[Bikeshed] getter/readonly mixin util with private/protected backing

[Nick Sabalausky]

"Justin Johansson" <no at spam.com> wrote in message 
news:hdgl0n$dc7$1 at digitalmars.com...
>
> Nick,
>
> On the surface Lutger's answers seem pretty reasonable but that's without 
> knowing
> more about the finer details of your project.
>
> However, having looked at the project link I think you are more likely to 
> get better
> informed, and more, replies if you told us a bit more about the problem(s) 
> the SemiTwist
> Tools project is trying to solve.  I'm interested in being helpful (and 
> hope this reply is)
> but can you expand the project detail a little to solicit a wider 
> audience?
>
> Regards Justin
>

Good question. The "SemiTwist" probably makes it confusing, but all it is is 
a collection of potentially useful utility libraries and tools 
(cross-platform, although only tested on Win/Lin). Basically it's kind of 
like my own scrapple, except it's all in one big cohesive package. It 
started out as my own personal utility library, but then grew and grew and 
grew.

Different parts of it are in different stages of development, ie, a few 
things are barely just skeleton apps, but other things are far enough that 
they've become part of my everyday workflow. Still needs a little cleanup 
and some docs before it'll deserve a formal release-with-announcement, but 
it is there. Examples of some things in it:

- util.mixins (lib, fully-usable, still keep tweaking now-and-then): 
Work-saving mixins for DRY fans. The getter stuff from my OP (because making 
read-only member vars in D is often needed but absurdly verbose), trace 
file/line, trace a value while *also* displaying just WTF the value was 
computed from (ex: If foo == 6, and you want to display foo+1, then you see 
"foo+1: 7" in the output instead of just "7" without having to duplicate 
"foo+1" and remember to keep it in sync.) I recently outlined many of these 
over on D.announce."Metaprogramming in D: Some Real-World Examples"

- util.deferAssert (lib, fully-usable, but I have ideas for improvement): 
Somewhere between D's assert() and JUnit. Proves that you can get *good* 
unittest diagnostics without a doing garbage like 
"(a.notEqual(b)).logicalOr(c.greaterThan(d))" and then loading up a big 
fancy test-runner tool...unless you use Java, of course, then you're SOL. 
Mentioned more over on D.announce."Metaprogramming in D: Some Real-World 
Examples"

- ver (lib, works, but needs another feature-or-two): Floats have one 
decimal point, but version numbers can have an arbitrary number, and 
comparing version numbers using any built-in prmitive is highly non-general 
and ugly. This makes a Ver struct (compatible with strings and int[]) and 
abstracts that all away.

- cmd (lib, alpha-level): Despite stuff like rdmd, D's std libs don't lend 
themselves well as a replacement for doing quick shell scripting stuff, 
unlike bash or perl or (I presume) python. This is a lib that provides a 
shell-like interface through a ready-to-use "cmd.xxxxx" object, and 
optionally adds in the proverbial kicken-sink. Bad for big projects, but 
aims to make D a good choice for short scripts (hunting through API docs for 
the right import, and many things that are good for big projects, are real 
buzz-kills for quick scripting).

- cmdlineparser (lib, fully-usable, needs API cleanup and some features): 
Yet another command-line parser. I like it. superdan hates its design.

- stbuild (tool, works, I use it daily, but very feature-sparse and rigid 
atm): Command-line front-end for rebuild (will support others like xfbuild 
later) for managing command-line switches for multiple build targets (ie, 
"toolA.exe", "toolB.exe" etc.) and configurations (ie, "debug", "release") 
and cleaning. This lets me avoid having to ship apps with platform-specific 
batch and shell files (except for bootstrapping stbuild itself) just to send 
rebuild the appropriate switches for different apps and configurations. Plan 
to expand it later.

- seterrorlevel (tool, fully working): Does what it says, sometimes useful 
for batch.

- myecho (tool, fully working but lacks "-n"): It's echo, seems useless, but 
on windows "echo" is part of the shell, not an actual executable, so it 
can't be launched as a process, which is a pain for making cross-platform 
examples/unittests of process-launching functions.

- showargs (tool, fully working): Displays the args it's given, numbered, 
with one per line. Useful for testing process-launching code.