What does Coverity/clang static analysis actually do?

[Walter Bright]

Nick Sabalausky wrote:
> If you accept the idea of a compiler (like DMD) having rudimentary built-in 
> optional versions of normally separate tools like profiling, unittesting, 
> doc generation, etc., and you accept that lint tools are perfectly fine 
> tools to use (as I think you do, or am I mistaken?), then I don't see what 
> would make lint tools an exception to the "built-ins are ok" attitude 
> (especially since a separate one would require a lot of redundant 
> parsing/analysis.)

This is a more general comment on your post (and similar ones by others, 
it's a recurring theme):

Consider the Bible. It's long and complicated, and by careful 
examination of it you can find a verse here and there to justify *any* 
behavior.

D is complicated, and is founded on principles that are not orthogonal - 
they are often at odds with each other. Any attempt to take one 
particular aspect of D's behavior and use it as a rule to impose 
elsewhere is surely doomed to conflict with some other rule.

The only reasonable way forward is to evaluate each idea not only in 
terms of all of D's principles, but also on its own merits, and throw in 
one's best judgment.

Nearly a decade with D has now shown that some ideas and choices were 
dead wrong, but others were more right than I even dreamed <g>.