On Borrow Checking

[Timon Gehr]

On 5/11/25 20:23, Walter Bright wrote:
> 
> This is why I stopped working on D's borrow checker.

That was the right call.

> It's all been relentlessly negative.

Well, sorry, this is not fun for me.

> But I did get it to the point where it proved that a borrow checker can work in D with zero changes to the syntax (except marking a function as @live), and I'm happy about that. 

I think nobody competent doubted it is possible to do what `@live` does, 
it's just not a particularly sensible thing to do.

I also completely disagree that what `@live` does is somehow equivalent 
to "a borrow checker working in D" comparing to standard expectations by 
a competent user.

> When I embarked on ImportC, I got the same response.

This is not true, I was on board with ImportC.
https://forum.dlang.org/post/skmhil$p8n$1@digitalmars.com

> Until suddenly it became a major asset for D.

In addition to it becoming a minor liability due to the temptation of 
copying over the bitfields implementation to D proper. :o)

> I was just more willing to push through with it.

It's just not true that `@live` would be good if you prioritized it over 
ImportC. It's a fundamentally flawed design.