How can we make it easier to experiment with the compiler?

[Andrei Alexandrescu]

On 5/24/21 9:53 AM, 12345swordy wrote:
> On Monday, 24 May 2021 at 10:34:35 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:
>> On 5/24/2021 2:44 AM, Alexandru Ermicioi wrote:
>>> They are not simple for new volunteers to dmd.
>>
>> You're right, they are not. They're optimized for the people who spend 
>> thousands of hours working on it.
>>
>> This inevitably happens with every profession, every discipline, and 
>> every project. A jargon specific to it grows up around it, for the 
>> convenience of the people who work on it every day. If the jargon is 
>> consistent and reasonably logical, it can be a great aid to 
>> understanding once one gets familiar with it.
>>
>> Unfortunately, I have failed at my original design goal of making DMD 
>> a simple compiler. Reshuffling files around and renaming things will 
>> not help. What will help is better encapsulation - unfortunately, that 
>> is hard to do.
>>
>> There are some reasonably well-encapsulated parts. The lexer, the 
>> parser, and the files in the root package. To understand the compiler, 
>> I'd start there.
> 
> I seriously question the "Optimized for people who spend thousands of 
> hours working on it" line, as I had a very intelligent person posted on 
> slacks asking what does this function do, as there is no comments for 
> said functions.

Adding documentation would be another good investment with terrific 
dividends. Again it minds my boggle that people talk about big changes 
(and no doubt would be willing to try them) but can't be bothered to 
make small changes with disproportionately good impact.