D

Introduction

D is static, compiled language influenced by C++. It was created by Walter Bright, author of the first C++ compiler to compile directly to machine code.

D has an imperative core, but is a multi-paradigm language that includes support for object-orientated, functional, and generic programming.

Advantages

• Fast language, with performance comparable to C++ while still being garbage collected by default.
• Interfaces well with C libraries, without writing boilerplate or using a foreign function interface, though cannot import headers unmodified - see http://www.digitalmars.com/d/2.0/htomodule.html
• Has a modern module system, no need to write header files or deal with a preprocessor.
• Syntax is familiar to C, C++, C#, Java etc programmers.
• Supports the functional programming paradigm better than other C-like languages, with features such as closures, delegates, transitive immutability, higher order functions, anonymous functions, and the ability to write compiler enforced pure functions.
• D2 tries to do the template metaprogramming thing, which C++ supports without really meaning to, in a way that's actually sane to use.
• DMD builds code incredibly fast, making compile-edit-run cycles comparable to dynamic languages.
• Knowledgeable, helpful community (including the D.learn forum for asking questions).
• Unicode native - make a ??????() function, or instantiate define a ????!T; the basic string type is UTF-8.
• A package registry (http://code.dlang.org/)

Disadvantages

• There aren't as many libraries available if you want pure D implementations.
• The language is mostly stable, but still has breaking changes on rare occasion.
• Documentation sometimes abstruse or lacking examples; paucity of beginner learning resources.

Compilers/Tooling

• DMD (reference compiler; bleeding edge feature support) - http://dlang.org/download.html
• GDC (GCC backend; targets the most platforms) - http://gdcproject.org/
• LDC (LLVM backend; usually builds the fastest binaries) - http://wiki.dlang.org/LDC
• Dub (Package manager and build tool) - http://code.dlang.org/download
• IDEs and IDE plugins - http://wiki.dlang.org/IDEs
• Editor support - http://wiki.dlang.org/Editors
• Other stuff (debugging, profiling, fixup, etc.) - http://wiki.dlang.org/Development_tools

Roguelike Libraries

• Bindings for libtcod - http://code.google.com/p/libtcod-d/
• Interface to ncurses - https://github.com/D-Programming-Deimos/ncurses
• Adam Ruppe's arsd collection (simpledisplay, terminal, eventloop, database, script, etc.) - https://github.com/adamdruppe/arsd
• Terminal ANSI colour lib - http://code.dlang.org/packages/rainbow
• Parser for Tiled maps - http://code.dlang.org/packages/dtiled

D Roguelikes

• 7DRL Infection

Links

• Official Site
• IRC channel
• wiki
• DUB registry