Few mixed things

[Bill Baxter]

On Tue, Apr 21, 2009 at 3:50 PM, Nick Sabalausky <a at a.a> wrote:
> "Bill Baxter" <wbaxter at gmail.com> wrote in message
> news:mailman.1179.1240349493.22690.digitalmars-d at puremagic.com...
>> On Tue, Apr 21, 2009 at 2:24 PM, Paul D. Anderson
>> <paul.d.removethis.anderson at comcast.andthis.net> wrote:
>>> Nick Sabalausky Wrote:
>>>
>>>> "BCS" <ao at pathlink.com> wrote in message
>>>> news:78ccfa2d3e7918cb909fe7a39778 at news.digitalmars.com...
>>>> > Reply to Denis,
>>>> >
>>>> >>> I'd be fine depricating /**/.
>>>> >>>
>>>> >> You mean, deprecating /++/?
>>>> >>
>>>> >
>>>> > No, I mean exactly what I said.
>>>> > /**/ has well defined semantics, changing it will cause problems that
>>>> > replacing it will not.
>>>> >
>>>>
>>>> Are there any problems you see with it other than porting code to D?
>>>> (FWIW,
>>>> I've never come across any code that had a /* in between a /* and */.)
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>> I've seen lots of code that did that.
>>>
>>> Now, if you mean code that intentionally did that...
>>
>> I could see (and maybe have seen?) people using it in comments:
>>
>> /******/
>> /*  big
>> /*  long
>> /*  comment
>> /*  box
>> /*******/
>>
>> --bb
>
> Yea, but something like that would be trivial to notice and fix.
>
> And come to think of it, even if it was commented-code instead of a doc
> block:
>
> regular code
> /*
> commented code
> /*
> more commented code
> */
> regular code that becomes accidentially commented
>
> That would still be easily detectable because, assuming the original code
> was compiling in the original language (which would almost certainly be the
> case if you're actually bothering to port it), then there wouldn't be enough
> matching '*/'s and the rest of the file would be commented out. And that's
> something that I really can't imagine would ever cause a
> successfully-compiling logic error. What you'd get, if not a "block comment
> never closed" error, would be an error from a {}, (), or [] never being
> closed, or a symbol not defined error. If none of those errors occurr, then
> whatever had been accidentially-commented would have already been dead code
> to begin with.

I agree that if Walter had chosen to just make /* */ nestable
originally it would have been a fine choice.
But now that D has had /+ +/ for ten years or so, I don't see much
point in changing it.  It will only break everyone's code for what is
a miniscule benefit at best, and a miniscule detriment at worst,
depending on who you ask.

--bb