On Wednesday, 28 March 2018 at 23:25:09 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:
On 3/28/2018 1:27 PM, Jacob Carlborg wrote:
There's usually nothing that prevents the build tool to write
files at build time. Dub can do this.
It's expected with a build tool. Not a compiler.
With the frame of mind prevalent in our Industry I really want to
have compiler includibg codegen as a bunch of library components.
Then there is no problem innovating while people argue over
things “allowed” for a compiler, or a linker, or a build tool.
None of these actually have to be apps talking via files.
If I look closely every program I see is a graph database, with
nodes sometimes being code, types, sometimes data, other
meta-data such as ABI attributes or conditional compilation
flags, documentation, external tools, specs and databases are
also part of this. Code that produces code is also part of such
graph, and CTFE/macroses would just be finer grained approach.
Why process graphs piece-wise in a frentic dance of command-line
tools that try to fit all to a tree of files (multiple ones, in
many location, and part in some CMS) and then have editors/IDEs
integrate? Was easier I believe + inertia, easy != simple though.
