== Quote from Robert Jacques (sandf...@jhu.edu)'s article > On Sun, 29 Aug 2010 00:42:49 -0400, Rainer Deyke <rain...@eldwood.com> > wrote: > > On 8/28/2010 22:33, dsimcha wrote: > >>> Is there any real reason why we can't apply these modifiers > >>> automatically to all functions? (And by "real" I don't mean "it would > >>> be hard to do" or "it is incompatible with the archaic compilation > >>> model > >>> chosen by one D implementation".) > >> > >> Two reasons: > >> > >> 1. Unless the function is a template, the compiler isn't guaranteed to > >> have the > >> source available. What if it's a binary-only library? > > > > "It is incompatible with the archaic compilation model chosen by one D > > implementation." > > > > This special treatment of templates has got to end. > So... dynamic libraries (DLL's, etc.) are an archaic compilation model? > Might you be able to suggest an newer alternative? (that doesn't involve a > JIT, of course)
Sometimes I wonder if, once higher priority issues have been taken care of and D is mainstream enough to support multiple dialects, we should create a D dialect for standalone programs. From a language specification point of view this would be basically a superset of D, but would disallow separate compilation, i.e. all non-extern(C) code for the entire project must be passed to the compiler in a single invocation. This would allow: 1. Using templates to add virtual functions to classes. 2. Compile-time introspection to get all descendants of a class. 3. Better whole-program optimization, because no ABI for this dialect of D would have to be specified, so the compiler could just do whatever is most efficient.
