The focus of this category is on programming languages defined as D. There are at least three programming languages that share that designation.
The most common is also known as Dlang, a multi-paradigm system programming language designed by Walter Bright, of Digital Mars, and originally released in 2001. Walter Bright, through his Virginia-based company, Digital Mars, created compilers for C and C++, as well as integrated development environments (IDEs) for Windows and DOS, and continues to do so.
Frustrated with the direction of C++, Bright began working on a new programming language in 1999, releasing in 2001. The first version of the language was similar to C++, with a similar emphasis on the imperative, object-oriented, and metaprogramming paradigms. Although Bright first named his language Mars, for his company, the developer community dubbed it D, in recognition to its similarities to C++, and that's the name that stuck.
Bright soon realized that the first implementation of the languages lacked enough compelling features to overcome the strong backing that competing languages enjoyed, so he went back to the drawing board. He revamped the language and, while he continued to issue bug fixes for the first version, his second version was not backward-compatible. Released in 2007, the second version was not as similar to C++. It introduced several breaking changes to the language.
In 2011, development of the language was moved to GitHub, which led to increases in contributions to its compiler, runtime, and standard library. The first version of Bright's D language was discontinued in 2012, replaced by D2, which is commonly referred to as D.
The official D compiler, the Digital Mars D compiler, by Walter Bright, was released under a custom license which, although the source code was made available, did not conform to the open-source definition. In 2014, it was re-released as open-source under the Boost Software License, which excluded the back-end, which had been partly developed by Symantec. In 2017, the entire compiler was made available as open-source and is now part of the GNU Compiler Collection. Other compilers for D include GDC and IDC, which targets the LLVM compiler infrastructure.
Another D programming language was developed by Christopher J. Date and Hugh Darwen, but it's more of an abstract language specification than an actual programming language.
A third is designed to be used with the DTrace dynamic tracing framework created by Sun Microsystems in 2005. Originally developed for Solaris, D programs resemble Awk programs in structure.
Although the majority of the resources for the D programming language will be in reference to the language designed by Walter Bright, any of this would be appropriate for this category, along with any compilers, editors, or other tools designed specifically for use with the language, as well as user groups, forums, or tutorials.
Recommended Resources
The Romanian-born computer scientist is an expert in a variety of topics that include programming language design, and all aspects of C++ and D programming languages. He is the author of a book entitled, “The D Programming Language,” as well as books on C++. One chapter of his book on the D language may be read for free, while the entire book may be purchased from several retailers. His site includes a biography, several articles, research, and other media.
http://erdani.com/
Begun in late 2015, the Foundation is devoted to the D programming language. Responsible for various processes within the D community, including the continued development of the language, the management of intellectual rights, raising funds, and awarding scholarships to students who work on high-impact projects related to the language. The Foundation also organizes developer conferences, such as the annual D Programming Language Conference.
https://dlang.org/
The archived site of the open-source community for the D programming language offers an introduction to the language and the developer/user group that was once represented by this site. Included is a forum on a large variety of topics related to the language and its development, with posts from 1969 to 2014, documentation of its projects, server resources, development tools, libraries-GUI, libraries-System, games, and other applications, as well as a tutorial section.
http://www.dsource.org/
Sponsored by the D Language Foundation, the annual conference brings members of the D programming language community and anyone interested in learning more about the language together for a multiple-day conference featuring announcements, workshops, vendors, and networking opportunities. Submission deadlines, author notification dates, registration dates, and conference schedules are put forth. Scheduled speakers are acknowledged and past conferences are archived.
http://dconf.org/
Digital Mars is a Virginia-based software company. Founded in 1988 by Walter Bright, the designer of the D language, the company makes C, C++, and D compilers, as well as associated software utilities, such as IDEs for Windows and DOS, and DMDScript, an ECMA-262-compliant JavaScript engine written in the D language. Compilers and other compilers may be downloaded from the site, and the company’s seminars and consulting services are highlighted.
https://digitalmars.com/
Dweb is intended to be a fast open-source framework for writing web applications in the D programming language. With a concentration on scalability, performance, security, and maintainability, while allowing for high levels of developer productivity, Dweb includes an integrated web server, templating system, and data abstraction layer, and is also interoperable with C and C++. It can be freely downloaded from GitHub, and the site includes documentation and development notes.
http://www.dwebframework.org/
GDC is a General Public License implementation of the D programming language compiler, integrating the open-source D front end with the GNU Compiler Collection (GCC). A history of the GNU D Compiler Project is put forth, along with development notes, bugs in the GDC, and acknowledgments of contributing groups. Distribution packages may be downloaded, and build instructions, documentation, mailing lists, and a support wiki are available on the site.
https://www.gdcproject.org/
Written by Ali Cehreli, Programming in D was originally published in hardcover by IngramSpark, and may also be available in paperback or in several mobile electronic formats as a pay-what-you-want e-book. An online version is featured here, in English and in Turkish, divided into chapters, with a foreword, a preface, and several chapters describing the use of the programming language. Links to several other D resources are posted, including books, newsgroups, and language specifications.
http://www.ddili.org/ders/d.en/
