Comment by raggi
6 hours ago
That first sentence though. Bitfields and ABI alongside each other.
Bitfield packing rules get pretty wild. Sure the user facing API in the language is convenient, but the ABI it produces is terrible (particularly in evolution).
I would like a revision to bitfields and structs to make them behave the way a programmer things, with the compiler free to suggest changes which optimize the layout. As well as some flag that indicates the compiler should not, it's a finalized structure.