A gentle critque..

[Derek Parnell]

On Mon, 15 May 2006 00:16:16 +0000 (UTC), Ben Cooley wrote:

> - Inability to access C/C++ include files...  Importance:   SHOW-STOPPER
> --------------------------------------------
> 
> C++ can do this, D can not.

What! You mean that C++ (a superset of C) can actually access both C and
C++ include files? Who would have guessed that!?

I just did a quick google search and it appears that C#, VB.Net, COBOL,
Fortran and Java can't use C/C++ includes either. I think the sky is
falling.

> The size, scale, and prevalence of C and C++ libraries and code make writing
> wrappers for all of these libraries impractical.  That D can not just easily
> include C and C++ headers "as is" gives it a serious and I would suggest fatal
> disadvantage vs. C++.
> 
> C++ out of the box could include C header files, meaning that even today I have
> access to the largest possible body of third party libraries and code.  Binary
> compatibility with C only is just not good enough.

But all joking aside, it just occurred to me that Digitalmars already has a
tool that accesses C/C++ headers ... the DigitalMars C++ compiler! So I'm
wondering if Walter could provide a new utility that can help us automate
translation of C/C++ headers into D source code?

 
> Until D addresses these issues, it will be nothing more than a niche language
> offering syntactic cleanliness and interesting features to a few faithful, but
> largely ignored by the rest of the programming world.

Prior C existing, programmers used other entrenched languages (of course)
and yet C still managed to take root? So even though C could not access the
source code of those entrenched languages, it become popular.

-- 
Derek
(skype: derek.j.parnell)
Melbourne, Australia
"Down with mediocracy!"
15/05/2006 12:39:04 PM