Summary
The new programming language, D, may not be reaDy for its 1.0 release just yet, but it's harD not to be impresseD by how proDuctive one can be in it. Here's a little tale of toDay's activities, as a taster for the uninitiateD.
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For any of you who follow my exploits at mixing C and C++ with other languages in the Positive Integration column in C/C++ Users Journal, you'll be aware that I've used two of my own libraries, recls and Open-RJ, as exemplars, and have had lots of fun mapping them to a variety of languages and technologies, including Ch, COM, D, Java, .NET, Python, Ruby, STL. For those who do not, recls is a platform-independent recursive search library, and Open-RJ is a structured file reader (and soon to be writer!) library for (a slightly enhanced form of) the Record-JAR format (as described in Eric Raymond's superb "The Art of UNIX Programming").
In May's issue of CUJ - on sale now! :) - I describe the choices involved in mapping Open-RJ to the D programming language versus implementing a 100% D version. (For the record, the D standard library, Phobos, now contains the 100% module std.openrj.) This is the first 100% anything implementation; all others - Python, Ruby, C++.NET, Ch, etc. - are mappings to the C-library.
In collaboraion with Lars Ivar Igesund, another D aficionado, I've been looking at expanding the functionality of Open-RJ, in terms of making record comments available at the API level, and adding functionality to write out databases back into their (text) file format.
This morning I took some time out to do the first part of this task. Adding functionality to make record comments available. For the C library, this took me 35 minutes to code and test (within the existing source files and IDE project); in D it took 10 minutes (of which half that time was spent in messing with the makefile).
We - Bjorn and I, and the Artima guys - are trying to get a home page for the Smart Pointers column going at the moment, in anticipation of release of several of the items that're nearing completion in the ready queue
As for why the 404 persists, we (authors) don't have the ability to edit our profiles as yet.
Sorry for the misdirection. :)
> As for D, I have looked at it when reading the sources of > Tumiki fighters, and liked what I saw. Finally someone > combined a GC and RAII.
Indeed, it has great promise, and that particular combination has very significant ramifications. But D's currently suffering a little in the doldrums of nearing the end of language definition and starting to get to grips with standard libraries. The fun of the early stages of language definition has turned to the inevitable unfun of disputes and paradigmic equivocation, and the fun of the later stages of the latter awaits only the intrepid who are prepared to wade through, and dig in, the early unfun stages.
Still, I think there's good cause to be hopeful. I shall continue to hope. :-)
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