Better branding of -betterC

Paulo Pinto pjmlp at progtools.org
Sun Nov 1 09:58:39 UTC 2020


On Sunday, 1 November 2020 at 01:26:28 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:
> On 10/31/2020 9:22 AM, Paulo Pinto wrote:
>> On Saturday, 31 October 2020 at 01:57:19 UTC, Walter Bright 
>> wrote:
>>> On 10/29/2020 5:48 AM, Abdulhaq wrote:
>>>> I'm pretty sure that Jai is not mimicking D, also I doubt 
>>>> that Zig is either.
>>>
>>> D popularized CTFE, and other languages followed suit, 
>>> including Jai.
>> 
>> Sorry but that flag belongs to Lisp and Dylan macros, Java 
>> compiler plugins, Java/.NET manipulation of 
>> attributes/annotations
>
> Those are not natively compiled languages, and the compiler is 
> part of the runtime.


Sure they are, one just needs to make use of the existing AOT 
compilers, including Java and .NET. Maybe time to actually learn 
about those platforms?

Java world is not the same as during Visual Caffe days.

Secondly, those features don't require shipping the compiler on 
the runtime.

>
>> and C++ template meta-programing.
>
> Having implemented a full C++ compiler, I don't agree:
>
> 1. it was discovered as a side effect, not designed
> 2. it does not do iteration
> 3. it only does integers - not floating point, not strings, not 
> pointers
> 4. it cannot allocate memory
> 5. it is incredibly limited
> 6. it cannot call or execute a single C++ function
> 7. C++ template metaprograms are limited to trivial ones, due 
> to fundamental problems with it
>
> and, most tellingly,
>
> 8. C++ has gone on to copy D's CTFE
>
>> D CTFE has definitely a very important value, but not 
>> everything that other languages adopt was created by D.
>
> I did say popularized, not created. To round this out a bit, 
> the C preprocessor can do compile time computation, too, but to 
> compare it to D's CTFE is like comparing the pre-existing 
> electric arc lamp to to Edison's incandescent bulb, and saying 
> the bulb wasn't revolutionary.

You have implemented a C++ compiler in the old ISO C++98 days, 
many of your posts regarding C++ seem to be out of date with what 
ISO C++20 looks like.

I usually see some of this recurring statements that D 
popularized something, that anyone with IEEE or ACM/SIGPLAN 
account can easily find otherwise.

This only makes a disservice to D's credibility among those with 
CS knowledge in programming language design, one of my majors, 
hence why I tend to get sidetracked who did what.

--
Paulo


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