* Win32 issues with Templates and Libs *

[Jarrett Billingsley]

"Daniel Keep" <daniel.keep.lists at gmail.com> wrote in message 
news:eret4n$2ors$1 at digitalmars.com...
> Mmm... yummy technical details :P
>
> There seem to be quite a few problems/annoyances due to limitations in
> the object file formats.  It makes one wonder whether it wouldn't be a
> good idea to simply make a new one that properly supported D's feature
> set...

That would be awesome.  If D compilers could still generate some kind of 
"standard" object file for linking with other languages, and then a "D 
object" for D compilers that had extra features.  The D object format could 
even be standardized and made sure to be compatible across D compilers 
(something C++ sure can't promise!).

I always thought it would be cool if templates were sort of .. compiled 
almost into a scripting language intermediate representation.  Then, to 
instantiate a template, either one it just compiled or one it loaded from a 
D object, the compiler would just interpret the script.  This way a generic 
"how to instantiate template X" would be stored in the object file, and you 
wouldn't need the original definition.  This is probably a lot of work 
though.

> Of course, that would involve touching OPTLINK, something I gather no
> one is particularly keen on :P
>

Phh, if it means getting away from OMF, I'm all for it ;)