On 1/18/18 3:21 PM, Timothee Cour wrote:
But in any case, the idea that comments affect the file you are compiling
*right now*, and not some other tool-generated file makes me very nervous.
Comments are supposed to not affect the code. Consider that with this
feature, the documentation now becomes part of the API.
That's already the case today that documentation can affect the code
because `import(__FILE__)` is legal. Both string import and
`__traits(documentation)` are tools and can be used for solving real
problems or abused.
Let's not invoke (impossible) ideals at the expense of pragmatism; D
is supposed to be pragmatic, not dogmatic.
Of course, you can cobble together something that uses the docs in your
build process, you don't need the compiler to help create such a
monster. After all, they are just text files.
The point remains -- if you normalize this feature, it will be abused
far easier and more frequently than it would be if it's less trivial.
In any case, I stand by my assertion -- comments should be comments, not
code.
A related improvement: Documented unit tests. Instead of adding a
feature to D where examples in the documentation were tested directly
(and I'm pretty sure this was proposed), we added the ability to
document unit tests. I think this was a far saner direction.
A further note: Does this need go away when we make the compiler a
library? Then you can extract the docs all you want and manipulate them
into whatever you want using a build tool.
-Steve
