On Wednesday, 5 February 2014 at 04:22:21 UTC, Andrei
Alexandrescu wrote:
Looks like a major weakness.
Even assuming that's true (something I don't agree with), it
doesn't apply to D anyway since we can always template these
functions!
I'd like to say again that multiple pointer types is something we
already have in D:
* unique pointer (I think this is ~ in Rust but rust syntax looks
like vomit to me) is achieved in D by disabling postblit with a
struct and freeing in the dtor (RAII). It CAN offer a release
method to transfer ownership.
* ref counted pointer is achieved with postblit adding ref, dtor
releasing ref.
* GC pointer could be as simple as struct GC(T) { @trustme T t;
alias t this; } (where @trustme disables the escape analysis
checks I'd like to see implemented. Alternatively, if escape
analysis was built in, we would make t private than then offer a
getter property that returns scope T.)
* borrowed pointer is the regular references we have today, plus
escape analysis.
We don't have to speculate how these work. Just write functions
that use GC!T or RC!T or Unique!T - types we can go ahead and
write immediately, they are pretty basic structs. Phobos even has
unique and refcounted right now. We're already halfway there!
