Walter Bright wrote:
language_fan wrote:
Another point not mentioned here is that modern IDEs use incremental
and interactive compilation model. The compiler should be run as a
persistent background process and parsing should happen perhaps on the
level of the current scope. Re-compiling a million line project after
each key stroke simply makes no sense.
This would not require recompiling a million lines with every key
stroke, unless you are editing a million line module.
Even compiling the current module once per key stroke is too slow.
As you say, it should be done as a background process.
Specifying an intermediate json/xml file format is a huge task
considering the amount of language constructs, types etc. available in D.
It isn't. It's far less work than ddoc is, for example.
I'm all for good tool support but as many have already mentioned, the
support would only bring marginal improvements to small scale tools
like vim and emacs. Usually small scale D projects (< 10000 lines of
code) are written with those tools (feel free to prove me wrong).
These are not the kinds of projects large enterprises would use D for,
they use scripting languages for smaller tasks. Thus the overall
improvement is minimal.
I think the bang for the buck on this is large.
For each snippet of code that doesn't currently compile, I generate a
red warning in the TDPL draft. Currently there are 28 such red warnings,
and each may be arbitrarily difficult to fix. There are other issues
that we know need to be done as soon as yesterday.
IMHO it would be frivolous to spend time on anything else but the 28
bugs. This XML/JSON generation is like combing one's hair before leaving
the burning house. Just run! (I'm not saying I don't like combed hair or
XML/JSON parsing, but the latter is absolutely nothing you need to work
on now.) Please understand that TDPL is on a crash course and we can't
have a book without a language (I'm also assuming we can't have a
language without a book).
Walter, please avoid all distractions and make bringing D in sync with
the book your sole preoccupation. I am working *extremely* hard on the
book, and I wish I were seeing the same level of commitment in you.
Andrei
