D-etractions A real world programmers view on D

[Walter Bright]

On 8/25/2012 1:06 PM, Peter Alexander wrote:
> On Saturday, 25 August 2012 at 19:39:47 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:
>> On 8/25/2012 6:03 AM, Peter Alexander wrote:
>>> Okay, so bitfields are rarely used, but many templates involve some use of CTFE,
>>> and templates are very common in D code. It's good that D's parser is fairly
>>> simple to implement (compared to C++ anyway), but to do automated refactoring
>>> you need simple semantic analysis, and this is something that D does not have.
>>
>> How many IDEs can handle the C preprocessor, with token pasting and all, when
>> refactoring?
>
> Straw man - I didn't suggest that the C preprocessor was any better. C++ is
> similarly criticised for its poor IDE support (when compared with C# and Java)
> due to the pre-processor and templates. If you haven't seen the level of support
> that (for example) Visual Studio provides for C# then I recommend checking it
> out. I imagine the situation with Java and Eclipse is similar, but I don't have
> any experience there.


I don't agree it's a straw man - it's the point. A perfect job is not necessary 
in order for people to find automated refactoring useful.