On the richness of C++

[Sean Kelly]

== Quote from Janice Caron (caron800 at googlemail.com)'s article
> On 16/04/2008, Walter Bright <newshound1 at digitalmars.com> wrote:
> >  The only way to merge function pointers with delegates is to have the
> > compiler generate trampolines. This isn't very runtime efficient - the
> > template approach will be faster.
> I think that all that is being suggested is that function (that which
> you get when you take the address of a static or global function)
> should implicitly cast to delegate (that which you get when you take
> the address of a local or member function).

I think the problem is that functions and delegates are called differently.
That is, the context pointer is passed as an invisible first parameter to
a delegate, while functions have no such invisible argument.  Interestingly,
because the first parameter of a D function is supposed to be passed in a
register (EAX) on x86, I think you're right that it should be possible to
allow such efficient conversion so long as the D calling convention
accounts for it properly (and the platform supports such things).


Sean