On 8/3/14, 3:26 PM, David Bregman wrote:
On Sunday, 3 August 2014 at 22:15:52 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
One related point that has been discussed only a little is the
competitive aspect of it all. Generating fast code is of paramount
importance for D's survival and thriving in the market. Competition in
language design and implementation is acerbic and only getting more
cutthroat. In the foreseeable future efficiency will become more
important at scale seeing as data is growing and frequency scaling has
stalled.
Would you care to address the questions about performance raised in the OP?
I thought I just did.
Availing ourselves of a built-in "assert" that has a meaning and
informativeness unachievable to e.g. a C/C++ macro is a very important
and attractive competitive advantage compared to these and other
languages.
Not really, you can redefine the C macro to behave exactly as proposed,
using compiler specific commands to invoke undefined behavior. Didn't
you say in the other thread that you tried exactly that?
That might be possible, but one thing I was discussing with Walter
(reverse flow analysis) may be more difficult with the traditional
definition of assert. Also I'm not sure whether the C and C++ standards
require assert to do nothing in NDEBUG builds.
Walter has always meant assert the way he discusses it today. Has he
(and subsequently he and I) been imprecise in documenting it? Of
course, but that just means it's Tuesday.
That said, should we proceed carefully about realizing this advantage?
Of course; that's a given. But I think it's very important to fully
understand the advantages of gaining an edge over the competition.
Please comment on the concerns raised by the OP.
Probably not - there's little motivation to do so. The original post is
little else than a self-important rehash of a matter in which everybody
has stated their opinion, several times, in an exchange that has long
ran its course. Having everyone paste their thoughts once again seems
counterproductive.
Andrei
