new frontend written in D

[Timon Gehr]

On 09/29/2011 11:44 AM, Jonathan M Davis wrote:
> On Thursday, September 29, 2011 13:35:03 Gor Gyolchanyan wrote:
>> Right. And if the compiler is written in D, it's much more readable
>> and maintainable and it will gain much more volunteer manpower, since
>> it's so easy to work on.
>
> While the compiler probably would be easier to work on if it were written in
> D, I honestly don't think that it would be enough of an improvement to really
> make that much of a difference in volunteer manpower, unless we were dealing
> with a bunch of potential volunteers who knew D but not C++. The issue with
> working on the compiler is understanding what the code is trying to do and how
> it works, not the fact that it's written C++ rather than D.

D code is usually more understandable. But I agree that a 1 to 1 port of 
DMD is quite pointless.

>
> The primary advantage is in having a lexer and parser that any program can
> then use, because then it makes it much easier to create tools which can
> process D code. The compiler itself isn't really going to gain much by being
> in D.
>

Writing a D parser from scratch in D is quite easy. I think we should 
drop the "guaranteed equivalent to DMDs parser because it is a direct 
port of it" requirement.