MS extend C++ significantly for Windows8... and Andrei got name drop

[Manu]

On 25 January 2012 23:59, Adam Wilson <flyboynw at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Wed, 25 Jan 2012 13:35:38 -0800, Manu <turkeyman at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>  On 25 January 2012 21:47, bls <bizprac at orange.fr> wrote:
>>
>>  On 01/25/2012 07:03 AM, Manu wrote:
>>>
>>>  This is fairly interesting. MS have extended their C++ compiler
>>>> significantly for Windows8 with a bunch of non-standard stuff.
>>>> FINALLY implement garbage collection, ref counting, properties,
>>>> delegates, events, generics, etc...
>>>> If other compilers adopt this tech, D loses some advantages.
>>>>
>>>>
>>> But you still have to fight with ifndef ,forward declaration, and a
>>> template syntax against common sense.  Even if you paint shit yellow it's
>>> not necessarily gold.
>>>
>>>
>> True, but I think this will mitigate a lot of the motivation Windows devs
>> have to seek another language if they're not developing cross platform
>> apps.
>>
>> Sadly, since WinRT requires using these language extensions to interface
>> with the new windows runtime, you won't be able to write a Windows8 app in
>> D.
>> Interestingly though, D supports almost everything they've added to C++. I
>> wonder if it would be possible to do extern(Windows8) to produce a
>> compatible ABI for linking with MS C++ apps?
>>
>> The most interesting features are 'ref new' and 'gcnew', which makes me
>> wonder, since Windows8 has an OS garbage collector, would it be at all
>> possible to have D use the Windows8 GC? I'd prefer this to using D's own
>> GC
>> if it would be supported, and obviously this would be a requirement if D
>> was going to interact with WinRT properly.
>> Also, WinRT uses 'ref new' to allocate ref counted (effectively COM to my
>> understanding) objects. I think I read somewhere that D already has
>> extern(COM) no? I wonder if Windows8 ref type linkage is already
>> technically supported in D?
>>
>
> There is no Win8GC, it's all ref counted. WinRT is COM with extras and as
> such should be accessible to D. It would need some extra glue code over
> what we have now ... like the IInspectable interface.
>

Really? So what's 'gcnew' for?
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