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I mean this with all due respect, but you are far too biased. It's fair for you to state that D makes solid efforts to be approachable and easy to learn, but yo

I mean this with all due respect, but you are far too biased. It's fair for you to state that D makes solid efforts to be approachable and easy to learn, but you cannot claim it is easy to learn: you don't have the data, and you invented the language. > Everything needed is available, for free. This is a moot point. I struggle to think of another language for which this is not true. > But since D supports multi-paradigm, it's easier to use D to teach it. You've confused learning to program and learning a paradigm with learning a language. They are not the same thing. For one, multi-paradigm languages hinder comprehension for newcomers as there are too many ways to do things. It's too easy and convenient to be impure with respect to a paradigm. Multi-paradigm languages are mostly useful after you understand the individual paradigms well, but you will surely disagree with me here. We're all entitled to be wrong from time to time :) I respect you and your work but you're missing the forest for the trees here. When I've taught people to program, the simplest environments are the most effective. Basic, C, Lua, Processing, Lisp, etc. By comparison, C++ and Python are full of difficult-to-grasp footguns, I'd strongly avoid them (or comparisons to them) in this day and age.

WalterBright 5y ago
> you are far too biased Keep in mind that I created D because I wanted to program in it. It is based on my decades of experience with other languages and supporting those languages and knowing where people go wrong with them and where the problems are. > C C is a simple language, but grasping how it works is not simple. To get C you need to understand assembler, which is not simple at all. The misunderstandings novices have about pointers, for example, are misunderstandings about how computers work. C is loaded with legacy problems, too, like uninitialized variables containing garbage. There's all that confusion between prototypes and non-prototypes. Implicit coercion of 2 to a pointer: int *p = 2; The C preprocessor is nowhere near as simple as it appears. Arrays are determined to decay to uncontrolled pointers. Buffer overflows are pervasive, even among the most professional programs. D (as Better C) is a very C-like language, but minus those problems. It's reasonable to say it is much more easily learned. It has far fewer footguns. > You've confused I may have been unclear, but I am not confused. I've written two C compilers from scratch, and 3 C preprocessors. I know every last dirty detail of C. Basic, however, we can agree is a simple language. But it teaches bad habits, which have to be unlearned.
- xyzzy_plugh 5y ago
  > Implicit coercion of 2 to a pointer: int *p = 2; Look, you and I know this is horrible and should probably be a war crime, but you have to admit: it's elegant. The ability to pierce the abstraction with C is the only reason it's on that list. I can teach people how computers actually work without getting to assembly (though it's usually a good idea to go there). It all depends on the goal. If your goal is to understand how computers execute programs, then a little C doesn't hurt. > But it teaches bad habits, which have to be unlearned. Apologies, but you're confused again: you've conflated learning how to code, with learning to be a software engineer. They're related, but less so than you think. In my experience, it is impossible to teach a student a lesson that requires experience without providing them the opportunity to experience it. Teach someone Basic, let them do bad things, then show them the light. "If you give a man a fish" and all that.
  - WalterBright 5y ago
    Telling me again that I'm confused and telling me what I think and what I have to admit is rather presumptuous. You can make all your points just fine without that. When I see `int *p = 2;`, "elegant" is not at all what comes to mind. "Bug" is what comes to mind. Reminds me of my wood shop teacher. He showed me the right way to use hand tools, from the start, which pays off every time since that I use one. He also showed how to use power tools, and never failed to show us the missing finger on his hand - the price for taking shortcuts. Whenever I use the table saw, I think of his finger stub and slow down, take my time, and do it right.
- WalterBright 5y ago
  Another issue with C being an allegedly good beginner language is strings. C is simply terrible at handling strings. Let's say I want to concatenate two strings: char *concat(char *p, char *q) { size_t plen = strlen(p); size_t qlen = strlen(q); char *r = (char*)malloc(plen + qlen + 1); assert(r); memcpy(r, p, plen); memcpy(r + plen, q, qlen + 1); return r; } And never mind the issue of when to free() r. Contrast with D: string concat(string p, string q) { return p ~ q; } P.S. Yes, I know about the potential overflow problem with `plen + qlen + 1`.
petre 5y ago
I've tried D after programming in Perl and wish it had existed when I was in highschool and in my first uni year, so that I could have been taught D instead of Borland C. It's too bad it didn't make its way into embedded programming where we still have to use C or C++ or dumbed down high level languages, even if it was just for the BetterC part. D-style OOP would be nice as well, though. Maybe LDC and GDC would change that by targeting more platforms and ARM eating the world. Thank you for creating the language.

WalterBright 5y ago

> you are far too biased Keep in mind that I created D because I wanted to program in it. It is based on my decades of experience with other languages and supporting those languages and knowing where people go wrong with them and where the problems are. > C C is a simple language, but grasping how it works is not simple. To get C you need to understand assembler, which is not simple at all. The misunderstandings novices have about pointers, for example, are misunderstandings about how computers work. C is loaded with legacy problems, too, like uninitialized variables containing garbage. There's all that confusion between prototypes and non-prototypes. Implicit coercion of 2 to a pointer: int *p = 2; The C preprocessor is nowhere near as simple as it appears. Arrays are determined to decay to uncontrolled pointers. Buffer overflows are pervasive, even among the most professional programs. D (as Better C) is a very C-like language, but minus those problems. It's reasonable to say it is much more easily learned. It has far fewer footguns. > You've confused I may have been unclear, but I am not confused. I've written two C compilers from scratch, and 3 C preprocessors. I know every last dirty detail of C. Basic, however, we can agree is a simple language. But it teaches bad habits, which have to be unlearned.

xyzzy_plugh 5y ago
> Implicit coercion of 2 to a pointer: int *p = 2; Look, you and I know this is horrible and should probably be a war crime, but you have to admit: it's elegant. The ability to pierce the abstraction with C is the only reason it's on that list. I can teach people how computers actually work without getting to assembly (though it's usually a good idea to go there). It all depends on the goal. If your goal is to understand how computers execute programs, then a little C doesn't hurt. > But it teaches bad habits, which have to be unlearned. Apologies, but you're confused again: you've conflated learning how to code, with learning to be a software engineer. They're related, but less so than you think. In my experience, it is impossible to teach a student a lesson that requires experience without providing them the opportunity to experience it. Teach someone Basic, let them do bad things, then show them the light. "If you give a man a fish" and all that.
- WalterBright 5y ago
  Telling me again that I'm confused and telling me what I think and what I have to admit is rather presumptuous. You can make all your points just fine without that. When I see `int *p = 2;`, "elegant" is not at all what comes to mind. "Bug" is what comes to mind. Reminds me of my wood shop teacher. He showed me the right way to use hand tools, from the start, which pays off every time since that I use one. He also showed how to use power tools, and never failed to show us the missing finger on his hand - the price for taking shortcuts. Whenever I use the table saw, I think of his finger stub and slow down, take my time, and do it right.
WalterBright 5y ago
Another issue with C being an allegedly good beginner language is strings. C is simply terrible at handling strings. Let's say I want to concatenate two strings: char *concat(char *p, char *q) { size_t plen = strlen(p); size_t qlen = strlen(q); char *r = (char*)malloc(plen + qlen + 1); assert(r); memcpy(r, p, plen); memcpy(r + plen, q, qlen + 1); return r; } And never mind the issue of when to free() r. Contrast with D: string concat(string p, string q) { return p ~ q; } P.S. Yes, I know about the potential overflow problem with `plen + qlen + 1`.

petre 5y ago

I've tried D after programming in Perl and wish it had existed when I was in highschool and in my first uni year, so that I could have been taught D instead of Borland C. It's too bad it didn't make its way into embedded programming where we still have to use C or C++ or dumbed down high level languages, even if it was just for the BetterC part. D-style OOP would be nice as well, though. Maybe LDC and GDC would change that by targeting more platforms and ARM eating the world. Thank you for creating the language.