[m-dev.] conditional compilation

[Peter Wang]

Hi,

Here is another idea: conditional sections, where a section is kept or
omitted depending on compile time flags and/or grades.  If we borrow the
feature from trace goals, we might have something like this:

    :- implementation(not(flag("production"))).

I can think of a couple of uses.

1. I had an idea to ease writing test cases at MC.  One thing it would allow
is embedding test code in the same file as the module it is testing, which
may have certain advantages (or not, that's not the point here).  We could
strip out test code for production builds.

2. Modules which paper over platform differences or work with optional
dependencies would be easier to write, or become possible without an
explicitly preprocessing pass.  Any number of situations, really.

Peter
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