DIP: add Bit Fields

[Richard (Rikki) Andrew Cattermole]

On 23/04/2024 4:16 AM, Walter Bright wrote:
> In the very rare case of actually needing an exact layout, with 5 
> minutes of effort any layout can be duplicated with C bit fields. If 
> that's too much effort, one can write explicit shift/mask code, and 
> encapsulate it into a function. (Once the function is inlined, there is 
> zero extra overhead for it.) Or one can use std.bitmanip to do that 
> automatically.
> 
> Yes, we can add extra syntax and semantics to make this controllable by 
> the user, but it's so rarely needed it's over-engineering.

It depends so heavily on what you are doing, as I'm sure you know.

If you work with file formats, IPC (sockets, pipes ext.), CPU flags for 
embedded devices, or performing instruction encoding for fun, you'll end 
up dealing with this stuff heavily enough that you want language support.

If all you need it for is some flags in process then of course it 
appears to be over-engineering.

I'm in the former group often enough that it is pretty uncomforting for 
me to see that this feature won't exist in those circumstances and this 
thread shows that I am not alone in this.