[Bug 93] Template regex example fails without -release switch

[Don Clugston]

Dave wrote:
> Don Clugston wrote:
>> d-bugmail at puremagic.com wrote:
>>> http://d.puremagic.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=93
>>>
>>>
>>> godaves at yahoo.com changed:
>>>
>>>            What    |Removed                     |Added
>>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 
>>>
>>>            Severity|major                       |blocker
>>>             Version|0.152                       |0.153
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> ------- Comment #2 from godaves at yahoo.com  2006-04-11 09:08 -------
>>> "Blocker: Blocks development and/or testing work." It's a blocker if 
>>> you run
>>> into that bug and want to use Contract Programming during the course of
>>> development and testing. After all, that's a major part of the 
>>> langauge. Let
>>> Walter make the call.
>>
>> That category list really should be changed, it is completely 
>> inappropriate for a compiler. Almost every bug affects development and 
>> testing work in that sense! (And segfaults of the compiler are not as 
>> bad as incorrect code generation).
>>
>> The fact that a particular example does not compile with -release is 
>> not a blocker. I can assure you that contract programming works in 
>> general.
>>
>> Blockers are very rare, one example occurred in an early DMD release 
>> where almost any program would fail to compile. I doubt that any 
>> blockers will be discovered that aren't regressions.
>>
>> (An example of a blocker would be: "dmd can no longer be used with 
>> build").
>>
>> To have any chance of this being fixed, you need to have a go at 
>> cutting down the error. Walter generally ignores bug reports which are 
>> longer than 20 lines. I suspect he'll completely ignore the severity.
>>
> 
> I appreciate your concerns and believe it or not put some thought into 
> the original report severity, etc. If Walter wants to ignore it that is 
> his prerogative. If Walter wants to 'downgrade' it that is fine w/ me. 
> Believe me, I'm not doing this stuff to make Walter's job harder.
> 
> I did not try to reduce the error any more than it is because the 
> summary of the example says:
> 
> "What follows is a cut-down version of Eric Anderton's regex compiler. 
> It is just enough to compile the regular expression above, serving to 
> illustrate how it is done."

It's just a bit of proof-of-concept code showing what's possible with D 
templates. No-one should be using the code for any other purpose.

Minimal for a regexp does not mean minimal for a bug report. The whole 
regexp thing is completely irrelevant to this bug.

> In fact I went to the extra 'trouble' of copying and pasting the code to 
> put it all in one spot, and tested it both on Windows and Linux.
> 
> I agree it probably a recent regression - all the more reason IMHO to 
> get it taken care of right away because Walter knows what he's changed 
> recently in that area.

Actually, the template part of the compiler has changed a lot since Eric 
wrote that code. I'm a little surprised that it compiles at all.
(My compile-time regex, which greatly improves upon that one, was 
written against a much more recent compiler, is currently broken due to 
improvements in the template syntax).

> I also agree that perhaps some better bug report descriptions could be 
> developed, but I hesitate to say that because I don't have the time 
> right now to come up with suggestions and/or make the changes myself.

When bugzilla was set up, Walter proposed some definitions which made a 
lot of sense. I don't understand why the default inappropriate ones were 
retained. A compiler is so different to a normal app.