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> I wish I could like D but I just don't, some of the decisions it made I think were mistakes. Like what? D is everything I ever wanted C++ to be. The only rea

> I wish I could like D but I just don't, some of the decisions it made I think were mistakes. Like what? D is everything I ever wanted C++ to be. The only reason I feel compelled to learn Rust is peer pressure, but if it were up to me, D would be the language everyone is getting excited about instead.

kllrnohj 7y ago
I don't like D's GC. I don't like its multiple modes (-betterC) which only seem to really exist because enough people didn't like the original design of D. The defaults seem off (like shouldn't functions default as @safe?) I get a general impression of D being in just too weird of a space. It's occupying a zone somewhere between C/C++ & Java/C#, and I'm not sure that's a place I ever want to be. I'd rather just use Java/C# if I need D's feature set, and if I don't I don't want to deal with the headaches that result from trying to avoid them (or use -betterC mode which seems to just be what D should have been from the start)
- jordigh 7y ago
  Oh, the GC. I don't understand why everyone seems so hung up on that. I've never noticed it at all. Maybe I just write code where the GC doesn't matter. I mean, I do use the GC, it's just that it's never been something that I care about, just like I don't care how exactly new and delete are implemented in C++ (are they just malloc and free wrappers? Eh, who cares.)
  - kllrnohj 7y ago
    2 reasons: 1) Because interop with non-GC (aka, C) code is terrible from a GC'd language. D is better here than other GC'd languages as you can still build smart pointers via RAII, but it still sucks. It's a significant mindset shift in random spots in your code. 2) Custom allocators can be hugely important in achieving certain optimizations or runtime behaviors. This can either be for just performance reasons or in some cases are mandatory for correctness such as if it's a real-time thread.
  - danbolt 7y ago
    A lot of performance-sensitive code involved in game development usually eschews garbage collection, as pause times can affect per-frame performance budgets non-deterministically. It's partially why Rust and modern C++ are getting a lot of attention in that space, as they provide a lot of higher-level niceties but don't require the overhead of a GC.

kllrnohj 7y ago

I don't like D's GC. I don't like its multiple modes (-betterC) which only seem to really exist because enough people didn't like the original design of D. The defaults seem off (like shouldn't functions default as @safe?) I get a general impression of D being in just too weird of a space. It's occupying a zone somewhere between C/C++ & Java/C#, and I'm not sure that's a place I ever want to be. I'd rather just use Java/C# if I need D's feature set, and if I don't I don't want to deal with the headaches that result from trying to avoid them (or use -betterC mode which seems to just be what D should have been from the start)

jordigh 7y ago
Oh, the GC. I don't understand why everyone seems so hung up on that. I've never noticed it at all. Maybe I just write code where the GC doesn't matter. I mean, I do use the GC, it's just that it's never been something that I care about, just like I don't care how exactly new and delete are implemented in C++ (are they just malloc and free wrappers? Eh, who cares.)
- kllrnohj 7y ago
  2 reasons: 1) Because interop with non-GC (aka, C) code is terrible from a GC'd language. D is better here than other GC'd languages as you can still build smart pointers via RAII, but it still sucks. It's a significant mindset shift in random spots in your code. 2) Custom allocators can be hugely important in achieving certain optimizations or runtime behaviors. This can either be for just performance reasons or in some cases are mandatory for correctness such as if it's a real-time thread.
- danbolt 7y ago
  A lot of performance-sensitive code involved in game development usually eschews garbage collection, as pause times can affect per-frame performance budgets non-deterministically. It's partially why Rust and modern C++ are getting a lot of attention in that space, as they provide a lot of higher-level niceties but don't require the overhead of a GC.