Official DMD compiler written in D

[Andrei Alexandrescu]

On 1/10/13 4:21 PM, Rob T wrote:
> I was wondering the same thing: Why do AA's have to be built directly
> into the language rather than implemented within the standard library?
>
> AA's may be nice to have, but are they really all that fundamental? For
> example, everyone uses strings, but I suspect not everyone will use AA's.
>
> It could however be that some fundamental constructs in the D language
> make use of the built in AA's (tuples?), so if that is the case I can
> understand why they would be built in, but I do not know if this is the
> case or not.

The only distinguishing feature is literal syntax. Everything else is a 
mistake in language design or an insufficiency in the state of the art.

> On a side note, I'm wondering if this may be a way that can help decide
> what should or should not be made a built in component of the language,
> i.e, If the language itself can make good use of the feature internally,
> then it's a good candidate for being built in, but if not, then it's a
> good candidate for being left out and instead implemented in the std lib
> or elsewhere.

Long discussion. Very long.


Andrei