printf() metaprogramming challenge

[Mike Franklin]

On Friday, 24 May 2019 at 22:59:10 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:

> C's printf has been hammered on by literally generations of 
> programmers over 3 decades. While the interface to it is 
> old-fashioned and unsafe, the guts of it are rock solid, fast, 
> and correct.

That may be true, but one problem with `printf` is it is much too 
large and inefficient for some problem domains [1].

Rust has a more efficient `printf` alternative which is not 
dependent on a runtime or libc [2].

D could offer a *much* more efficient, pay-for-what-you-use 
implementation that doesn't require libc, a runtime, etc., like 
Rust's implementation.  It wouldn't be easy (especially wrt 
floating point types), but it would be a great benefit to D and 
its users.  Maybe I'll add it to dlang/projects [3].

There seems to be a perception about C that because it's old and 
proven, it's magical.  There's nothing `printf` is doing that D 
can't do better, if someone would just be willing to do the hard 
work.

Mike

[1] - Minimizing memory use in embedded systems Tip #3 – Don’t 
use printf() - 
https://embeddedgurus.com/stack-overflow/tag/printf/
[2] - std.fmt : https://doc.rust-lang.org/std/fmt/
[3] - dlang/projects - https://github.com/dlang/projects