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Would you say that metaprogramming is an important selling point for you ? If so, it would be a sign for me no to invest in D, as my experience is that easy me

Would you say that metaprogramming is an important selling point for you ? If so, it would be a sign for me no to invest in D, as my experience is that easy metaprogramming leads to more abuse than goodies. I

mhh__ 8y ago
Yes. D metaprogramming is so fucking good that it's easy to do well. It's really obvious, and even at it's worst it's no worse than C++ (Except much easier to debug due to D's much less fundamentalist type system). I hate languages that deliberately take features away from the developer: This is why - although I respect the philosophy - I would never choose to use Go, for example. But to each their own, etc.
- foobarchu 8y ago
  > even at it's worst it's no worse than C++ I can't think of a language whose metaprogramming features get abused worse than C++, so saying it's not worse isn't really heaping praise.
  - mhh__ 8y ago
    I was really referring to the error messages, because you can write C++ style templates (e.g. SFINAE) in D but no one does because D was designed properly so it has proper traits etc. C++ style template messages are uncommon but possible, however D is much much easier to debug because the type system is working with you and basically available in the language - in the sense that you can use traits and reflection to work out what went wrong (as opposed to stdin. byLineCopy.array.sort!((a, b) => a >b).each!writeln; This example is everyday code in D, but basically unthinkable in C++ (Possible but try getting it that short without writing your own library). It is also telling that the aesthetic style of the above code (UFCS) is a feature D has had for years but was rejected for inclusion into C++ despite BS backing it.
- sametmax 8y ago
  Ok, it encourages magic. That's what I wanted to know.
  - mhh__ 8y ago
    Good magic, bear in mind: It's usually really obvious how it works, unlike C++.
- flukus 8y ago
  > I hate languages that deliberately take features away from the developer: This is why - although I respect the philosophy - I would never choose to use Go, for example. The don't really take the features away, they move the problem to a proper templating/code generation language. These are language neutral so you don't have to learn a different one for each language, they are often more powerful too. IME the code they generate is a lot easier to deal with than templated code.
  - mhh__ 8y ago
    In D, you can run full code at compile time and then include that string into the file: So it is it's own code generation language.

mhh__ 8y ago

Yes. D metaprogramming is so fucking good that it's easy to do well. It's really obvious, and even at it's worst it's no worse than C++ (Except much easier to debug due to D's much less fundamentalist type system). I hate languages that deliberately take features away from the developer: This is why - although I respect the philosophy - I would never choose to use Go, for example. But to each their own, etc.

foobarchu 8y ago
> even at it's worst it's no worse than C++ I can't think of a language whose metaprogramming features get abused worse than C++, so saying it's not worse isn't really heaping praise.
- mhh__ 8y ago
  I was really referring to the error messages, because you can write C++ style templates (e.g. SFINAE) in D but no one does because D was designed properly so it has proper traits etc. C++ style template messages are uncommon but possible, however D is much much easier to debug because the type system is working with you and basically available in the language - in the sense that you can use traits and reflection to work out what went wrong (as opposed to stdin. byLineCopy.array.sort!((a, b) => a >b).each!writeln; This example is everyday code in D, but basically unthinkable in C++ (Possible but try getting it that short without writing your own library). It is also telling that the aesthetic style of the above code (UFCS) is a feature D has had for years but was rejected for inclusion into C++ despite BS backing it.
sametmax 8y ago
Ok, it encourages magic. That's what I wanted to know.
- mhh__ 8y ago
  Good magic, bear in mind: It's usually really obvious how it works, unlike C++.
flukus 8y ago
> I hate languages that deliberately take features away from the developer: This is why - although I respect the philosophy - I would never choose to use Go, for example. The don't really take the features away, they move the problem to a proper templating/code generation language. These are language neutral so you don't have to learn a different one for each language, they are often more powerful too. IME the code they generate is a lot easier to deal with than templated code.
- mhh__ 8y ago
  In D, you can run full code at compile time and then include that string into the file: So it is it's own code generation language.