Either I'm just too stupid, or D is lacking something

[Frits van Bommel]

Wolfgang Draxinger wrote:
> Don Clugston wrote:
>> The problem is, it would be practically impossible for an IDE
>> to deal with. (although, maybe that's true already).
> 
> Hmm, it wouldn't bee too complicated for an IDE to follow. D is
> dread easy to parse compared to C or C++ (what the DMD frontend
> proofes). An IDE using a D frontend would have no problems.

Keep in mind that the IDE's job is already somewhat more difficult than 
that of the compiler: it's much more important for the IDE to do 
something sane with invalid code than for the compiler to be able to do so.

For the compiler dealing with invalid code is mostly useful in producing 
useful diagnostics, but for the IDE it can be pretty important to parse 
incomplete code.

You don't typically compile a source file known to be invalid, but the 
IDE will have to deal with that all the time while you're typing it up: 
most of the time while you're typing it the code is likely to be invalid.