• %u (2/2) Sep 18 2011 does D compatibility with C restrict D from evolving ?
• Timon Gehr (11/13) Sep 18 2011 Binary compatibility as in extern(C) certainly does not. As to
• bearophile (15/19) Sep 18 2011 In practice there are few differences, try to compile this in C and D, s...

%u <asmasm hotmail.com> writes:

does D compatibility with C restrict D from evolving ?
and if D drop this will that prevent complexity?

Timon Gehr <timon.gehr gmx.ch> writes:

On 09/18/2011 10:08 PM, %u wrote:
 does D compatibility with C restrict D from evolving ?

Binary compatibility as in extern(C) certainly does not. As to 
source-level compatibility, the only "guarantee" that Ds design gives is 
that C code will either compile as D code with identical semantics or 
not compile at all. The only thing that restricts a language from 
evolving is compatibility with the existing code base for that language.

 and if D drop this will that prevent complexity?

You mean, "does C compatibility impose additional complexity on the D 
language?" ?

I am sure it does not, C is quite basic. And as I said, not every C 
program is also valid D code. That is both an advantage and a 
disadvantage in comparison to C++.

bearophile <bearophileHUGS lycos.com> writes:

Timon Gehr:

 As to 
 source-level compatibility, the only "guarantee" that Ds design gives is 
 that C code will either compile as D code with identical semantics or 
 not compile at all.

In practice there are few differences, try to compile this in C and D, swapping
the import/include:

import core.stdc.stdio;
//#include "stdio.h"
float a[1];
void foo(float v[1]) {
    v[0]++;
}
int main() {
    foo(a);
    printf("%f\n", a[0]);
    return 0;
}

Bye,
bearophile