. I'm doing some pretty hardcore video encoding and processing that will use and extend some existing C libraries. I was tempted to just use the FFI to call them from Ruby (which I still may end up doing), but I figured that this is a great chance to test-drive D.
    - aswanson 19y ago
      Sounds like your working along the lines that I am, except I am using (gasp) c++. Are you doing H.264/263 or some custom stuff?
      - pius 19y ago
        Interesting. My stuff is pretty niche and custom. No H.264 for me. :)

jmzachary 19y ago

If Paul and Walter could merge their two efforts, we would have a programming language called "DArc". I'm planning to use C++ and Python for my startup this year. It's a little interesting to think about using D and Arc instead.