Language design discussions

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D is an evolving and complex language. New features are proposed, unexpected interaction in old ones get found, design issues are raised. All this may involve hard debates in D newsgroup and if often forgotten. This page serves as an index for major design discussions and proposals.

Formal improvement proposals can be found on the main DIP index.


Properties

Description

Initial @property design has issues. How can it be changed or even discarded at all?

Thread

Essential moments

Property Discussion Wrap-up

Proposals


Access specifiers and symbol visibility

Description

Currently there is feature like "static global" in C or "unnamed namespace" in C++. Access specifiers for module-level symbols control access, not visibility. Ability to hide symbols needs to be added without breaking current access system.

As a result of discussion, Walter has asked for DIP on this topic.

Essential moments

Thread

Proposal

DIP22


auto ref

Description

Essential moments

Thread

Built-in associative array issues

Description

Present AA implementation has lot of problems and most likely needs to be reworked. AA_Implementation_Issues


volatile

Threads

Essential Moments

Proposals


final-by-default

Threads

Essential Moments


rvalue references

Threads


Inherited constructors

Description

When inheriting a class, the new class does not inherit its constructors. Any base class constructors need to be manually forwarded to. A library solution to automatically mix-in forwarding constructors is possible, but a language solution is possible too.

Note that C++11 supports this feature.

Threads

  • todo


Automatic Reference Counting (ARC) as an alternative to D's Garbage Collector

Threads

Essential Moments

  • {Feel free add some}