I have to say this post confused me a little bit with terminology leaving me spinning as to what was “Better C” and what was “the subset of D’ the author was writing about. I am a bit jet lagged and my reading concentration is low but still I think I would be confused even at normal capacity.
I do wish the post had started with a more explicit abstract as follows:
One draw back of the D language is that, while C libraries can be easily called from D, the converse is not true.
The D language compiler now adds a new compiler switch -betterC that will compile a subset of the D language to a form that allows much easier linking from C code.
And in the rest of the article, a clearer distinction (by more careful use of terminology) between the -betterC mode of the D language and the “A better C” Stroustrup paper and concepts, should be made.
http://dlang.org/spec/function.html#function-safety is probably a better link. My understanding is that @safe is possible to use under -betterC, that is, they’re not really two separate subsets. -betterC is purely subtractive, that is, it’s not a disjoint subset, but purely a subset.
Yes, -betterC (again, in my understanding) is essentially “remove the runtime”, and @safe is “disallow memory-unsafe operations,” so you could feasibly want to use one or both depending on your objectives. Since they’re sort of on different axes, I don’t think there’s overlap.
I have to say this post confused me a little bit with terminology leaving me spinning as to what was “Better C” and what was “the subset of D’ the author was writing about. I am a bit jet lagged and my reading concentration is low but still I think I would be confused even at normal capacity.
I do wish the post had started with a more explicit abstract as follows:
One draw back of the D language is that, while C libraries can be easily called from D, the converse is not true. The D language compiler now adds a new compiler switch
-betterCthat will compile a subset of the D language to a form that allows much easier linking from C code.And in the rest of the article, a clearer distinction (by more careful use of terminology) between the
-betterCmode of the D language and the “A better C” Stroustrup paper and concepts, should be made.Very interesting material.
This is really interesting!
Add D to the list of 1000 things in CS I need to learn.
Anyone that likes this should also check out SafeD:
https://dlang.org/safed.html
So, it’s one whole language that’s a quick-to-compile alternative to C++ with two, safe subsets depending on use.
http://dlang.org/spec/function.html#function-safety is probably a better link. My understanding is that
@safeis possible to use under-betterC, that is, they’re not really two separate subsets.-betterCis purely subtractive, that is, it’s not a disjoint subset, but purely a subset.Thanks, that’s a good catch. There’s probably overlap if each just subtract features from same language.
Yes,
-betterC(again, in my understanding) is essentially “remove the runtime”, and@safeis “disallow memory-unsafe operations,” so you could feasibly want to use one or both depending on your objectives. Since they’re sort of on different axes, I don’t think there’s overlap.