You've been a compiler/language developer for many years now (many decades?). How did you get into this field of work? Do you have any regrets about this becoming your niche? :)
The answer to the first question is detailed in the HOPL IV paper, 'Origins of the D Programming Language', freely available here: https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/3386323
Regrets? I should have made it open source from the beginning! Stupid me.