A short and sweet introduction to the D programming language, with the majority of the syntax covered. Some concise examples and of course, Tango documentation.

There was a fairly negative review and I feel I should try and explain some of the (perceived) issues with the book.

Firstly, the length. While this book clocks in at just under 200 pages, and that seems relatively short. Especially when the book is meant to cover the entirety of a programming language, there are a few things we should consider. This book does not teach you how to program, it assumes prior programming knowledge. Furthermore, As D is a new language, there is no official standardization, and the official language documentation is often short, with very specific details left out. Let us also not forget than K&R is just about 250 pages!

The last few chapters of the book cover some of the Tango API. The Tango project is a community designed and maintained standard library replacement for D. It implements its own run-time and API set. Fixes a lot of the perceived bugs in the original, and no one can argue is a lot more robust than Phobos.

Tango and D are both constantly moving targets, and I believe this book does a good job of documenting the core of each.

The first English-language book on D, Learn To Tango with D, is a no-crap quick ramp-up guide to the language and the popular Tango general-purpose library. Half of the 188 pages are an introduction to how D does things, while the other half walks through some Tango basics. It's written in a fast, loose idiom that doesn't try to teach you programming as much as it shows how to do your favorite C++ or Java tricks in D. This fills a need since the existing D documentation is rather technical and not well indexed, but it's not something the dedicated and curious engineer couldn't figure out for himself.

After the basics, you're introduced to Tango. I should point out that D ships with a standard library called Phobos and that Tango is a (friendly) competitor to it. The two aren't mutually compatible at all, and you'll run into D code that uses each, so don't think you're getting the entire D story from this book. That said, Tango has neat ideas and a passionate community behind it, so you're not making any compromise on quality by using it. This section is a bit too high-level for my taste; it's an introduction, not a reference. While you can certainly get production-quality API docs from the Tango web site, don't expect the book to be one.

Summing up, this book is for experienced C/C++/Java programmers who've heard about this D thing and want to see what it's all about. Those who prefer learning from source code or documentation won't really need this, and those who do need it will probably find no need to read it a second time. However, as the only book on D in the King's English, it's worth recommending solely on that basis.

(Review text copied from my website.)

It really wasn't a very good book. It is very thin without the more complete examples you would expect in a book on development in other languages. It would be nice to see a book written teaching D from the ground up. Love the language, but the book is not worth the price.