Re: Woo hoo ... a whole new set of compiler headaches!! :)

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Alvaro Herrera [mailto:alvherre(at)dcc(dot)uchile(dot)cl]
> Sent: Friday, April 22, 2005 12:06 PM
> To: Tom Lane
> Cc: Dave Held; pgsql-hackers(at)postgresql(dot)org
> Subject: Re: [HACKERS] Woo hoo ... a whole new set of compiler
> headaches!! :)
>
> [...]
> Why don't we rewrite Postgres in D?
>
> http://www.digitalmars.com/d/
>
> :-D

I see the smiley, but moving to C++ isn't just about switching
to the latest fad language. First of all, you would literally
have to rewrite it to use D. There would probably need to be
very little work to make the Postgres codebase a conforming set
of C++ programs (mostly renaming variables/types named 'class',
'virtual', 'bool', etc.). Second, you can find a decent C++
compiler on virtually every platform that has a C compiler.
Third, C++ offers real advantages in type safety, exception
handling, resource management, and even performance.

Even doing something as simple as writing a stored procedure
in C is somewhat awkward because of all the boilerplate casting
that must be done. I'm fairly certain that most of the macros
in the stored procedure interface could go away if a C++ API
were created.

__
David B. Held
Software Engineer/Array Services Group
200 14th Ave. East, Sartell, MN 56377
320.534.3637 320.253.7800 800.752.8129