Beautiful Binary Search in D(muscar.eu) |
Beautiful Binary Search in D(muscar.eu) |
SEARCH ALL TABLE-ENTRY
AT END PERFORM NOENTRY
WHEN KEY-1 (INDX-1) = VALUE-1 AND
KEY-2 (INDX-1) = VALUE-2 AND
KEY-3 (INDX-1) = VALUE-3
MOVE PART-1 (INDX-1) TO OUTPUT-AREA
END-SEARCH
Also I physically shuddered when I saw the word template. Did no one learn from C++ mistakes?
While we might disagree on a lot of semantical things on this, I'd argue that D very much learned from those mistakes. There's a strong argument for D's templates to be "templates done right" (which C++'s most certainly aren't).
So I encourage you to read more into this topic. To me, this question seems just about as uninformed as someone complaining about a LISP tutorial on macros, asking "did no one learn from the mistake that is the C preprocessor?".
If/where there are other models better suited for metaprogramming would be another (interesting) discussion (full of tradeoffs, I'm sure), but the notion of proper (hygienic?) templates not being adequate anywhere can certainly not be inferred from C++'s implementation alone.
D was designed by Walter Bright (who played a large role in inflicting C++ on the world) and Andrei Alexandrescu so you could say that...
When it comes to metaprogramming, it's excellent, but it is a double edged sword, it can be useful, but if abused it'll tank your build speed, so one must find a proper balance to avoid pain later
One of the few languages that offers its own backend! (LLVM/GCC backends are also available)
I love this level of independence, a real labor of love, one of the best better C, i'd even say this is the evolution C needed
Yes, people always chime in about how you can disable D's garbage collector, but then you're stuck with an awkward language that lacks support for basic things like exceptions, closures, strings, slices, and a host of other features not to mention pretty much any third party library.
If you are willing to accept a GC then D might be a good choice, if you find it fun then by all means go for it, but it's no longer so clear cut at that point given the wealth of GC'd programming languages available.
You can ignore the GC or totally suppress it with @nogc or even not even link it with -betterC flag
Having the GC optional is nice since you no longer need to use a scripting language to do your cli tools or utilities, it's there and well integrated
If you are a proper developer who care about speed and fast code, you'll want to develop your own STL anyways, just like C/C++ are already doing, just like Rust people are also doing to get faster compile speed, D gives C/C++ interop as well as full C11 compiler
So it's the perfect evolution of C, since it can compile and consume its ecosystem
You can even consume python and rust libraries, wgpu works great with D
int[5] a = [1,2,3,4,5];
writeln(a.length); // 5It feels a lot like a mix between C# and JS, but at the low level access of C++.
It has a lot of unique features but the "killer feature" by far for me is Contract Programming and Invariants
https://tour.dlang.org/tour/en/gems/contract-programming
Invariants changed my life, so much so that I built a GCC plugin to add them to C++
It used to be the case that the developer tooling wasn't very good, but the "code-d" VS Code plugin has matured greatly in the last few years and has some features you won't find even in bigger languages
(Like the ability to colorize source code lines with GC profiling info or test coverage status)
---
Another useful bit of info is that AddressSanitizer and tools like LLVM libFuzzer work with the LDC compiler
I want to add profile/coverage info in emacs now :)
D is a strange point in PL landscape, it's been here for ages, never took off (for some value of taking off) even though it seems there's a lot to like.
From my point of view in systems programming, experience with Oberon back in the day and such, I would really like that we would be talking more about D and less about Rust and Go, but unfortunately it isn't how things went.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34211482
D has no (FAANG) corporate sponsor and it does all things well/has no particular speciality, these two things make it hard to compete with marketing of other languages I think
There's a small but dedicated and active community
But Digital Mars is a company. D:
>From my point of view in systems programming, experience with Oberon back in the day and such, I would really like that we would be talking more about D and less about Rust and Go, but unfortunately it isn't how things went.
As someone who has no idea what Oberon is or does sorry and believes that using anything other than Rust is literally pouring blood on your hands and de facto proscribes you in the future inquisitions on digital harm through software, why?
That's a rather unfair characterization. He wrote the Datalight/Zortech C++ compiler. He was never--that I recall--a big flag-waver for C++.
Anyway, I was joking — Walter did one of the first (if not the first?) "Proper" C++ compilers, so the idea of not learning from C++ is rather ironic.
a great feature IMO, helps communication in large teams I believe (in the imaginary world where teams use D :)
thanks for the link,
have the best day
Good call - I was unfortunate enough that I had to use it professionally for a few years. As comic book guy in the Simpsons would say "Worst language ever!".
That’s a difference without a distinction: people will use the defaults unless they can’t.
So in C++ libraries will avoid GCs unless their work basically requires it, whereas in D they’ll require it unless the author is constrained to a nogc requirement.
Though, I'm not sure you could even have a precise GC for C++ even if you wanted to, given the way most C++ is written.
Is this about D code that interops with C/C++?
You have "extern (C++)" and @nogc for that
The GC also doesn't run if you don't call it so mitigating it's downsides while keeping the good aspects isn't all that hard.
Bear in mind you're simply not going to convince anti-GC folks that you can have the "good aspects" of a GC without the bad ones, and they're the folks you're trying to market to. To many C++ programmers the only good GC is one that is absent. You can tell them they're wrong all you want, but regardless of who's right, it's always been a losing battle.
You can also make it so it will compile but won't collect unless you ask it to explicitly.
We don't exclusively market to C++ developers. D replaced PHP and Java for quite a few D users.
If you see PHP and Java replacement as taking off, that's awesome. I was addressing those who want to see it replace C++.
There's even a mode of D that operates this way by default, "-betterC" meant to be a C replacement
The GC really is an entirety opt-in component.
I'd encourage you/other folks to give D an honest try, you might be surprised
Yeah you're boned in that case I think and that's a real problem that can pop up if you want full @nogc
EDIT: Maybe not based on Max's comment
D-Plug (Audio FX plugins) is one example of having to build up a dependency stack of @nogc compatible deps, a lot of that is in-house stuff.
Not impossible but it's a commitment, at which point you may as well use something else unless you REALLY want to use D, for sure.
That's exactly the issue. Having to reinvent every wheel you need just isn't a selling point.
There is lots of @nogc code available to depend upon
That's not sufficient here. You can literally have a billion @nogc libraries, and even if there was one single GC-requiring library that many people want to use, the problem would be still there.
The only way to make this work is to ensure all of the libraries most people want to use work fine without a GC (or have @nogc alternatives that people would actually want to use). While not theoretically impossible, practically speaking, that's incredibly hard to pull off when you have a shiny GC sitting there.
If the answer is along the lines of "corporate backing", why did Rust get corporate backing and D didn't?
Also in a world where JavaScript (excel, even) is dominant let's not ascribe these things to purely rational factors.