D hates to be dynamic linked

[Justin Johansson]

Let me preface by saying that I generally try not to be negative and
have a heaps of praise and hope for what the D language and library
designers are attempting to do.  I don't want to spoil the party,
however I think it's fair to recount my own real-world (*) D
experience.

(*) The success or otherwise of the project I'm working on
literally == food or no food to put on my table.  We are not
talking about a hobby; it's a serious pursuit of my livelihood.

Accordingly ...


Commiserations dear friends.

If it is any extra comfort to also share your pain alongside Craig
et. al., let me tell you that I am (was) much in the same boat.

Having spent six months 12x7 working a project in D1, and hoping
that dynamic linking issues (**), might eventually be resolved, I
gave up on D for serious biz.

(**) Shared objects for the Linux platform, though ultimately aiming
for Windows DLLs and a general cross-platform plug-in architecture.

As a result of D's limitations in this regard, I was forced to
back-port my project to C++ some 8 weeks ago.

Now using Eclipse + C Dev Tools (CDT) and GCC as the IDE and
tool-chain respectively, I feel I'm back to really cooking on gas
once again.

"Oh C++, why did I ever leave you?"

Like yourselves, also having previously raised concerns re
dyna-linking on this NG before, most responses from the top to
both my and other users posts on this very topic have generally
been dismissive of the problem.

However, for me, and apart from all the other issues and
frustrations that *you all know about* with D, the dyna-link thing
was the thing that broke the camel's back, becoming the
ultimate show-stopper.

All was not lost though, I learned quite a few things from my 6
month experience with D that have helped to improve my C++ style,
that which was becoming a bit stale after 20 years of it.

To summarize, my feeling is that D is a great experimental language
but you would not want to bet your farm, let alone your life, on it.

Hopefully with the finalization of D2 and publication of TDPL,
things will start to turn around.  One would also hope that by this
time some higher priority will be assigned to taking care of some
of the more menial, yet absolutely fundamental issues affecting
the real-world development and deployment of D applications.

Sincerely, and with best wishes for D,

Justin Johansson


Craig Black wrote:
 > I am sorry to hear about your problem, and I'm sure there are others who
 > share your pain.  If it is any consolation it is helpful to me to hear
 > this, since the software that I intend to port to D relies heavily on
 > plug-ins. It is disappointing that something as fundamental as plug-ins
 > are such an issue in D.  There has been recent talks about adding
 > support for dynamic linking, but it doesn't seem to be a high enough
 > priority yet.  Hopefully it will get some attention soon.
 >
 > -Craig
 >
 > "g" <g at g.g> wrote in message news:hln0i0$dm3$1 at digitalmars.com...
 >> it is a real pain trying to make a plugin from d.
 >> I love D2 but I would even abandon it if there is solution with a
 >> compiler that at least supports D1 and has a solution for dynamic
 >> linking.
 >> Maybe I'm stupid, but tried dmd and ldc (and tango and phobos). And I
 >> don't know if I want to go GDC.
 >> It is so frustrating that DDL was abandoned, even I grabbed a external
 >> branch an is not so outdated, but probably outdated and w/o
 >> documentation.
 >> (btw linux)
 >>
 >> is there a not so painful way of making plugins?. Or is there still
 >> opportunity with DDL?
 >>
 >> I'm open to both phobos, tango, D1 D2
 >>
 >> We NEED a way to make plugins from d. And is a must to use freely the
 >> features of D with out getting dirty (or not so dirty) or worse,
 >> limited to some features
 >>