On 07/13/2010 10:43 AM, retard wrote:
Yes, this would be possible if the dmd compiler didn't crash, leak memory
etc. The quality is so shitty that I'd say that implementing a compile
time AST parser for D 2 is almost impossible.
Well it should be said that the quality of the compiler has dramatically
improved over the past months. I think it would be worth writing a
tokenizer for starters.
And what's worse is that
the language is changing constantly so the AST parser meta-library would
need to be updated once in a while. This is great news for all the fans
of NIH syndrome.
The rate of language changes has slowed down very visibly since TDPL has
come out.
String manipulation scales very poorly, it's error prone, and it's
tedious.
Like Andrei said, real AST macros can also be hairy, but they _are_ an
improvement over string based macros in many cases. Lisp users have 50+
years of experience with meta-programming. You're mostly talking with
amateurs here. Of course they don't see the value of true macros. One
fundamental prerequisite when discussing macros is that you've actually
used them in at least ONE other language.
Agreed. Reminds me of the Go programmers who don't need generics :o).
The Sapir-Whorf theory may or may not apply to natural language, but has
a visible presence in programming languages.
Andrei
