Why is it that no one writes with portability in mind in druntime?

[Jonathan M Davis]

On Sunday, November 24, 2013 17:15:25 Johannes Pfau wrote:
> We have one type in D which has a different size depending on platform
> and it's the number one source for platform-specific problems...

No. We have several types which vary in size. In addition to real, there's 
also size_t (which should be being used in almost all D programs, whereas real 
is used in far fewer), and there's also ptrdiff_t, which is effectively an 
unsigned size_t. And of course, all of the pointer types vary in size, as do 
the c_* types from druntime when you have to interact with C (though those 
aren't part of the language - or even just treated as part of the language as 
size_t and ptrdiff_t are, since they're defined in object_.d). So, even if 
almost all of D's numeric types don't vary in size, there are some that do.

But it is true that a large portion of our platform-specific problems stem from 
types that vary in size.

- Jonathan M Davis