D2.0 for first enterprise test

[bearophile]

Ralph: 
> 1. When will a 64-bit compiler be available for Linux (ideally Red
> Hat Enterprise Linux x86_64)?

Walter is working on 64 bit port right now, he said it will take two months, he has already compiled a hello world with it days ago, so he's probably past 1/3 or 1/2 of the work. So if things go well I think you will not need to wait a lot.


> 2. Is ODBC supported? Is there a Phobos library or is it just
> accessible via C?
> 
> 3. Are web-services or SOAP supported? Is there a Phobos or third-
> party library/toolkit or is it just accessible via C/Java?

Generally you can use all C libs (and a bit of C++ too) from D.

Being D a new language, in the D2 development costs you probably have to add some of your time spent writing compiler patches and libs for the dmd compiler and community. In my opinion it's good for people that want to use D2 for serious work to give part of their time to patch compiler bugs or write simple open source libs. This reduced the possible economic gains in using D2 in the first place, but you can see it as an investment for the future. You don't need lot of work or lot or to be a large firm to do this, even a small help can suffice. Like giving back patches for compiler bugs you have fixed when you try to run your own important code :-) Python has received a lot of help like this, so today it's a well developed language.

Bye,
bearophile