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A comment on What Makes the Zig Programming Language Unique?. Parent comment

Re:What Makes the Zig Programming Language Unique? by cyber_kinetist on Thursday October 06, 2022 @07:25AM (#33106890)
The reason D didn’t really gain traction over the years was because it required a garbage collector. Recently it’s going the other direction via betterC (a mode where you can ditch the GC), but many parts of the standard library still require the GC to run properly.
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Re:What Makes the Zig Programming Language Unique? by pjmlp on Thursday October 06, 2022 @07:50AM (#33107029)
C# hasn't had the same issues,

https://www.wildernesslabs.co/

https://nikolayk.medium.com/getting-started-with-unity-dots-...

Had Remedy experiment worked out, maybe DOTS would be using D instead of having their own compiler infrastructure for HPC#.

Nor Java even,

https://www.ptc.com/en/products/developer-tools/perc

https://www.aicas.com/wp/products-services/jamaicavm/

The main reasons are not having a big name company that would push D no matter what, and lack of focus where D should aim for.

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Re:What Makes the Zig Programming Language Unique? by WalterBright on Thursday October 06, 2022 @02:50PM (#33112360)
D is a general purpose programming language, it does not aim at a niche.
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Re:What Makes the Zig Programming Language Unique? by pjmlp on Thursday October 06, 2022 @04:04PM (#33113335)
It is called killer feature for market adoption.
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Re:What Makes the Zig Programming Language Unique? by WalterBright on Thursday October 06, 2022 @02:49PM (#33112351)
Very, very little of the library requires a GC.

You can ensure your D code doesn't use the GC by adding the `@nogc` attribute.

But really, all this concern about the GC is misplaced. It's just another tool available. You can use it in D, or use RAII, or your own allocation system. It's your choice as a D programmer.

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Re:What Makes the Zig Programming Language Unique? by teleforce on Thursday October 06, 2022 @07:51PM (#33115701)
It is a shame that until now the software industry has not figure out how to reliably perform automatic memory management or GC. Unlike the auto industry the manual transmission is going to a dinasour route compared to the now default automatic transmission.

I am giving this analogy since Walter has a degree in mechanical engineering and he has correctly made the GC a default in D but not mandatory, but the choice somehow is not popular in the software industry.

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