I have spent the last few days learning a bit of D, I have contributed to a library, written my own library and developed a basic understanding of the language. It comes across as a very powerful and developer-friendly language. However there are a few downsides to it.
- Try searching (particularly Google - important) for anything related to "D", it's impossible. The same issue existed for C# not so long ago, but now Google recognises the "#" symbol as not just noise to be ignored. Searching for "write output to file in D" will return results for Python and C IO routines. If you specify "dlang" you will be asked "Did you mean golang?" which I guess is fair enough since I'm using Golang's creator's website.
- There's a significant lack of libraries for fundamental operations. I had to hack away at the ddb (PostgreSQL library) to make it accept BYTEA parameters. The scrypt library relied on having an entire software platform installed instead of just a simple library reference.
- If I wanted to develop a large-scale application that would require more than just myself working on it I will have a hard time finding paid D developers to assist me. Whereas Golang has the backing of Google so immediately gets a good reputation and following on that basis alone.
I spent the last few days playing with vibe.d and have enjoyed it, but I think for now, if I were to choose a technology to build a large system in, I'd have to go for something more mainstream. I definitely will be keeping my finger on the D pulse and using it for smaller scale projects.