D's greatest mistakes

[Jonathan M Davis]

On Tuesday, November 30, 2010 10:56:41 Steven Schveighoffer wrote:
> On Tue, 30 Nov 2010 13:46:31 -0500, Jonathan M Davis <jmdavisProg at gmx.com>
> 
> wrote:
> > Personally, I think that an in-language solution would definitely be
> > better and
> > more in line with other language features than trying to fix the issue
> > in a
> > library. This really does look like a core language issue which we
> > couldn't
> > solve properly, so we created a bandaid in the standard library to solve
> > it.
> > 
> > The problem is that the feature has to be properly designed and that
> > someone has
> > to take the time to actually implement it. And at this point, even if we
> > have a
> > perfect solution for it, Walter is sick of the whole issue and not at all
> > interested in implementing it. Someone else would need to step up to the
> > plate
> > on this one, and we don't exactly have an abundance of dmd developers.
> > It seems
> > like no one has both the inclination and the time to do it.
> > 
> > I'd _love_ to see proper tail const as a language feature, and that's
> > where I
> > think that it should be, but it really doesn't look like that's going to
> > happen
> > at this point.
> 
> I agree with all this except the last phrase.  I think someone will
> eventually do it, but it probably won't be Walter.  It's such a blatant
> omission that someone who has an itch, and good compiler-writing skills
> will just do it and stick it in a patch.

That may be, but I think that D2 is currently at the point where it needs to be 
done _soon_ if it's going to be in the language. D2 as a language is really 
supposed to be essentially stable at this point. And tail const is a big change. 
It might be doable in a way which is totally backwards compatible, but it's the 
kind of thing which could have a serious impact on how const is dealt with in 
Phobos. So, putting it off does _not_ seem like a good idea to me. So, unless 
someone actually does it soon, it really starts looking like a feature for D3 if 
D3 ever happens.

- Jonathan M Davis