Just where has this language gone wrong?

[Nick Sabalausky]

On Sat, 21 Jul 2012 23:14:12 +0200
"Stuart" <stugol at gmx.com> wrote:
> Let me just add, I really *like* the terse syntax of D. Lambdas, 
> uniform function call syntax, and so on.
> 

Yea. I used Java in college and ever since then I've been a fan of
non-verbose systax - ie syntax that's the *opposite* of Java ;)

> 
> Garbage-collection I can live without. Closures, properties and 
> events I really miss when they're not available. But header files 
> were the single worst thing to ever befall coders.

I agree, a proper module system was one of the first, biggest things
that drew me to D - It was one of the handful of things Java actually
got *right* compared to C++ (another big one being reference semantics
for classes). When I use C++, a proper module system is one of the
biggest things I miss.

Aside from the issues you mention, there's another big benefit to
killing off the #include system and switching to D: Type names and other
identifiers aren't cluttered up with the noise of a make-shift module
system. (Yea, there's namespaces, but not everyone seems to use them.
I assume there's probably good reasons for that...besides easier
integration with D ;) )

For example, I'm using the IwGame C++ library
( http://www.drmop.com/index.php/iwgame-engine/ ) and fucking *EVERY*
type name is prefixed with "CIwGame...". And anything from the
underlying Marmalade starts with "CIw..." so basic vectors are
named convoluted shit like "CIwFVec2". Of course, this is on top of the
fact that until C++11 becomes more widespread there isn't a damn bit of
type inference anywhere, so those horrific full names have to be used
EVERYWHERE. With a proper module system like D's, there'd be no
problem with names like "ImageActor" and "FVec2" instead of
"CIwGameImageActor" and "CIwFVec2", because conflicts could be easily
detected and dealt with.

And of course the other real obvious benefit of killing #include: None
of that separate cpp/h file bullshit.

C++ is living in the 70's. It should have a mascot wearing a leisure
suit.