dmd support for IDEs

[Walter Bright]

language_fan wrote:
> Another point not mentioned here is that modern IDEs use incremental and 
> interactive compilation model. The compiler should be run as a persistent 
> background process and parsing should happen perhaps on the level of the 
> current scope. Re-compiling a million line project after each key stroke 
> simply makes no sense.

This would not require recompiling a million lines with every key 
stroke, unless you are editing a million line module.

> Even compiling the current module once per key 
> stroke is too slow.

As you say, it should be done as a background process.

> Specifying an intermediate json/xml file format is a huge task 
> considering the amount of language constructs, types etc. available in D.

It isn't. It's far less work than ddoc is, for example.

> I'm all for good tool support but as many have already mentioned, the 
> support would only bring marginal improvements to small scale tools like 
> vim and emacs. Usually small scale D projects (< 10000 lines of code) are 
> written with those tools (feel free to prove me wrong). These are not the 
> kinds of projects large enterprises would use D for, they use scripting 
> languages for smaller tasks. Thus the overall improvement is minimal.

I think the bang for the buck on this is large.


> Spending the time on critical compiler bugs on the other hand would help 
> everyone in the community.

That hasn't been shorted, look at the changelog!