D Language 2.0

["Jérôme M. Berger"]

Walter Bright wrote:
> Nick Sabalausky wrote:
>> Right, but like I had said below that, D isn't really usable for
>> embedded ATM, so until that happens (and I'm *really* anxious to see
>> that happen), D is still desktop-only, and even on the lowest-end
>> desktops 80k is nothing.
> 
> I didn't know you were an embedded systems developer. I haven't done
> embedded systems since the 6800! So I don't know what's involved these
> days.
> 
> Can you spell it out for me exactly what needs to be done to support
> this with DMD? (Yes, I know, do the ARM instruction set, but what about
> embedded x86?)

	Embedded x86 is an oxymoron. Yes, I know, it exists (and btw, 8
years ago they were still selling 486s as "embedded" processors) but
mostly it doesn't need any special support (except possibly on the
binary size front and even there 80k is nothing to the XXX megabytes
used by the off-the-shelf OS+GUI+Web browser). Face it, there are
two kinds of embedded developers:

- Those who want performance at very low power usage, who use ARM
and C with a specialized OS. Those won't use D, period. Most of the
time, they won't even use malloc or most of the C standard library
(not saying they're right here, but I doubt you will change them);

- Those who only care about cost, who use x86 with Windows or Linux,
 off-the-shelf software and an AJAX GUI and wonder why their systems
are so slow and won't even run a full day before needing to be
plugged to a power outlet. Those won't use D because "nobody uses
it" and anyway it takes too much space (don't ask me to explain the
logic behind that statement, I don't understand it either).

	More seriously, I don't expect D to see much usage in the embedded
market unless it becomes a huge success on the PC first (if then).
But nothing you can do on the technical front will change that: it's
mostly due to prejudice and preconceptions, not an actual
cost-benefit evaluation of the language.

		Jerome

PS: At work, we mustn't use C++ because:
- It's slow;
- Its standard library is too big (100k);
- In a future product, we might want to reuse this module and not
have C++ (Oh, yes I didn't tell you that we *do* have the C++ stdlib
in our products because the web browser they bought to run their
HTML+Javascript+HTML+XML+C+XML+C+XML+C GUI uses it, but *we* aren't
allowed to, fckng morons)
-- 
mailto:jeberger at free.fr
http://jeberger.free.fr
Jabber: jeberger at jabber.fr

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