A special treat

[Justin Johansson]

Steven Schveighoffer wrote:
> It is very important that Phobos be a dynamic library and that you can 
> build dynamic libraries easily without manual manipulation of the 
> runtime.  If these two things are accomplished, then D can say it 
> supports dynamic libraries, not before.  Half ass support doesn't 
> count.  It's like saying a car has a cup holder because you can wedge 
> your cup between the seat and the e-brake.
> 
> -Steve

I agree, Steve.  Years ago when I did Windows programming with MFC
(Microsoft Foundation Classes), I had a preference for statically
linking the MFC libraries with my app to avoid the DLL hell problem.
However it was, and still is, possible to dynamically link with MFC
DLL's and this is often the preferred manner, if not the norm, for
Windows developers.  One could think of the Phobos runtime as being
analogous to the MFC runtime.  Why should there be different treatment,
i.e. you can do MFC programming with MFC DLL but not D programming with
Phobos DLL?  Ditto for shared objects under Linux.  If D is supposed
to be a "systems programming language", you expect that it be able to
do all manner of "systems things", including being able to do shared
object libraries and DLL's on the respective platforms.

Cheers,
Justin Johansson