SDC & ddmd

[Jonathan M Davis]

On Saturday, December 10, 2011 22:59:48 Somedude wrote:
> Le 10/12/2011 10:56, Bernard Helyer a écrit :
> > On Saturday, 10 December 2011 at 09:51:08 UTC, Somedude wrote:
> >> Le 10/12/2011 08:54, Piotr Szturmaj a écrit :
> >> And it would be *far* more frustrating for the users, who would
> >> observe
> >> different behaviors and different bugs on different compilers. Hence
> >> that would mean that writing portable code necessits to test it with
> >> all
> >> compilers.
> > 
> > Just like Javascript, HTML, C, C++, Ada, Perl, Fortran, Cobol, and any
> > language in existence that's even remotely widely used?
> 
> True, but the difference is, the D community cannot afford to waste its
> strengths to correct different bugs on several compilers. It is way too
> small for that.

In the short term, I think that we'd be better off having people who want to 
work on D focusing on the improving existing compilers and the standard 
libraries. However, in the long term, we would definitely be benefited by having 
more compilers. And just because someone is willing to work on a new compiler 
doesn't mean that they'd be willing to work on an existing one or on the 
standard libraries. So, it's not necessarily the case that we're getting any 
less work done on dmd or Phobos because people are working on SDC. Also, it's 
quite possible that those working on SDC will find issues with the D spec and 
with dmd which might not be found otherwise, and the spec and dmd can benefit 
from that.

So, while I'm skeptical that creating a new compiler is really the best use of 
manpower for D at this point, I see no problem with the SDC devs working on 
that if that's what they want to do. And even those who have no interest in 
SDC can still benefit from their efforts.

By the way. I didn't even know that SDC existed before this. It's interesting 
to see that another D compiler is in the works - especially since it's being 
written in D. Having lower-level, performance-critical work like that being 
done in D will definitely be of benefit in finding issues in the language and 
existing compiler implementations, regardless of where the SDC project 
ultimately goes.

- Jonathan M Davis