D as A Better C?

[Xavier Bigand]

Le 11/02/2014 20:43, Walter Bright a écrit :
> I've toyed with this idea for a while, and wondered what the interest
> there is in something like this.
>
> The idea is to be able to use a subset of D that does not require any of
> druntime or phobos - it can be linked merely with the C standard
> library. To that end, there'd be a compiler switch (-betterC) which
> would enforce the subset.
>
> (First off, I hate the name "better C", any suggestions?)
>
> The subset would disallow use of any features that rely on:
>
> 1. moduleinfo
> 2. exception handling
> 3. gc
> 4. Object
>
> I've used such a subset before when bringing D up on a new platform, as
> the new platform didn't have a working phobos.
>
> What do you think?

If I correctly understand class will stay usable?
So IMO it's just like if you said : "I want do a fork of D2 without GC". 
If you are going to this way some people will certainly fork this 
D2-BetterC version and add it a new standard library more like QtCore.

In this case why not simply improve the D modularity and put features 
you want remove as options? The main issue is about how phobos have to 
manage memory, with or without GC, maybe both?

If you want go to the modularity, it's really nice, but maybe it will 
simpler to remove only GC and reboot phobos. Maybe it can help D 
contributors to be focused on system aspects of language instead of 
full-featured that can be reached only with a big community or 
commercial patterns.