OT: on IDEs and code writing on steroids

[BCS]

Reply to Yigal,

> BCS wrote:
> 
>> Hello Yigal,
>> 
>>> C# assemblies are analogous to C/C++/D libs.
>>> you can't create a standalone executable in D just by parsing the D
>>> source files (for all the imports) if you need to link in external
>>> libs.
>>> you need to at least specify the lib name if it's on the linker's
>>> search path or provide the full path otherwise.
>> pagma(lib, ...); //?
>> 
> that's a compiler directive. nothing prevents a C# compiler to
> implement this. In general though this is a bad idea. why would you
> want to embed such outside data inside your code?

Because it's needed to build the code

> info needed for building your task should not be part of the code.

IMO it should. Ideally it should be available in the code in a form tools 
can read. At a minimum, it should be in the comment header. The only other 
choice is placing it outside your code and we have already covered why I 
think that is a bad idea.

> what if I want to rename the lib,

So you rename the lib and whatever references to it (inside the code or outside) 
end up needing to be update. Regardless, you will need to update something 
by hand or have a tool do it for you. I see nothing harder about updateing 
it in the code than outside the code.

> do I have to recompile everything?

Nope. pragma(lib, ...) just passes a static lib to the linker and doesn't 
have any effect at runtime. (if you are dealing with .dll/.so libraries then 
you link in a export .lib with a pragma or load them manually and don't even 
worry about it at all)

> what if I don't have the source?

It's pointing at a static library so source doesn't matter. If you are working 
from source then you don't need the pragma and what matters is DMD's import 
path (if it is an unrelated code tree in which cases the path can be developer 
specific and needs to be set up per system).

> what if I want to change the version?

In that case you change the pragma. (again assuming static libs and the same 
side note for dynamic libs)

> what if I want to switch a vendor for this lib?

I have never heard of this being possible without major changes in the calling 
code so it don't matter.