On Thursday, 29 November 2012 at 14:04:32 UTC, Jacob Carlborg
wrote:
I still think it's possible to have a smaller, less verbose and
more simplistic build scripts written in Ruby. BUT I would
choose a proper build tool with build scripts written in D any
day over having to use shell scripts or your special kind of
comments.
The very last thing I would want to do is to futz around
installing Ruby and learning Ruby for the sole purpose of
building a D application. Think about how massive a time sink
that is for anyone who has no other reason to invest their
valuable time into Ruby. I got sucked into this trap with Make,
which wasted many hours of what should have been productive time,
and I saw the exact same issues repeat when I investigated scons
as a potential alternative. I just fail to see why this kind of
complexity is necessary at all. If we can fix the problem at the
source, then we should do it, rather than pile more mess on top
of the existing pile of mess.
I do however think you have a good point wrt the use of
"comments" for doing this stuff. Please do not use comments for
this, make it a part of the language for real, like CTFE or
something.
For example I find that implementing the ddoc system as
"comments" was a mistake, because when you do it in that way, you
think of those constructs as being comments like any other, and
that limits the thinking concerning what can (or could have been)
done with them. Ddoc could and should be much more than it is,
even if it was started off in a limited way, it at least could
have the potential to expand in a more useful way.
--rt
