D as a Better C

[Walter Bright via Digitalmars-d-announce]

On 8/23/2017 5:35 PM, Michael V. Franklin wrote:
> Consider this:  Rust doesn't need a special switch to make it interoperable with 
> C.  What's wrong with D's implementation that requires such things?  Granted, D 
> is not Rust, but D's implementation could be improved to make it more 
> competitive with Rust in these use cases.  For example, there is really no need 
> for TypeInfo if you're not doing any dynanmic casts, but the current 
> implementation generates it regardless.

There is a PR to make it only on demand,

   https://github.com/dlang/dmd/pull/6561

but it is mired in problems that are not in the D test suite and for which no 
test cases exist.

> I find -betterC to be somewhat of a 
> copout for avoiding the hard work of improving D's implementation.

On the contrary, I view it as providing motivation for dealing with those 
issues. The PR above is stalled for lack of motivation.

---

Another issue is asserts. -betterC redirects them to C's assert. Perhaps we 
should abandon D's asserts? -betterC provides motivation to examine that.