GDC review process.

[Walter Bright]

On 6/19/2012 6:06 PM, Alex Rønne Petersen wrote:
> On 20-06-2012 03:01, Walter Bright wrote:
>> On 6/19/2012 3:47 PM, Alex Rønne Petersen wrote:
>>> On 19-06-2012 23:52, Walter Bright wrote:
>>>> GDC can certainly define its D calling convention to match GCC's. It's
>>>> an "implementation defined" thing, not a language defined one.
>>> Then let's please rename it to the DMD ABI instead of calling it the D
>>> ABI
>>> and
>>> making it look like it's part of the language on the website.
>>
>> The ABI is not part of the language. For example, the C Standard says
>> nothing whatsoever about the C ABI.
>
> Then it's very misleading that it's under the language reference area of the
> website and calls it the "D ABI" and not the "DMD ABI". This might have been
> fine back when there was only DMD, but it really needs to be made clear that
> this is not an ABI that compilers are required to follow.

You're probably right.


>>> Further, D mangling rules should be separate from calling convention.
>>
>> I disagree. The mangling rules are not part of the language
>> specification, either. But they are necessary so that a function with
>> one convention won't be connected to one with another.
>>
>
> If compilers employed their own mangling schemes, debuggers and other tools
> would never be able to properly demangle names. I think it is important that the
> mangling is at least emphasized as a highly recommended (but not required) part
> of the language to implementors.

I don't think we need to worry about that. Implementers tend to follow existing 
practice unless there is a very, very good reason.