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Has the re-write to D felt productive? May it have been better to start from scratch? Was the "D as a better C" approach inspired by your want to transition DM

• WalterBright 8y ago
  > Has the re-write to D felt productive? Yes, it's been oddly satisfying. > May it have been better to start from scratch? Ah, the age old question. I can guarantee, though, the answer is no. It took me maybe a couple weeks to convert the entire front end from C++ to D. Contrast that with the Warp preprocessor I wrote for Facebook, which took many months, and I knew what I was doing. And that is just the preprocessor! Basically, writing a C++ front end takes 10 man years. I know of no effort that took less time, and this is assuming the best in the business doing the writing. > Was the "D as a better C" approach inspired by your want to transition DMC to D? Partially, yes. And certainly doing the transition work has improved betterC. Nothing like proving it works than translating a crotchety old horrifyingly complex piece of code written in 1980's style. I plan on doing this to all my old projects that are still in use.
  • loup-vaillant 8y ago
    > Basically, writing a C++ front end takes 10 man years. This is insane. No language needs to be that complex. I guess that's the power of backward compatibility: forcing an entire industry to dig itself into an ever growing hole, because in the short term we move faster by digging than by first clawing our way out.
    • WalterBright 8y ago
      Mastering C++ takes about 10 years, too :-) (Yes, you can be productive in C++ in much less time.)