A lot of languages claim to be a C replacement, but Zig is the second language I've seen that seemed like it had a reasonable plan to do so at any appreciable scale. The language makes working with the C ABI pretty easy, but it also has a build system that can seamlessly integrate Zig and C together, as well as having a translate-c that actually works shockingly well in the code I've put through it.
The only thing it didn't do was be 99% compatible with existing C codebases...which was the C++ strategy, the first language I can think of with such a plan. And frankly, I think Zig keeping C's relative simplicity while avoiding some of the pitfalls of the language proper was the better play.
D can compile a project with a C and a D source file with:
dmd foo.d bar.c
./fooI do like D. I've written a game in it and enjoyed it a lot. I would encourage others to check it out.
But it's not a C replacement. BetterC feels like an afterthought. A nice bonus. Not a primary focus. E.g. the language is designed to use exceptions for error handling, so of course there's no feature for BetterC dedicated to error handling.
Being a better C is the one and only focus of Zig. So it has features for doing error handling without exceptions.
D is not going to replace C, perhaps for the same reasons subsets of C++ didn't.
I don't know if Zig and Rust will. But there's a better chance since they actually bring a lot of stuff to the table that arguably make them better at being a C-like language than C. I am really hyped to see how embedded development will be in Zig after the new IO interface lands.
I dont think that is the case here, and in all previous encounter. I see this every time Ada was mentioned in Rust as well.
He is not brining up about D in every Zig post, he is simply replying whenever people said something about only in Zig, he is replying that D could do it as well. Which is fair.
Same with Ada, when Rust people claim to be the only language doing something, or the safest programming languages, there is nothing wrong in providing a valid, often missed out counter argument.
A subset of D could have been better C, or "Das C". Unfortunately I dont see anyone craving that out as a somewhat separate project.