To avoid some linking errors

[Brad Roberts]

On Mon, 29 Oct 2012, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
> On 10/29/12 2:10 PM, Peter Alexander wrote:
> > On Sunday, 28 October 2012 at 20:59:25 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:
> > 
> > Seriously though, it's irrelevant. The fact is a lot of programmers,
> > especially new programmers or ones from programming languages that don't
> > use linkers find link errors scary and confusing.
> > 
> > Pretending otherwise gets us nowhere.
> > 
> > Saying it baffles you why things are this way gets us nowhere.
> > 
> > Saying that "they should understand" gets us nowhere.
> 
> I agree (and was about to post something very close to this). I've heard many
> times about this particular baffling, and it's one of those cases in which
> clearly people who are otherwise competent have quite a bit of difficulty. So
> one reasonable resolution is "well that's how people are, and that you think
> differently doesn't solve the matter one bit, so let's see what steps to take
> on improving it".
> 
> From what I can tell here's how to solve linker error issues:
> 
> 1. Automatic demangling of the symbols involved must be in place.
> 
> 2. For undefined symbols, there must be reference at source file and line
> level of where they are referred - /all/ places!
> 
> 3. For multiply defined symbols, there must be reference at source file and
> line level for each definition.
> 
> I understand there are technical difficulties in implementing the above, but
> that doesn't justify being baffled.
> 
> Being baffled is not an option.
> 
> 
> Andrei

There's another angle to this:

1) It's been stated more than once that one of the goals for D is to 
achieve a user base of over 1 million users.

2) I assert that there aren't more than 1 million programmers with the 
level of expertise and experience required to understand what happens 
during compilation to a sufficient degree that they feel comfortable with 
the tool chains that D (and c and c++) have today.

Conclusion, the tool chains must get more user friendly.