If you like Java’s syntax and you were thinking “what if someone made Java, but actually good”, then try out D!

Positives include being extremely fast compile time, an optional garbage collector, and unlimited metaprogramming power.

Negatives include AI slop seeping into development for “hype” reasons (likely will result in a schism), some devs think the solution for the unpopularity of the language is joining the never-ending tech hype cycle (one of its consequences being an optional borrow checker), and opting out the garbage collection is a bit of a struggle though doable, especially if you can live without D native classes through betterC (C++ classes are still available, though interop with external code is not 100%, as constructor mangling is even weirder than standard C++ symbol mangling) and use the C standard library for basic things (memory-safe strings in D are fat pointers, and C does not like that).