GDC review process.

[Alex Rønne Petersen]

On 20-06-2012 18:08, Jonathan M Davis wrote:
> On Wednesday, June 20, 2012 13:33:53 Jacob Carlborg wrote:
>> You do understand that the GCC-style inline assembly will still be
>> available?
>
> But inline assembler with the syntax that dmd uses is supposed to be part of
> the language. So, if gdc doesn't support it, it's not a fully compliant D
> compiler. It would be like if gdc didn't do
>
> auto a = expression;
>
> but instead did
>
> expression = a auto;
>
> except that the problem is more localized, because inline assembly is rather
> rare (unlike variable declarations). So, this a is a _huge_ deal.
>
> - Jonathan M Davis

In practice, no it isn't. Do you really think all C/C++ compilers are 
truly standard compliant in every single aspect of the standard, for 
instance? And besides, how many of D's users actually write inline 
assembly in the first place?

In reality, I don't think removing inline assembly support from GDC is 
going to be as problematic as you make it sound, especially when GDC 
does provide its own syntax based on the very well-established GCC 
syntax. And I think the comparison you offer is very exaggerated.

Besides, the D spec has always been incredibly x86-centric, something 
I've been screaming about for a long time now (see my rants on shared). 
Making it less x86-centric is a *good* thing IMHO. Implementing a D 
compiler shouldn't require implementing an inline assembler for x86. It 
just doesn't make any sense, as much as it is neat to have a standard 
inline assembler.

Actually, why would we even have the inline assembly version identifiers 
if compilers weren't allowed to omit inline assembly syntax?

And let's not forget interpreters, JITs, ...

-- 
Alex Rønne Petersen
alex at lycus.org
http://lycus.org