Are you new to the term D programming? If you are a programmer then you may be aware of this general-purpose systems and applications programming language – D. This is a high-level language with which you can write high-performance code and interface that directly interacts with the operating system API’s and hardware. If you are about to write million line programs then D is ideal for that. The D programming language is easy to learn, contains many capabilities that aid the programmer, and also well suited to aggressive compiler optimization technology.
Some people claim D is a scripting language, however, we can’t consider D as a scripting language, neither as an interpreted language. Instead, D is a practical language that makes a developer’s life easy with easy-to-understand code with which you can perform the job done quickly. D is the amalgamation of compilers of many diverse languages, especially from C++.
Why do you need D?
Every programming language has a reason to build up so as D. As the software industry is continuously evolving at a rapid pace, programmers need out of a programming language changes continuously. Nowadays memory consumption and the need for computing power have increased by orders of magnitude with the scale of programs.
Today, compilers are no longer solely dependent on computing resources, so programmers can do many things with them. Programmers can avail much more powerful language features. However, these features can be difficult to fit into existing languages. When there are enough of these gaps, a new language is justified.
Major Design features of D
When we design a language it is made out of need, so it is basically a trade-off. Hence, if we keep in mind some principles in mind it helps to make the right decision. What are those principles? A language should be designed in a way so that –
- It enables writing fast, effective and straightforward code.
- The code should be written in a way so that it becomes portable from computer to computer, from one operating system to another, and from machine to machine. Undefined and implementation-defined behaviors must be as much as practical.
- To reduce or eliminate common mistakes syntactic and semantic constructs must be provided. Besides, third-party static code checkers must be reduced or even eliminated.
- It should support memory-safe programming.
- It should support multi-paradigm programming, i.e., structured, at minimum support imperative, object-oriented, generic, and even functional programming paradigms.
- With the programming language, you can do things the right way easier than the wrong way.
- It should have a short learning curve for programmers comfortable with programming in C, C++, or Java.
- Be compatible with the local C application binary interface.
- Since D code looks the same as C code, it must have either behave the same or issue an error.
- Have context-free grammar. Successful parsing must not require semantic analysis.
- Be able to build lightweight, standalone programs
- Easily support writing internationalized applications – Unicode everywhere.
- Incorporate Contract Programming and unit testing methodology.
- Provide sufficient semantics to enable advances in compiler optimization technology
- Reduce the costs of creating documentation.
- Cater to the needs of numerical analysis programmers.
- Sometimes these goals will conflict. The resolution will be in favor of usability.
Who is supposed to use D?
- If you are a programmer who routinely uses lint or similar code analysis tools to bug-free your code before compilation then D is the right choice for you.
- This is ideal for producing maximum warning levels which can be turned into errors.
- Programming managers are forced to rely on programming style guidelines to avoid common bugs.
- Projects that need built-in testing and verification.
- When you need to write a million lines of code in it.
- Programmers who want the language should provide enough features to mandate the continual necessity to manipulate pointers directly.
- Programmers who write half their application in scripting languages the other half in native languages to speed up the bottlenecks. D has productivity features that make using such hybrid approaches unnecessary.
- D’s lexical analyzer, parser, and semantic analyzer are totally independent of each other. This means without having to build a full compiler it is easy to write simple tools to manipulate D source. It also means that you can tokenize source code for specialized applications.
Who D is Not For?
- D is aimed to convert million line legacy programs. However, in reality, nobody is going to convert a million lines of legacy code.
- This is not ideal for beginners. However, D is ideal for intermediate or advanced programmers.
- D is a practical language rather than an ideal language.
Major Features of D
This section lists some of the more interesting features of D in various categories.
- Object Oriented Programming
- Classes
- Operator Overloading
- Functional Programming
- Productivity
- Functions
o Nested Functions
o Function Literals
- Arrays
- Ranges
Types of Ranges
- forward ranges
- bidirectional ranges
- random access ranges
- output ranges
Conclusion
There are some features of D that need to be left behind.
- There is no support for 16-bit computers in D. In reality D considers 32 bit and 64 bit.
- D does not depend on the compiler. It maintains a clean separation between the lexer, parser, and semantic passes for an easier to implement and understand language. There are no user-defined tokens and user-defined syntax in D.
- D uses Macros, but unfortunately, the complexity of macros is pushed off for users to understand the functionality of the macros which is not justifiable.
- Due to the use of a preprocessor, it is not compatible with C/C++ source code.
- D supports multiple inheritances which is a complex area and prone to bugs in its implementation.