Wasn't someone trying to work on a C backend for DMD?

[Chad J]

On 04/29/2012 01:53 AM, Daniel Murphy wrote:
> "Chad J"<chadjoan at __spam.is.bad__gmail.com>  wrote in message
> news:jniju1$1pf7$1 at digitalmars.com...
>>
>> Bummer, no commits in the last 3 months or so.
>>
>
> It was never a serious project unfortunately, just an experiment.
>
>> At any rate, I almost wonder if I can compile the output C code on the
>> OpenVMS system at work.  I have a project in C I work on from time to
>> time, but it's an uncomfortable (to say the least) environment to work
>> with.  There is stuff like this:
>> http://h30499.www3.hp.com/t5/Languages-and-Scripting/How-do-I-get-C-program-tracebacks-to-print-SOURCE-line-numbers/td-p/5570015
>> If I had DMD with C-backend at my disposal, then maybe I could instrument
>> it with a calling convention that gives me exception handling and proper
>> debug information.  Then I'd also get arrays and various other really nice
>> D features, even with just the basics.  I wouldn't bother getting the GC
>> to work, but it'd make me consider implementing some kind of reference
>> counting.  Even without ref counting I'd have way more at that point than
>> what I have currently with straight C code.
>>
>> And if I /could/ get reference counting, and if the backend were solid
>> enough, then the thing could probably be used for writing games.  I'd have
>> the ability to output extremely portable C code to pretty much any target
>> except the web, and there's the JS backend for that.  Very enticing!
>>
>
> It is a loooong way from being able to do that.  Your best bet is probably
> to try and configure gdc or ldc to output c or compiled code for your
> platform.  Completing MicroD would require porting most of druntime as well.
>
>> I wonder what it would take to get this sort of thing merged into
>> mainline.
>
> A huge amount of work.
>
>

I was afraid you might say that.

Thanks for the input!