[article] Language Design Deal Breakers

[Regan Heath]

On Sat, 25 May 2013 23:50:28 +0100, Klaim - Joël Lamotte  
<mjklaim at gmail.com> wrote:

> I think this have not been posted yet around here but might be  
> interesting
> to the D community as it is actually criticizing several languages
> including D but with an interesting aproach:
>
> http://sebastiansylvan.wordpress.com/2013/05/25/language-design-deal-breakers/

So it seems D doesn't fit the bill due to point #3..

"Null pointer exceptions have no business in modern languages. Getting rid  
of them /costs no performance/, and statically eliminates the one big  
remaining cause of runtime crashes that we still see in otherwise “modern”  
languages."

/emphasis/ mine.  Is it actually true that you can "remove" null pointer  
exceptions at no runtime cost?

It's possible if you remove pointers from the language.
It's possible if you statically require that any pointer/reference is  
initialised at declaration.

But, is it otherwise possible?  Because both of these options are too  
restrictive for a systems programming language.

Point #4 might also be slightly at odds with D's current GC, but that  
can/will improve, eventually (bigger fish to fry).

Point #5 is likewise an area where D can/will improve, eventually (bigger  
fish to fry)

R

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