Compiler updating user code

John Colvin john.loughran.colvin at gmail.com
Fri Mar 14 05:07:24 PDT 2014


On Friday, 14 March 2014 at 11:44:21 UTC, Daniel Murphy wrote:
> "Manu" <turkeyman at gmail.com> wrote in message 
> news:mailman.105.1394774104.23258.digitalmars-d at puremagic.com...
>
>> So it comes up fairly regularly that people suggest that the 
>> compiler should have a mode where it
>> may update user code automatically to assist migration to new 
>> compiler versions.
>>
>> I'm personally against the idea, and Walter certainly doesn't 
>> like it, but it occurred to me that a
>> slight variation on this idea might be awesome.
>>
>> Imagine instead, an '-update' option which instead of 
>> modifying your code, would output a .patch
>> file containing suggested amendments wherever it encountered 
>> deprecated code...
>> The user can then take this patch file, inspect it visually 
>> using their favourite merge tool, and pick
>> and choose the bits that they agree or disagree with.
>>
>> I would say this approach takes a dubious feature and turns it 
>> into a spectacular feature!
>
> If you're using version control, these are practically the same 
> thing.

Yeah, I don't understand why it matters whether it's a change or 
a patch. Either way, all changes become patches in VCS. Who would 
let an automated tool make source changes without using VC, or at 
least having made a manual backup?

Also, making a direct change allows the user to use whatever diff 
software / version control software they like.


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