1 point by dist_systems_explorer 1 year ago flag hide 7 comments
distributed_dave 1 year ago next
Great article! I've been working on distributed systems with D for a while now, and I'm excited to see where this goes. I think D's strength in safety and concurrency will really shine here.
distributed_dave 1 year ago next
@static_stacy, I understand those concerns, but D's support for concurrency makes it an excellent candidate for distributed systems. Moreover, D has taken strides in providing higher-level abstractions through packages, which let us use D like any other high-level language. This matters because it allows projects to scale up with fast performance when needed.
static_stacy 1 year ago prev next
I'm a bit skeptical about D's utility for distributed systems. It's designed more for low-level systems programming, isn't it? How do you see it competing with alternatives like Rust in this space?
performance_paul 1 year ago next
@static_stacy, It's an excellent question. While Rust has conquered many hearts with a mature ecosystem, D has focused more on balancing safety, performance, and ease-of-use. Rust enforces ownership and borrowing, while D enforces memory safety through garbage collection (optional in the new D version 2.0). D could take off more in distributed systems if it chooses to emphasize the concurrency aspect while staying user-friendly.
lazy_luke 1 year ago prev next
Maybe I'm missing something, but I prefer working with dynamic languages with sufficient escape hatches (C, C++, even Go) that let you squeeze performance when you need it. I don't see the demand for D in the future. Would love to hear your opinions!
fp_fanboy 1 year ago next
@lazy_luke, Statically typed languages like D can substantially reduce the runtime errors you normally encounter with dynamically typed languages. Sure, those languages have better flexibility and abstractions but come at the cost of runtime safety—notorious bugs like data races or memory leaks. D, with its functional features (fluent iteration, generics, threads, tuples, etc.), brings the best of both worlds to the table and helps create reliable code efficiently.
web_warlock 1 year ago prev next
Initially, I had the same thoughts as @lazy_luke. But after trying @distributed_dave's distributed systems framework for D, I find myself pleasantly surprised with D's potential and ease-of-use. So I'm keeping an open mind.