Auto syntax revisited

[Brad Roberts]

On Tue, 21 Feb 2006, Fredrik Olsson wrote:

> My point still being; that we should not be so focused on how the 
> technical bits like how and where the object is allocated (on stack or 
> heap), but how it should be handled (local to scope or not). If the spec 
> does not specify how things should be done, then the implementation is 
> more free to choose what is best for every case, even if the cases may 
> vary as even more new features are added later on (Hopefully without 
> more syntax revisions).
> 
> regards
> // Fredrik

I want to focus on the point.  I have to strongly disagree, this sort of 
thing is what affects ABI's.  If there's a desire to support more than one 
D compiler, this sort of thing can't be left ambiguous as it would make 
cross compiler compatibility a nightmare.  A .o/.a/.so generated via dmd 
would have to successfully link with objects/archives/shared libraries 
created via other compilers.  That means they'd have to behave the same 
with respect to anything that leaks out of a compilation unit.

Aspects of this discussion might stay local enough to remain unspecified, 
if semantics leak outside of a single function, then it needs to be well 
defined.

Later,
Brad