[geezerjay]

> I'd go further and say it provides the opposite - it shows a low and declining search trend.

This.

Additionally, the only moment in time when D was a reasonable concept was before C++11, when the development of C++ was stalled and there were a few pain points with C++98 that justified picking up other tools.

Since then C++ started evolving and a majority of those pain points were addressed, thus leaving D without any major selling point or even purpose.

To make matters worse, with the whole industry shift to the web C+ has since seen a decline in market share. Therefore D is placed as a poor replacement for the incumbent of a market share in decline.

[philwelch]

> Additionally, the only moment in time when D was a reasonable concept was before C++11, when the development of C++ was stalled and there were a few pain points with C++98 that justified picking up other tools.

I don't know enough about D to dispute this, but in a backhanded way, this is a pretty damning appraisal of D. It's not just the "industry shift to the web" that has led to the decline of C++. Why do people write server-side applications in Java or Go instead of C++? Why do people write mobile apps in Objective-C, Java, or Swift instead of C++? Even in the remaining domain of desktop applications and systems code, C++ isn't necessarily the go-to choice anymore.

And so, if D doesn't offer anything over C++ that couldn't be addressed by bolting even more features onto C++, why the heck does it exist?