DMD 1.005 release

[Yauheni Akhotnikau]

> I agree with the point that metaprogramming needs more control  
> structures.
>
> static for, static foreach, static while, static do, static switch case,  
> etc.

I think it is not a good way. Because this leads to two different  
languages in one: compile-time D (constructs from ordinal D but with  
prefix 'static') and run-time (ordinal D).

If it is necessary to use compile-time D then the following difficalties  
arose:
* it is imposible to use externals tools, such as compiler-compiler  
generators, which produces ordinal D code;
* it is hard to debug compile-time code -- how to launch debugger at  
compile time?
* it is necessary to construct compile-time unit tests;
* it is impossible to use existing D libraries for DSL transformations.

I'm use Ruby a lot and much metaprogramming things done via creating  
strings with Ruby code and evaluating it by various 'eval' methods. It is  
very simple method -- easy in writting, debugging and testing. And there  
isn't two different Ruby -- only one language.

Yet another example -- Nemerle (http://www.nemerle.org). But Nemerle use  
different technique -- code of macros have access to syntax tree at  
compilation stage.

-- 
Regards,
Yauheni Akhotnikau