dmd for ARM

[Nick Sabalausky]

"Trass3r" <un at known.com> wrote in message news:op.v2iqj1t23ncmek at enigma...
> Am 28.09.2011, 01:30 Uhr, schrieb Ruben <chromium at hybridsource.org>:
>
>> Hello, is there a chance an ARM backend can be written for dmd this year?
>
> No. We won't even get Win x64 support in that time frame.
>
>> it appears that those wanting to use ARM are pointed at gdc/ldc,
>> but it seems like those two projects are usually behind in D2 support
>
> gdc is very active and so far has always been on par with dmd.
> There are a few ARM-specific bugs though that still need to be fixed. Feel
> free to help out.
> ldc is only 1 revision behind currently.
>
>
>> Some estimate of when dmd might come to ARM or
>> why such a port is not a priority would be appreciated.
>
> Cause there are plenty of bugs and unfinished feature implementations that
> are way more important.
> Plus you are free to use gdc or ldc to generate code for ARM targets
> *right now*.
>

Considering that myself and other people are *already* getting by with D on 
x86 right now, I really have to strongly disagree with making D usable on 
ARM being less important. Yes, there's definitely a lot of very important 
things to be done right here on x86, but at least its *usable* on x86. So 
usable, in fact, that there's people and companies already relying on it for 
production work. But for ARM tagerts, you're pretty much SOL at the moment, 
from what I understand.

Of course, I'm not saying "Hey DMD/GDC/LDC/druntime/phobos developers, go do 
that!!!" I have no right to say anything like that, especially since I'm 
unable to help out on it myself. But I'm just saying I don't believe 
anything could *really* be more important for D right now (well, except 
maybe dynamic libs if there's still any big problems with that - I haven't 
tried).

> The real problem is druntime, memory management and the like that need to 
> be sorted out.
> But nobody fixed those yet.