But Alexandrescu will also tell you that programmers can use D to build anything, including the front-end of a web service. The language is so simple, he says, you can even use it for quick-and-dirty programming scripts. “You want to write a 50-line script? Sure, go for it.” This is what Bright strove for—a language suitable for all situations. Today, he says, people so often build their online services with multiple languages—a simpler language for the front and a more powerful language for the back. The goal should be a single language that does it all. “Having a single language suitable for both the front and the back would be a lot more productive for programmers,” Bright says. “D aims to be that language.” -- LOL, and that sounds nothing like what java and c# also were sold as being and what now (despite architectural difficulties that preclude it) what every millenial who fancies themselves a coder is trying to do with javascript...................javascript. *wretch* That said have spent the last 6 months writing code in go, the declarative and clean c like syntax, the ready library support and the ability to deploy scaled functionality via micro services to a front end tier developed in parallel by designers making simple JSON based service calls to the go back end I can say Ive definitely seen the light....rather some aspects of the efficiency of using such programming languages but still when you are using java and a framework you get the same end to end stack functionality that these guys purport to have achieved with D. In the AgilEntity framework I developed for example java via servlets is useful for service deployments to front end pages (written in html/javascript/css) its also useful in the same way from jsp templates....its also useful via transformation via library calls inside xslt (for those still playing with lots of xslt and xml transformations ...publishing...etc.) and all that versatility comes with full management of the code in the framework via web interface. The mentioned compile advantages are a canard, languages like java compile very fast for well written applications, packaged logically and efficiently and kept functionally atomic per class compilation becomes a very easy task. AgilEntity compiles the entire project of 5 main packages in under 30 seconds every time (and its 10 years of code)....and this computer is about 6 years old. Compile time issues are a chimera that is brought out it seems by people who write code like they are building rube goldberg machines (ie. not efficiently) or who have forgotten that computers have gotten very powerful in the last 25 years. ;) What a language cant do alone can be built around it over time ....the D creator simply put a lot of that work into versatility for us on the back end but what type of work loads are it really optimal at compared to using another robust language say like java or c++ (less scope for front end work but faster because of it)...I am curious to see the performance tests out there for it. FInally, java didnt succeed solely because SUN wanted to promote it...java succeeded because it did a great job of providing a general solution to writing functional and object oriented code across many domains. The write once/run every where mantra has been pretty much achieved. Java is running your Android phone, java is behind the front end functions of many web sites...at the same time that it is behind the back end functions of those sites. Java is embedded in your Raspberry pi controller....it really has taken over the mantle of power that C++ formerly had by being easier in many ways to use than c++ (bye bye pointer arithmetic, bye bye multiple inheritance, bye bye operator overloading, hello byte code compiler and jvm). As the library support exploded lots of garbage was thrown out into the development space but that always happens ....it happened with the windows OS in software it happened with the AT architecture in hardware but the general availability of an solution for any conceivable desire makes it a language thats hard to beat...and now that it is the mother tongue of Android the fastest growing OS in the world...it is pretty much solidified for a long long time. Now excuse me while I go read a little bit about this D thing. ;)
Posted on: Thu, 10 Jul 2014 06:25:35 +0000