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D for the Win 12 years ago

If it compiles, it must run without several entire classes of errors.

D for the Win 12 years ago

All this theoretical bottleneck debate, but it really boils down to this:

If you're writing frequently-run code in Python/Ruby/JS, or any such highly-dynamic-at-runtime language, then chances are very good that your CPU, memory access, CPU cache, etc are going to be part of your bottleneck.

Write in something that doesn't effectively turn an i7 into a Pentium 4 (and be sure to use efficient memory management techniques), and your chances of main bottlenecks being IO-only are much better.

The belief that IO is the only bottleneck is a self-defeating prophecy. It leads to code and techniques that cause CPU to become a bottleneck once again. Don't forget Wirth's Law.

Actionscript has basically no error checking. It'll check for syntax errors and that about it - every other error manifests as a strange bug or "why the F* is nothing happening!?!" Then you spend an hour tracking it down and discover the cause was some trivial thing that any normal language would have simply raised a compiler error for in the first place.

And on top of that, its libs are very callback-heavy even in places where a synchronous option should have been available, so even very basic sequential code sometimes gets turned into a messy chain of callbacks.

That's why I made a beeline for the "ActionScript - Dislike" button.

I never cared one bit about grades my entire life (despite constant prodding by teachers and parents), and my grades ended up all over the place. Consequently, my GPA was pretty bad (Not that I remotely remember what exactly it was).

I've never once regretted any of that. (In fact, the only thing I do regret about college is ever going in the first place. Colossal waste of time and money. Libraries are a far more effective and vastly more economical form of education. Never forget: Post-secondary education is big business.) One you leave the overrated academic ivory tower, nobody will ever give half a shit about your GPA, and for good reason.

I got into D at least 5 years ago because I was a C/C++ user looking for something that has comparable power and, well, wasn't so horrible.

Manual memory management is always possible in D, and if you really need to, the GC can be ripped out.

Yes, they have. It's called D: http://www.digitalmars.com/d

It doesn't have an automatic translator, but it's design does follow a rule of "If a piece of C code is dropped into a D compiler, either it compiles with the same semantics, or it doesn't compile."

BTW, Someone needs to fix the CSS for this text-entry box. Someone set the text color to black, but forgot to set the background color too. So on my light-on-dark system, I get Invisible-text-syndrome and have to edit in notepad and copy-paste into the text-box. Wheee!