DLF September 2023 Monthly Meeting Summary

[Paul Backus]

On Sunday, 12 November 2023 at 19:50:02 UTC, Mike Parker wrote:
> https://gist.github.com/mdparker/f28c9ae64f096cd06db6b987318cc581

> There was a side discussion about how the `extern(C++)` 
> interface affects dmd-as-a-library.

Personally, my number-one complaint with dmd-as-a-library is that 
I am forced to use `extern(C++)` when creating my own `Visitor` 
classes.

In [`dmdtags`][1], this requirement has made it necessary for me 
to implement my own C++-compatible [`Span`][2] and 
[`Appender`][3] types, just to avoid the C++ mangling errors 
caused by D's built-in `T[]` slices.

I have no use for overriding AST nodes, but the ability to use 
`extern(D)` visitors with dmd-as-a-library would be a welcome 
improvement.

[1]: https://code.dlang.org/packages/dmdtags
[2]: 
https://github.com/pbackus/dmdtags/blob/v1.1.1/src/dmdtags/span.d
[3]: 
https://github.com/pbackus/dmdtags/blob/v1.1.1/src/dmdtags/appender.d