Blog Post: Beating std::visit Without Really Trying

[Paolo Invernizzi]

On Wednesday, 16 October 2019 at 10:56:40 UTC, Atila Neves wrote:
> On Saturday, 12 October 2019 at 03:10:29 UTC, Walter Bright 
> wrote:
>> On 10/7/2019 12:37 AM, Paolo Invernizzi wrote:
>>> - adding another method to a class, marked @nogc, and (maybe) 
>>> deprecating the previous method is seen as 'annoying', also 
>>> if it's a _clear_ improvement over the actual situation (you 
>>> can write _better_ code with that in place compared to the 
>>> actual situation, I mean)
>>
>> @nogc doesn't actually enable writing better code. It doesn't 
>> change the generated code at all.
>>
>>
>>> I'm on the same boat with you, regarding what you wrote, but 
>>> ... I still don't understand the number printed on the bar 
>>> level.
>>
>> Atila is in charge of this, and he is because he's shown 
>> excellent judgement about these matters over the years.
>
> I think that I need to ruminate on Phobos v2.
>
> In the meanwhile, a much easier and shorter route to improving 
> the D library ecosystem is to put something up on 
> code.dlang.org, which requires no gatekeeping.

While I agree on the ecosystem, the problem of keeping the actual 
Phobos modules in a good shape still apply.

Please take a look at the cited pull request: it's a *trivial* 
Phobos patch, that can be added aside to the current 
implementation, blocked for months waiting for a _political_ 
decision.

I understand that "there's always something else better for the 
language to do", but Phobos is the current "home sweet home" for 
everyone approaching D, and it's the first library inspected in 
details.

It's simply embarrassing to explain to an external reviewer that 
a standard library method signature is inaccurate after 88 
releases of version 2 of the language. And that yes, 'assumeNoGC' 
is needed, 'trust' that, and yes, an issue was filed along with a 
potential fix.

I've full faith in your and Walter judgement, of course.