John Carmack applauds D's pure attribute

[Paulo Pinto]

On Monday, 27 February 2012 at 09:33:32 UTC, so wrote:
> On Monday, 27 February 2012 at 08:39:54 UTC, Paulo Pinto wrote:
>> I keep bringing this issues, because I am a firm believer that 
>> when
>> people that fight against a GC are just fighting a lost battle.
>>
>> Like back in the 80's people were fighting against Pascal or C 
>> versus
>> Assembly. Or in the 90' were fighting against C++ versus C.
>>
>> Now C++ is even used for operating systems, BeOS, Mac OS X 
>> drivers,
>> COM/WinRT.
>
> It is not a fair analogy. Unlike MMM and GC, C++ can do 
> everything C can do and has more sugar. What they are argue i 
> think whether or not OO is a solution to everything and 
> troubles with its implementation in C++.
>
>> Sure a systems programming language needs some form of manual 
>> memory
>> management for "exceptional situations", but 90% of the time 
>> you will
>> be allocating either referenced counted or GCed memory.
>>
>> What will you do when the major OS use a systems programming 
>> language like forces GC or reference counting on you do? Which 
>> is already slowly happening with GC and ARC on Mac OS X, WinRT 
>> on Windows 8, mainstream OS, as well as the Oberon, Spin, 
>> Mirage, Home, Inferno and Singularity research OSs.
>>
>> Create your own language to allow you to live in the past?
>>
>> People that refuse to adapt to times stay behind, those who 
>> adapt, find ways to profit from the new reality.
>>
>> But as I said before, that is my opinion and as a simple human 
>> is also prone to errors. Maybe my ideas regarding memory 
>> management in systems languages are plain wrong, the future 
>> will tell.
>>
>> --
>> Paulo
>
> As i said in many threads regarding GC and MMM, it is not about 
> this vs that.
> There should be no religious stances. Both have their strengths 
> and failures.
> What every single discussion on this boils down to is some 
> people downplay the failures of their religion :)
>
> And that staying behind thing is something i never understand!
> It is a hype, it is marketing! To sell you a product that 
> doesn't deserve half its price!
>
> Religion/Irrationality has no place in what we do. Show me a 
> better tool, "convince me" it is better and i will be using 
> that tool. I don't give a damn if it is D or vim i am leaving 
> behind.

I also don't have any problem with tools, what matters is what 
the customer wants and with what I can make him happy, not what 
the tool flavor of the month is.

Personally, even thought it might come differently in my posts, I 
also believe there are situations where MMM is much better than 
GC. Or where GC is not even feasible.

The thing is, regardless of what anyone might think, the major 
desktop OS are integrating reference counting and GC at the 
kernel level. Now when the systems programming languages that are 
part of these OS, offer these types of memory management, there 
is no way to choose otherwise, even if one so wishes.

--
Paulo