Can we kill the D calling convention already?

[Alex Rønne Petersen]

On 24-04-2012 11:41, Gor Gyolchanyan wrote:
> There are lots of times, when a specialized custom calling convention
> is necessary.
> For instance, I need a dynamic typing subsystem, to create abstract
> state machines, which can be effortlessly adapted to run-time
> heterogeneous data.
> I already made a function, that takes arbitrary arguments and tightly
> packs them in a single chunk of memory, making a run-time defined
> structures.
> A new calling convention would normalize the ABI of all functions,
> making them all take a single pointer to such a structure. This will
> allow to safely discard the static type info of the functions,
> allowing them to be stored in and called from statically homogeneous
> containers (like the ones inside an abstract state machine).
> Currently, in order to do that, you'd need to define a function in a
> very weird way and use tons of mixins to inject naked function
> assembly to do this without the overhead of going through the current
> static-only type system and calling conventions.
>
> A simple option of allowing to define custom calling convention would
> already lead to library solutions, that make D equally effective
> static and dynamic typed language simultaneously (which would be
> beautifully integrated with each other).
>
> On Tue, Apr 24, 2012 at 1:10 PM, Iain Buclaw<ibuclaw at ubuntu.com>  wrote:
>> On 24 April 2012 10:08, Iain Buclaw<ibuclaw at ubuntu.com>  wrote:
>>> On 24 April 2012 09:42, Alex Rønne Petersen<xtzgzorex at gmail.com>  wrote:
>>>> Writing portable code is hard enough as it is. Why do we have to have some
>>>> random, D-specialized calling convention (only on Win32 and only in DMD)?
>>>> The result of the current state of things is that extern(D) is essentially
>>>> useless - it has completely different meanings across compilers. You cannot
>>>> rely on it at all. If memory serves me right, both LDC and GDC just alias it
>>>> to extern(C), but DMD insists on using this magical D calling convention on
>>>> Win32.
>>>>
>>>
>>> extern(System) would be a more accurate description of what GDC does,
>>> as it uses the default calling convention for the target/platform you
>>> are running on, which may not neccessarily be extern(C).
>>>
>>
>> s/ running on / compiling for /
>>
>>
>> --
>> Iain Buclaw
>>
>> *(p<  e ? p++ : p) = (c&  0x0f) + '0';
>
>
>

I'm not sure what that has to do with the state of extern(D), but yes, I 
agree that custom calling conventions could be useful in some 
specialized cases.

-- 
- Alex