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D, Rust, and Go (and C++) have been on stage together: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBbv1ej0fFo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBbv1ej0fFo

nnq 11y ago
Ouch, quite a difference between the founders... now I'm sure that C++ and Go will rule the world... unfortunately. D would be awesome for game development, because it's a "C++ done right", but I don't think Andrei has the salesman qualities needed to sell his child to game devs, like getting a bunch of people together to write a good open-source game engine that could also serve as an example of codding patterns. And Rust and his daddy... they are just too smart to become popular nowadays, people just don't have the will and time to sit and learn better ways of doing things when they have alternatives that "mostly work most of the time" and have an easier learning curve...
- vvanders 11y ago
  I wouldn't discount Rust, I'm finding it incredibly refreshing after spending most of my career in C++.
  - qznc 11y ago
    Rust has at least one niche for itself: Extension language for Python (or Javascript, Ruby, etc). A language with garbage collection disqualifies because Python already has one and two GCs in one application is not a good idea. Go has no plans to abandon GC and D still has a long way to go.
- forgettableuser 11y ago
  Game devs tired of C++ are waiting for Jonathan Blow's new language :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TH9VCN6UkyQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TH9VCN6UkyQ He states D isn't different enough to encourage most devs to go through the pain of switching. If they are going to switch, they would like that language to be much better targeted at solving game dev specific needs.
  - Thaxll 11y ago
    Game devs will 'never' switch to D or anything different from C++, it's a standard in the industry for the past 20 years, everything is built around it. Edit: yeay the downvote bandwagon, you should go to a AAA studio and ask about C++.
    - teamhappy 11y ago
      Not sure why you're getting down voted. The middleware business is dominated by C++, Windows is still the big player, and pretty much all legacy code is written in C++. Adopting new language features is far more practical than moving to another language. Relatively small backend apps written in C++ may be a better target for D and Rust.
      - pjmlp 11y ago
        Everyone that has been related to the game industry since the early days, knows game studios also change languages, despite the existing eco-systems. The difference is that they only do it when the OS vendors, or game console vendors, force them to adopt new languages in their SDKs.
    - vvanders 11y ago
      The game industry isn't just AAA(arguably AAA died a while ago). I know many gamdevs using Unity, LUA, Javascript, Gamemaker and a ton of other options.
    - jeremiep 11y ago
      Never say never. I am a game dev. I worked on AAA titles. I want to switch to D. Badly. There are reasons why AAA studios stick to C++: they don't know any better, they're in constant crunch-mode and don't have time to look for better alternatives, they use an existing engine with years of development history and don't want to invest in a new one, they target platforms where only C/C++ compilers are available, etc. You'd be surprised of the horrors you can find in a game's C++ code base (there are gems too, but you kind of expect those.)
- detaro 11y ago
  I've seen quite a bit of interest from hobby gamedev people in rust, way more than in D. I think reddit has had a rust gamedev sub for quite a while. Now if hobbyist/indie interest will influence the industry at large is a different matter, but I wouldn't count Rust out just yet.
  - masklinn 11y ago
    > I think reddit has had a rust gamedev sub for quite a while. https://www.reddit.com/r/rust_gamedev https://www.reddit.com/r/rust_gamedev it's pretty small though (1264 subscribers, /r/rust has 12000, /r/swift is the same and /r/golang has 16000)
    - Cyph0n 11y ago
      That's actually quite impressive for such a niche subreddit.
      - Keyframe 11y ago
        It's almost as /r/d_language
- Intermernet 11y ago
  I actually got the impression that the C++ and Go camps were pretty happy to see the competition and conversation. Those 4 languages are a pretty good cross section of the state of "systems programming" and I don't think any of them really feel that there isn't room, in the near future at least, for all of their offerings. I think D and Rust will both be fairly well received (if they aren't already), if only for their perspective on memory management. Andrei hopefully doesn't need salesman like qualities. I hope that there will be enough D evangelists to do the selling for him. Rust will hopefully be hugely successful, but if not, the ideas it espoused will certainly be developed further by future languages. Those 4 languages are aiming at different targets (I think Rust and D would be aiming at the most common group). C++ is looking to gain the ability to do "modern things" in C++ without confusing existing C++ devs, Go is looking to attract devs who want to do modern stuff with a tiny ramp-up cost (low cognitive over-head, low time-to-productivity, brilliant standard library, native concurrency primitives) whereas D and Rust are both offering languages with more "modern" features that may be theoretically sound, but don't have as much proven use in production code. These differences are blurred, and the languages obviously do have cross-over in terms of features and paradigms, but I doubt they're truly competing for many jobs yet. They all have their place, depending on what you're trying to achieve.
- pcwalton 11y ago
  > And Rust and his daddy... they are just too smart to become popular nowadays, people just don't have the will and time to sit and learn better ways of doing things when they have alternatives that "mostly work most of the time" and have an easier learning curve... That presupposes that Rust is more complex than C++ in a way that causes developers to learn C++ instead of Rust. Certainly there are a lot of C++ developers at the moment (though that number is much less than in years and decades past!) But I don't see that many new developers learning C++ anymore. Even beginning programmers who are interested in games are turning to higher-level languages and frameworks these days. My employer hires lots of C++ developers, and it's well-known that it's getting increasingly harder to find them. When comparing Rust to Go, sure, Go is an easier language to pick up. When comparing Rust to C++, the majority of people I've talked to think the ease of use advantage goes to Rust.
cmollis 11y ago
that's an impressive lineup. (flame bait: which one would fix your mem leak for you? I think AA, he seems pretty cool..)

nnq 11y ago

Ouch, quite a difference between the founders... now I'm sure that C++ and Go will rule the world... unfortunately. D would be awesome for game development, because it's a "C++ done right", but I don't think Andrei has the salesman qualities needed to sell his child to game devs, like getting a bunch of people together to write a good open-source game engine that could also serve as an example of codding patterns. And Rust and his daddy... they are just too smart to become popular nowadays, people just don't have the will and time to sit and learn better ways of doing things when they have alternatives that "mostly work most of the time" and have an easier learning curve...

vvanders 11y ago
I wouldn't discount Rust, I'm finding it incredibly refreshing after spending most of my career in C++.
- qznc 11y ago
  Rust has at least one niche for itself: Extension language for Python (or Javascript, Ruby, etc). A language with garbage collection disqualifies because Python already has one and two GCs in one application is not a good idea. Go has no plans to abandon GC and D still has a long way to go.
forgettableuser 11y ago
Game devs tired of C++ are waiting for Jonathan Blow's new language :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TH9VCN6UkyQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TH9VCN6UkyQ He states D isn't different enough to encourage most devs to go through the pain of switching. If they are going to switch, they would like that language to be much better targeted at solving game dev specific needs.
- Thaxll 11y ago
  Game devs will 'never' switch to D or anything different from C++, it's a standard in the industry for the past 20 years, everything is built around it. Edit: yeay the downvote bandwagon, you should go to a AAA studio and ask about C++.
  - teamhappy 11y ago
    Not sure why you're getting down voted. The middleware business is dominated by C++, Windows is still the big player, and pretty much all legacy code is written in C++. Adopting new language features is far more practical than moving to another language. Relatively small backend apps written in C++ may be a better target for D and Rust.
    - pjmlp 11y ago
      Everyone that has been related to the game industry since the early days, knows game studios also change languages, despite the existing eco-systems. The difference is that they only do it when the OS vendors, or game console vendors, force them to adopt new languages in their SDKs.
  - vvanders 11y ago
    The game industry isn't just AAA(arguably AAA died a while ago). I know many gamdevs using Unity, LUA, Javascript, Gamemaker and a ton of other options.
  - jeremiep 11y ago
    Never say never. I am a game dev. I worked on AAA titles. I want to switch to D. Badly. There are reasons why AAA studios stick to C++: they don't know any better, they're in constant crunch-mode and don't have time to look for better alternatives, they use an existing engine with years of development history and don't want to invest in a new one, they target platforms where only C/C++ compilers are available, etc. You'd be surprised of the horrors you can find in a game's C++ code base (there are gems too, but you kind of expect those.)
detaro 11y ago
I've seen quite a bit of interest from hobby gamedev people in rust, way more than in D. I think reddit has had a rust gamedev sub for quite a while. Now if hobbyist/indie interest will influence the industry at large is a different matter, but I wouldn't count Rust out just yet.
- masklinn 11y ago
  > I think reddit has had a rust gamedev sub for quite a while. https://www.reddit.com/r/rust_gamedev https://www.reddit.com/r/rust_gamedev it's pretty small though (1264 subscribers, /r/rust has 12000, /r/swift is the same and /r/golang has 16000)
  - Cyph0n 11y ago
    That's actually quite impressive for such a niche subreddit.
    - Keyframe 11y ago
      It's almost as /r/d_language
Intermernet 11y ago
I actually got the impression that the C++ and Go camps were pretty happy to see the competition and conversation. Those 4 languages are a pretty good cross section of the state of "systems programming" and I don't think any of them really feel that there isn't room, in the near future at least, for all of their offerings. I think D and Rust will both be fairly well received (if they aren't already), if only for their perspective on memory management. Andrei hopefully doesn't need salesman like qualities. I hope that there will be enough D evangelists to do the selling for him. Rust will hopefully be hugely successful, but if not, the ideas it espoused will certainly be developed further by future languages. Those 4 languages are aiming at different targets (I think Rust and D would be aiming at the most common group). C++ is looking to gain the ability to do "modern things" in C++ without confusing existing C++ devs, Go is looking to attract devs who want to do modern stuff with a tiny ramp-up cost (low cognitive over-head, low time-to-productivity, brilliant standard library, native concurrency primitives) whereas D and Rust are both offering languages with more "modern" features that may be theoretically sound, but don't have as much proven use in production code. These differences are blurred, and the languages obviously do have cross-over in terms of features and paradigms, but I doubt they're truly competing for many jobs yet. They all have their place, depending on what you're trying to achieve.
pcwalton 11y ago
> And Rust and his daddy... they are just too smart to become popular nowadays, people just don't have the will and time to sit and learn better ways of doing things when they have alternatives that "mostly work most of the time" and have an easier learning curve... That presupposes that Rust is more complex than C++ in a way that causes developers to learn C++ instead of Rust. Certainly there are a lot of C++ developers at the moment (though that number is much less than in years and decades past!) But I don't see that many new developers learning C++ anymore. Even beginning programmers who are interested in games are turning to higher-level languages and frameworks these days. My employer hires lots of C++ developers, and it's well-known that it's getting increasingly harder to find them. When comparing Rust to Go, sure, Go is an easier language to pick up. When comparing Rust to C++, the majority of people I've talked to think the ease of use advantage goes to Rust.

cmollis 11y ago

that's an impressive lineup. (flame bait: which one would fix your mem leak for you? I think AA, he seems pretty cool..)