Idiomatic D using GC as a library writer

[vushu]

On Sunday, 4 December 2022 at 13:03:07 UTC, Hipreme wrote:
> On Sunday, 4 December 2022 at 09:53:41 UTC, vushu wrote:
>> Dear dlang community.
>>
>>
>> I am unsure about what idiomatic D is.
>>
>> Some of the Dconf talks tells people just to use the GC, until 
>> you can't afford
>> it.
>>
>> If there are documents that describes what idiomatic D is then 
>> I would appreciate it.
>>
>>
>> So my questions are:
>>
>>
>> What are your thoughts about using GC as a library writer?
>>
>>
>> If you wan't to include a library into your project aren't you 
>> more inclined to use a
>>
>> library which is gc free?
>>
>>
>>
>> If that is true, then idiomatic D doesn't apply for library 
>> writers.
>>
>> Since to get most exposure as a D library writer you kinda 
>> need to make it gc free right?
>>
>>
>>
>> Cheers.
>
>
> "Until you can't afford", is something really extreme. There is 
> a bunch of ways to deal with GC memory, what I would say that 
> can't afford is when you're constantly allocating memory and 
> because of that, making the program more prone to execute a 
> collection. I haven't had any problem with the GC yet. If you 
> think your program is slow, pass it on a profiler and you'll 
> know the real problem. Don't think too much about that or else 
> you're gonna lose a heck lot of productivity and end up 
> creating needlessly unsafe code.
>

True that makes sense, I also tried using nogc in code, but it 
complicates things.
The code is much easier to write when I don't work against the GC.

> If you're still gonna be hard headed against the GC, at least 
> use slices when allocating from malloc, makes your code safe, 
> readable and less variables to think about. Don't use raw 
> pointers unnecessarily, and right now, the only reason pointers 
> have been used in my code base was not for allocated memory, 
> but for being able to modify a variable from another place when 
> you need to store a variable reference. If you're only gonna 
> modify it inside the function, use `ref` instead.

Thanks for the tips :)