[swift-evolution] [META] Re-invigorating the compiler directive discussion

[William Dillon]

Thanks for this, Erica.  A huge +1 from me.

- Will

> On Mar 10, 2016, at 6:15 PM, Erica Sadun via swift-evolution <swift-evolution at swift.org> wrote:
> 
> I would like to bring the compiler directive discussion back to life. Introducing new conditionals 
> has been raised at several points, poked at, and then died down and gone nowhere.
> 
> Discussed at a variety of times directives mentioned on-list include
> 
> Apple/Non-Apple Platform to differentiate imports. The current art allows if os(Linux) but does not categorize Apple platforms as an entire coherent group. #if os(Darwin) // os(iOS) || os(OSX) || os(watchOS) || os(tvOS), expandable for any new OS's. Kevin Ballard writes, "Without this, I think people are going to be tempted to write if !os(Linux) instead of writing out all 4 Apple platforms, and this is unfortunate because it makes the assumption that Linux is the only non-Apple platform, and that's simply not true."
> Common UIKit platform: #if os(iOS) || os(tvOS) or general module availability: #if available(AppKit), #if available(UIKit) (Plus a proposal to replace os with platform) ("Is the target a common UIKit platform? Can it import UIKit?")
> Linux distribution check ("Is this target a specific Linux distro? Is it at least this distro or later?")
> Is this a Unixy-platform (vs, for example, running on Windows would not be)
> What BSD characteristics does this platform support?
> Simulator/Physical destinations ("Is the target a simulator environment or physical device?")
> Debug/Release builds (bypassing the need for -DDEBUG flags) ("Is the target in Debug or Release mode?")
> DebugAsserts/ReleaseAsserts/FastAsserts
> General conditional flag detection #if config(Debug)
> Test-supporting ("Is the target built for running tests?)
> Big-or-little endian
> Architecture families: Is this a 32-or-64-bit target
> Architecture subtypes
> Signed-or-unsigned char
> Existing build configurations include os() (OSX, iOS, watchOS, tvOS, Linux) and arch() (X86_64, arm, arm64, i386), the literals true and false, and testing for command-line flags defined using -D <#flag#>.
> 
> I believe these directives involve relatively minor changes, should be easy to implement, and 
> can be extended over time as needed. It would probably be best to get a sense of which 
> ones the dev community *really* want and need  and push on those to avoid clutter, 
> but I’d hate to see these languish without getting a proper discussion.
> 
> Core team members: Would it best to propose individual changes, 
> create a small groups of related items, or try to push through a large suite?
> 
> -- E
> 
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