Maybe D is right about GC after all !

[Mike Parker]

On Thursday, 4 January 2018 at 10:18:29 UTC, Dan Partelly wrote:

> Yes, disabling GC might have been a feature early on. But not 
> early on enough to not have core language features depending on 
> it, and not early enough to have a std not depending on it. 
> Modifying the std to be more compatible with this scenario is 
> indeed happening, but as you say it is a process which started 
> years ago, and its still dragging on, and no clear docs with 
> what works and what not.

I fundamentally disagree with the idea that core features 
shouldn't depend on the GC. I love that they do. As for Phobos, I 
also don't expect it to be completely GC-free. If there are parts 
of it that can be but aren't, then perhaps a PR?

>
> Rust has a OS being written right now. Does D has ? Anyone ever 
> wanted to use D to write a OS kernel, I doubt it.

There have been at least three kernels in D that I know of, the 
most recent being PowerNex. However, I'm unaware of any that are 
non-hobby projects.

>Is anyone
> seriously thinking today to port their *working* and maintained 
> C code bases to D, possibly introducing new bugs in the process 
> ? (yes some people like Walter did, Im aware of this. But I 
> doubt this will have any serious adoption)

I can't answer for Walter, but my understanding is yes, there 
are. He and Andrei have communication with interests outside of 
these forums.

The whole point of -betterC is to *avoid* the introduction of new 
bugs. It allows you to port your C code directly to D with very 
minimal changes. You can convert a function to D, compile the 
object, link the program, and make sure it works as expected. It 
allows you to continue to distribute/use your program before it 
is fully ported and to verify that it works as expected. Walter's 
use of it is a real-world use case that shows how useful it is.

>
> Id rather use a nice language as D to write new software, not 
> to port old **working**   tools which are only maintained and 
> not developed to it. I see no sense for that.

So, how does the existence of -betterC stop you from writing new 
software? I'm using D without -betterC just fine.