What Makes A Programming Language Good

[Andrei Alexandrescu]

On 1/18/11 11:37 PM, Vladimir Panteleev wrote:
> On Tue, 18 Jan 2011 22:17:08 +0200, Walter Bright
> <newshound2 at digitalmars.com> wrote:
>
>> Vladimir Panteleev wrote:
>>> IMO, sticking to the C-ism of "one object file at a time" and
>>> dependency on external build tools / makefiles is the biggest mistake
>>> DMD did in this regard.
>>
>> You don't need such a tool with dmd until your project exceeds a
>> certain size. Most of my little D projects' "build tool" is a one line
>> script that looks like:
>>
>> dmd foo.d bar.d
>>
>> There's just no need to go farther than that.
>
> Let's review the two problems discussed in this thread:
>
> 1) Not passing all modules to the compiler results in a
> nearly-incomprehensible (for some) linker error.
> 2) DMD's inability (or rather, unwillingness) to build the whole program
> when it's in the position to, which creates the dependency on external
> build tools (or solutions that require unnecessary human effort).
>
> Are you saying that there's no need to fix neither of these because they
> don't bother you personally?

I think the larger picture is even more important. We need a package 
system that takes Internet distribution into account. I got word on the 
IRC that dsss was that. It would be great to resurrect that, or start a 
new project with such goals.


Andrei