Super-dee-duper D features

[janderson]

Nicolai Waniek wrote:
> I waited a long time to reply to this thread and I didn't read the
> latest (let's guess, 60) messages replied to this thread because lots of
> them where about LISP and of about how people think (recursively or not).
> 
> So why do I reply then? Because all this discussion about mixins and all
> this stuff makes me a bit sad. I don't like it as well as I don't like
> the C++ macros (and everyone on the #d channel knows that I really
> _hate_ them...).
> 
> The main problem I have with mixins/templates and so on is that it
> enables a programmer to change the "look and feel" of the language
> completely. What is bad about it? That if you're working in a team
> someone has a "great idea" and invents his own MyDSL. So what? Everyone
> else has to "learn" this new DSL. So they spend time on something they
> would've better spent on coding something else, or fixing bugs... I
> worked in a team of about 8 persons bugfixing a project with
> approximately 1.000.000 LoC. The former programmers just seemed to not
> know how to code (and we programmed using Delphi!!! a language most
> people like to tell you: "oh, that's a language that shows you how to
> work structured" - that's totally bullshit!).
> So on one hand, we had to improve the software as it was used by just
> too many companies to completely rewrite it - on the other hand we had
> to bugfix it with a syntax that even didn't look like Pascal. Now what?
> If we had someone "just for the sake of it" implementing something with
> his MyDSL, i would've probably killed him!
> 
> The thing I really want to say is: Stick to a clear definition on what
> the language is, and what not. As long as I can remember - for example -
> working on a python project was as easy as possible, because the
> language just defined what is "and what not". If you let the programmer
> decide and how to extend the language (and this is definitely possible
> with templates and mixins and macros and the whole bunch of shitload).
> 
> Okay, there are some examples (even provided by Walter) on how to
> properly use mixins and templates (for example letting the compiler
> generate the byte-array for an icon file), but there's always someone
> who thinks how "smart" he is and invents something that's just time
> consuming to learn...
> 
> I think, that even templates are used too much at the moment (have a
> look at tango, that's full of this). Why? because it doesn't fit into
> the OOP pragma - you would've used some interface declarations and then
> invented some functions that work on the interfaces instead of writing a
> template... But well, there are some cases where templates are just nice.
> 
> I would really like to see more of the "details" implemented (runtime
> type information, for example, or something like delphi's "type TClass =
> class of TObject" to make it possible to create correct Object
> Factories) instead of the new language features we got with the last few
> releases.
> 
> I had a look at D because it was C++ just without all this stuff I
> didn't like, but with the new language features, C++'s bad stuff is
> simply replaced by something else that will definitely be used in the
> wrong way (have a look at the apache headers, for example.
> macros&macros&macros&...)
> 
> I really hope you will guide the D language into the right direction,
> because I do like the language, but unfortunately, I don't like the
> newest language features.
> 
> Best regards,
> Nicolai

What about using it for files that you are going to load at runtime 
otherwise? XML ect...?

-Joel