Hi guys,

Just been browsing google and i have come across a language i wasn't aware existed. the D programming languages purports to deliver the power and effiency of C/C++ with memory management of Java.

I was wondering if anyone has had much experience with this language and how well it works with linux and KDE/Gnome etc.

I'm also interested in some snippets of code that do meaningful things so i can compare them to Java/C.

Thanks

dafat

post a link to where you read this............thx

I haven't looked at it, so you can completely ignore my opinion.

It really depends on what you mean by special. Do you mean good? It could be very good, but that doesn't mean you should use it. Unless you are planning on using and supporting a language all by yourself or a small subset of people, then you should use something that is "standard". In the real world, it's all about support and compatibility.

If you are truly looking for something "special", you should look into Ruby. I don't know anything about it either. hehe... But you can tell if something is "special" by how well it is getting adopted.

The gcc front end is very buggy.... so while it sounds good in theory, it doesn't seam very usable to this point.

I just wonder if the world really needs another programming language? Surely at this stage there is already a language out there that can accomplish whatever you might try to do in D?

There was a big thread on this a while back. My opinion given on that one was that Windows API and DLL support are written into the language definition, making it biased toward Windows. There is no built in POSIX support, however. Just as VMWare is much weaker on Linux than on Windows, D will probably stay geared toward Windows with a second rate version for POSIX. I can't imagine it staying entirely free as C/C++ are for long since keeping up with a commercial OS isn't always free; what happens when MS makes them pay for specs on new API/DLL features? If I were a greedy bastard (and owned MS) I would do that...
ta0kira

PS (enforcing a double standard...) why can't it be biased toward POSIX like Qt is?

I think it's trying to have the best of both worlds (C/Java). While good in theory i can see it definitely having maturity problems seeing as it hasn't been around for as long as the other languages.

I wondering if it's hard to program windows applications with it though? Interesting

http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=6761

there's a good article on D. i was gonna learn it, but then i heard rumors that the frontend to gcc is not exactly good to go yet. then a friend pointed me towards ruby which was what i am looking for.

I first saw D about two years ago. It seemed to have died until now. But I don't even see a need for Java, as C(++) does everything I need it to do (well, Perl and PHP for web apps).

Java makes a good intro to OOP for people who have never programmed before. A much better intro than C++ anyway. You can also write portable network apps with it. Even if D is an improved consolidation of Java, C, and C++, it won't fully replace any of them. It won't make as fast of binaries as C because it generates C++ code (not to mention I don't see the Linux kernel being converted to D code), it won't become a de facto web standard like Java because the assurance that any arbitrary web app isn't going to erase your hd without asking you isn’t there, and of course C++ will still be there because, even though it's more sophisticated than C, everything is in the code and you can therefore control everything (ideally anyway). D appears to want to hide certain things like de-allocation of dynamic memory which I think is sloppy unless you are using auto pointers, but in that case at least you know it's the class that is doing it, and you have the choice to NOT have automatic de-allocation. You can adapt allocation and deallocation to your needs. You can also look at the header file to see exactly what will happen when you use an auto pointer. And of course, it won't ever replace C++ because it has OS specific features.
ta0kira