OSNews article about C++09 degenerates into C++ vs. D discussion

[Georg Wrede]

Mike Capp wrote:
> John Reimer wrote:
>>A standard non-gc based library is likely not
>>going to meet with massive approval from those
>>already in the community
> 
> I should clarify. I'm not proposing that the entire standard library should have a
> GC-less implementation, just that it should be as useful as possible without
> introducing GC usage when the user is trying to avoid it.
> 
> Crude analogy: imagine everything in Phobos being wrapped in a version(GC) block.
> Phobos is normally built with -version=GC, so no change for GC users. GC-less
> users use Phobos built without GC, so none of the library is available, which is
> where they were anyway.
> 
> Now, a GC-less user feels the need for std.foo.bar(). They look at the source, and
> find that std.foo.bar() won't ever use GC because all it does is add two ints, so
> they take it out of the version(GC) block and can now use it. Or they write a less
> efficient but GC-less implementation in a version(NOGC) block. Either way, they
> get what they want without affecting GC users. It's incremental, and the work is
> done by the people (if any) who care.

If DMD were an old fashioned shrink wrapped product, this would be 
solved by having a little note in the library documentation next to each 
Phobos function, stating whether GC {will|may|won't} get used.


(The last statement is not strictly correct, it should rather be 
something like "allocate from the heap", "GC-safe", or whatever, but the 
phrasing serves the point here.)


If somebody were to actually check Phobos, the obvious first thing to do 
is to grep for "new". But what's the next thing?