Preface

Walter Bright first released the D programming language into the wild on December 8, 2001. Three weeks later, seven more iterations of the compiler had been uploaded to the Digital Mars website, incorporating fixes for bugs reported by users who had already begun experimenting with this exciting new language. In the years since, enthusiasts have continued to actively participate in D's development, pushing the language through two major versions and numerous compiler releases. D is very much a community-driven programming language.

This book aims to bring you up to speed with D to the degree that you can be confident in developing your own D programs and, if you are so motivated, participate in activities that drive the language forward. It is assumed that you already have some familiarity with other languages similar to D, such as C++ or Java, and have some familiarity with working with the command line. With this in mind, fewer details will be given for the features of D that are similar to those of other C-family languages and no instructions will be given on how to perform basic command-line tasks, such as changing directories or setting the system path.