What library functionality would you most like to see in D?

[Jonathan M Davis]

On Monday 01 August 2011 10:12:17 Jacob Carlborg wrote:
> On 2011-08-01 03:56, Jonathan M Davis wrote:
> > If we do a hand-written lexer of D for Phobos, it really should be a
> > fairly direct port of the dmd front-end. It should be _somewhat_
> > D-ified as appropriate, (and the API should definitely be properly
> > range-based and all that), but the implementation needs to be fairly
> > close to dmd itself so that it's easy for someone to port changes and
> > fixes back and forth between the two. Otherwise, they're going to get
> > out of sync fairly easily. If we're not going to do a direct port, then
> > we might as well just do the template-based lexer generator that Andrei
> > and others would really like to see (which we should still do, but I
> > think that the hand-written lexer is nowhere near as valuable if it's
> > not a direct port of dmd's lexer).
> 
> In the long run I hope that this won't be necessary, I'm hoping that DMD
> will use the lexer from Phobos.
> 
> > Also, I see _zero_ value in making it support D1. If it's for D2's
> > standard library, then what's the point of it lexing D1? That just
> > complicates the lexer for what is essentially a legacy product. And
> > given that the differences between D1 and D2 in dmd's lexer are covered
> > with #ifdefs, it would be rather complicated to try and do a direct
> > port which covers both D1 and D2. It would probably be easier if the
> > two were completely separate.
> > 
> > As for what I've done so far, I'd have to go look. I haven't touched it
> > in a couple of months, I expect. There has been a lot of other stuff
> > that I've needed to do, and Andrei was trying to discourage such an
> > implementation the last time that I brought it up. So, I haven't
> > exactly been in a rush to get it done. I'd like to do it, but I've been
> > rather busy.
> 
> In this case I really don't think that you should listen to Andrei.

Well, when I have multiple things on my plate, and Andrei has a major 
disagreement with one, I'm less likely to focus on that one. It's also one 
which takes quite a bit of time and focus, whereas there is other stuff which I 
can do in smaller chunks of time without needing as much focus. So, I haven't 
worked on it as much. I should probably remedy that, but there's quite a lot 
that I've been trying to get done.

So, yes. I intend to do it in spite of Andrei's opinion on the matter, but 
lately I've been focusing on other stuff which needs doing.

- Jonathan M Davis