DMD 0.170 release

[Lars Ivar Igesund]

Oskar Linde wrote:

> Walter Bright wrote:
>> John Reimer wrote:
>>> Ah, ok.  I stand corrected on that aspect of my critique.
>> 
>> I'll give some more lame justifications:
>> 
>> There's been some talk about Boost recently in the n.g. (here and in
>> comp.lang.c++) about if what Boost does is really worth it, or if it's
>> just a lot of show-how-clever-I-am falderol. The general idea among the
>> Boost people is that if there's any way possible it could be done in a
>> library, rather than the core, then that's the way it should be done.
>> 
>> I don't agree with that idea. I think Boost stretches C++ past the
>> breaking point, and rather than showing how powerful C++ is, shows
>> instead that the C++ core lacks power. Some of the shortcoming
>> workarounds in Boost are just incredible, in the dogged persistence of
>> their inventors to somehow make them work. Even so, the Boost results
>> still wind up with serious holes in them.
> 
> I fully agree.
> 
>> If some crucial features are added to the core language, then much of
>> Boost either becomes irrelevant, or at least becomes far simpler and
>> straightforward to implement.
> 
> Exactly. Making improvements to the language that generalizes common
> idioms, tremendously shrinks library code or gives additional expressive
> power is good. But foreach_reverse does not generalize anything or give
> any additional expressive power. With the boost analogy, it would just
> replace one single algorithm with a built in equivalent, not reduce the
> amount of scaffolding all the rest of boost needs.
> 
> One example of a generalizing addition is Tomasz' suggestion for
> trailing delegates. It generalizes foreach, foreach_reverse and even the
> while-loop. Such an addition would not only make libraries simpler and
> more powerful. It could also simplify the core language.
> 
> What is design if not the pursuit of simplicity?
> 
> /Oskar

Ah, just what I tried to say somewhere else, just not so good at eloquently
getting my points across when the ideas get too smart ;)

-- 
Lars Ivar Igesund
blog at http://larsivi.net
DSource & #D: larsivi