On 20-06-2012 18:08, Jonathan M Davis wrote:
On Wednesday, June 20, 2012 13:33:53 Jacob Carlborg wrote:
You do understand that the GCC-style inline assembly will still be
available?
But inline assembler with the syntax that dmd uses is supposed to be part of
the language. So, if gdc doesn't support it, it's not a fully compliant D
compiler. It would be like if gdc didn't do
auto a = expression;
but instead did
expression = a auto;
except that the problem is more localized, because inline assembly is rather
rare (unlike variable declarations). So, this a is a _huge_ deal.
- Jonathan M Davis
In practice, no it isn't. Do you really think all C/C++ compilers are
truly standard compliant in every single aspect of the standard, for
instance? And besides, how many of D's users actually write inline
assembly in the first place?
In reality, I don't think removing inline assembly support from GDC is
going to be as problematic as you make it sound, especially when GDC
does provide its own syntax based on the very well-established GCC
syntax. And I think the comparison you offer is very exaggerated.
Besides, the D spec has always been incredibly x86-centric, something
I've been screaming about for a long time now (see my rants on shared).
Making it less x86-centric is a *good* thing IMHO. Implementing a D
compiler shouldn't require implementing an inline assembler for x86. It
just doesn't make any sense, as much as it is neat to have a standard
inline assembler.
Actually, why would we even have the inline assembly version identifiers
if compilers weren't allowed to omit inline assembly syntax?
And let's not forget interpreters, JITs, ...
--
Alex Rønne Petersen
a...@lycus.org
http://lycus.org
