On Monday, 12 December 2022 at 12:53:42 UTC, Nick Treleaven wrote:
> What about deprecating defining main without a @system/@trusted/@safe attribute? Then users have to make a choice. If they choose @safe then anything main calls has to have a safe interface.
This would be a step in the right direction. But modules don't have main. And it's not ergonomic:
void bar() {
}
void foo() {
bar();
}
void main() @safe {
foo();
}
The user will first get a complaint about annotating "foo". And after this is done, there will be a complaint about "bar" and so on. Many people will be very much annoyed after a few minutes of such activity. This can be alternatively resolved by adding @safe: at the top of the file, but the compiler needs to give a clear hint about this. If this is not done, then many beginners won't be happy and some of them will quit right from the start.
> I almost never use @safe: because it prevents @safe attribute inference.
Why is this a problem?
> Of course, if D can encourage/default to using @safe that may make the language more popular by helping market it.
D has very effective marketing. It's very good at attracting attention because the advertisements are spread everywhere in wikipedia, hackernews and other places. I think that the majority of software developers (excluding the youngsters) already know that D language exists and already gave it a try at some point in the past. But making a good first impression and then managing not to betray expectations is another story.
Default @safe can prevent beginners from feeling stabbed in the back if they came looking for a safe language, only to be surprised by an unexpected out of bounds bug in a -release build. It's like "LOL, are you kidding?" discovery. And not everyone is particularly enthusiastic about registering in the forum to ask questions.
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