On Wednesday, May 15, 2013 20:08:13 Borden wrote: > I think that this is a better approach to take. Surely Windows > has an XML library and that would have to be done is write a > single header file that would link to the XML library on the > operating system? I know, probably far more difficult to > implement than it sounds...
Long term, that is very much the wrong way to go. Thanks primarily to slicing, parsing is one area where D really shines and is likely to outstrip the competition of the code is well-written. And it does even better of any aspects of it can be generated at compile time (as happens with std.regex - the compile time stuff that it has is the faster regex library on the planet). Also, as far as the standard library goes, we want a range-based XML solution, which is likely to be much harder if you're trying to wrap a C API. So, in this particular case, wrapping a C library would be a stop-gap solution at best. In other cases, it may be the best way to go, but parsing is one area where D stands out. Tango's XML parser is lightning fast and was a great highlight for D1 (and it should be useable in D2 now that Tango has been ported to D2, though given the difference in license, it could never be put into Phobos). It's just that std.xml is a particularly poor implementation. We can do far, far better. - Jonathan M Davis
