alt Hacker News> C# C interop is pretty smooth
True, but you still need to either generate or manually write the bindings. In D, you just import the C headers directly without depending on the bindings' maintainers.
> If it was an actual C++ modernization attempt that stayed C compatible it would have seen much better
Any D compiler is literally also a C compiler. I sincerely don't know how can one be more C compatible than that.
> Yes, and the no-gc stuff was just attempts to backpedal on the wrong initial decision
I think that it was more of an attempt to appease folks who won't use GC even with a gun to their head.
I'm not saying D didn't have nice features - but if D/C#/Java are valid options I'm never picking D - language benefits cannot outweigh the ecosystem/support behind those two. Go picked a niche with backend plumbing and got Google backing to push it through.
Meanwhile look at how popular Zig is getting 2 decades later. Why is that not D ? D also has comp-time and had it for over a decade I think ? Zig proves there's a need that D was in the perfect spot to fill if it did not make the GC decision - and we could have had 2 decades of software written in D instead of C++ :)