More radical ideas about gc and reference counting

[John Colvin via Digitalmars-d]

On Tuesday, 6 May 2014 at 17:47:31 UTC, Manu via Digitalmars-d 
wrote:
>
> Is that something that's general knowledge, or a strategy that 
> people
> are already using? This is the first time the idea has ever 
> occurred
> to me.

> I don't know. But at face value, I'd suggest that it's a concept
> that's quite foreign to Windows users. It never occurred to me 
> until
> right now.

It never occurred to you that people's libraries would be 
published as part of a centralised repository with a tool that 
manages dependencies? It's pretty common-place in a variety of 
languages. (https://rubygems.org/ https://pypi.python.org/pypi 
http://www.cpan.org/ etc...).

With regard to experimental modules, it's good to get them some 
real-world exposure first via dub even if there was some 
"staging" package in phobos.

> If that's a popular approach, then the the dub package listing
> probably needs greater visibility. It well maintained?
>
> dub should almost certainly be bundled with DMD if this is to 
> become a
> standard approach.

It's been discussed a few times. I think greater stability was 
wanted before bundling.

> This only addresses libs though, not experimental compiler 
> features.
> That needs an agreed policy for enabling/disabling such 
> features, and
> I don't see how that can escape living in the DMD repo?
>

Good point.