Walter Bright is the man that liked C++ so much, he created the first native C++ compiler called Zortech C++. He then decided the language had grown so much by layering on needed features that it made sense to look at it afresh and try to design a language that, he says, ‘gets there in a straight line, rather than try to be compatible with obsolete decisions made 20 or 30 years ago.

He claims that the design of C++ is rooted in its ASCII past, making support of modern requirements like Unicode Transformation Format difficult. He believed that C++ had reached a certain level of maturity; its period of rapid evolution was over so the time was right to see what could be done with a redesign.

‘In 1999, I found myself at a crossroads, and decided that it was therefore the right time to stop grumbling, stop saying “I’d have done it this way”, and put my money where my mouth was’.

“I don’t agree with the notion

that programmers must be

moulded to fit the software,

and that the cure for bugs

is better education”

Out of his development came D, a general purpose systems and applications programming language which he claims is a higher level language than C++, yet retains the ability to write high performance code and interface directly with the operating system API’s and with hardware.

Bright says that D is well suited to writing medium to large scale million line programs with teams of developers.

‘It’s easy to learn, provides many capabilities to aid the programmer, and is well suited to aggressive compiler optimization technology. The D programming language has been carefully designed to improve programmer productivity based on decades of experience programming, working with programmers and development tools.’

Walter graduated from Caltech in 1979 with a degree in mechanical engineering. He worked for Boeing for 3 years on the development of the 757 stabilizer trim system, before switching to writing software, specialising in compilers. He has been writing them ever since, for Pascal, C, C++, Abel, Java, Javascript and D. It was this experience, both as a user and implementer of languages that put him in a good position to design a successor to C and C++.