C++

[Bruno Medeiros]

Deewiant wrote:
> Deewiant wrote:
>> Sean Kelly wrote:
>>> I've become convinced that the "default everything to const" method seems 
>>> ideal, but this seems like something that should really be done before 1.0 
>>> if it's going to happen?
>>>
>>> Sean
>> I agree. Walter posted somewhere in comp.lang.c++.moderated (I think it was 
>> there) that he thinks he should have made D like this from the start, but 
>> that it's too late now. With that, I disagree. We're not at 1.0 yet: it's not
>>  too late to break even every single line of D code out there.
> 
> I found the post in question, BTW. Here's the Google Groups link:
> 
> http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.c++.moderated/tree/browse_frm/thread/d6695737a74e1853/18dc841928a6eee3?rnum=131&_done=%2Fgroup%2Fcomp.lang.c%2B%2B.moderated%2Fbrowse_frm%2Fthread%2Fd6695737a74e1853%2F840b0deea2987ee5%3Flnk%3Dst%26rnum%3D1%26#doc_3ff8dedacef55e17
> 
> In summary:
> 
> Andrei Alexandrescu says "Why, then, didn't D make const the default? C++ had a
> good reason - C compatibility."
> 
> Walter responds: "I should have. Too much water under the bridge for that now."
> 
> In the same post Walter also acknowledges that "There has been some talk in the
> D newsgroups of doing that, but it has the potential to be extremely disruptive."

Good thread, I highly agree with what Andrei said in that segment. In 
summary, that a language supported read-only view of data is 
significantly beneficial.

As for the backwards compatibility issue, I've said it before: D, as a 
language in development, should not be blocked by backwards 
compatibility issues in detriment of beneficial changes. Of course, such 
changes must be extensively thought about and discussed beforehand.

-- 
Bruno Medeiros - CS/E student
http://www.prowiki.org/wiki4d/wiki.cgi?BrunoMedeiros#D