Is it time for D 3.0?

[H. S. Teoh]

On Fri, Mar 27, 2020 at 07:50:44PM +0000, JN via Digitalmars-d wrote:
[...]
> First one is testing top N dub packages for breakages with new
> versions/features.

Isn't the current CI already doing this?


[...]
> Second thing is having a tool like gofix -
> https://blog.golang.org/introducing-gofix - gofix is an official
> Golang tool which automatically applies fixes to code, whether it's
> converting deprecated code or syntax/stdlib changes. Would also be a
> good test for a D compiler as a library project.

There's already dfix.  Does it not work well enough?  What are the
issues the prevent us from using it in general?


--T

[...]
> On Friday, 27 March 2020 at 17:17:44 UTC, Steven Schveighoffer wrote:
> > 
> > There was an issue with an alternative standard library (Tango),
> > which divided the community. That shouldn't be a problem for a D3.
> 
> I'm probably in a minority here, but I feel like D would be better off
> if it went more in the Tango direction and being more of an OOP
> language, rather than moving into the STL/boost direction with
> templates everywhere. But that's just me, an OOP lover and not a fan
> of templates.

Why can't we have both?  I'm a big fan of templates and compile-time
introspection, but OOP is still useful sometimes and I do still pull it
out for when I really need runtime polymorphism.

In fact, combine the two together, and you get something amazing like
Adam's jni.d, which makes Java interop so nice I'm tempted to stop
hating Java so much ('cos I can now write Java in D :-P).


[...]
> On Friday, 27 March 2020 at 15:56:40 UTC, Steven Schveighoffer wrote:
> > Some issues I can think of:
> > 
> > 1. The safe by default debate
> > 2. pure by default
> > 3. nothrow by default
> > 4. String interpolation DIP
> > 5. auto-decoding
> > 6. range.save
> > 7. virtual by default
> > 8. ProtoObject
> 
> My main concern here is that while it seems to be fixes to a
> longstanding D issues, it's also very low-level in the long run.
> Anyone who was turned off from D before would look at it and be like
> "hmm, ok, well, so what?". No one will ask "have they fixed auto
> decoding?". People would ask "does it work without GC now?" "can it
> compile to WASM?".

Honestly, I think this whole no-GC thing is just barking up the wrong
tree. People who have GC phobia will turn off as soon as they see "GC",
doesn't matter if you can actually write D without GC or not.  They
won't even look that far before walking away.  And frankly, IMO D should
just embrace the GC and relish in it instead of trying to win over the
no-GC crowd.  Trying to be too many things at once is stretching us too
thin; D should just make a danged decision already about these issues,
and stick to it instead of trying to be everything to everyone.

As for compiling to WASM, isn't LDC already doing that, or on the way to
doing that?


T

-- 
Three out of two people have difficulties with fractions. -- Dirk Eddelbuettel