OT: on IDEs and code writing on steroids

[Jarrett Billingsley]

On Sun, May 17, 2009 at 7:15 PM, BCS <none at anon.com> wrote:

>> second, D needs to update its stone age compilation model copied from
>> C++. I'm not saying we need to copy the C# or Java models exactly, but
>> we need to throw away the current legacy model.
>> Java has convenient Jar files: you can package everything into nice
>> modular packages with optional source code and documentation.
>> similar stuff is done in .net.
>
> NO ABSOLUTELY NOT! (and I will /not/ apologies for yelling) I will fight
> that tooth and nail!
>
> One of the best thing about D IMNSHO is that a D program is "just a
> collection of text files". I can, without any special tools, dive in an view
> or edit any file I want. I can build with nothing but dmd and a command
> line. I can use the the source control system of my choice. And very
> importantly, the normal build model produces a stand alone OS native
> executable.

I don't think changing from a decades-old 'one object file per source
file' compilation model will make you sacrifice any of that.  He's
proposing something else, like a custom object format.  It has nothing
to do with the way source is stored, or with how you invoke the
compiler.  Java hasn't destroyed any of that by using .class files,
has it?

We already have a proof-of-concept of this sort of thing for D: LDC.
The LLVM intermediate form is far more amenable to cross-module and
link-time optimization.