When I first saw C++ back in the mid-1980s, it looked pretty interesting. Then it started to grow into a horrible monster. I was just reading about the D programming language today. All I can say is, "Wow!" I wish they had this way back when. This would seem to correct most of what I find distasteful about C, C++, and Java, while keeping most of the things I like--to the point where I would actually consider using it for certain projects.

The things I hate most about those programming languages are:

C

No objects

Manual memory management only

Lame macros

Having to define header files

C++

Complex, obscure syntax that I can't ever remember completely without a copy of The C++ Programming Language sitting next to me

Complex resource management schemes to avoid leading memory/etc. in the presence of exceptions

Did I mention that I hate the complex syntax?

Java

(Almost) Everything is an object (but not quite)

Having to run in a VM with bytecodes even when you're writing something for a single platform and don't need or want to

No ability for structures to overlay memory for efficient access to C and network data wire protocol data structures, forcing the programmer to do bit-twiddling with ByteArray and shifts and masks

In short, D looks interesting. Is it Lisp and would I go back to using D as my main programming language? No. It still doesn't have macros the way Lisp does and it doesn't have sexprs (yes, I really do like the parenthesis), but it is a better follow-on to C than C++ and still hits the system-programming domain that Java missed so bady. It seems like something to keep in one's hip pocket.