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

[Jacob Carlborg]

On 2011-08-01 10:21, Jonathan M Davis wrote:
> 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

Fair enough.

-- 
/Jacob Carlborg