D as A Better C?

[Xinok]

On Tuesday, 11 February 2014 at 19:43:00 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:
> What do you think?

I don't do embedded programming, so take my opinion with a grain 
of salt...

Rather than making this a compiler switch, I think it would be 
more beneficial to branch this off as a new project, essentially 
building a new compiler. Similarly, it would contain that subset 
of features which are practical for embedded programming and 
strip out the rest. Then likewise to VisualD, make it an 
"official" repository on GitHub.

The benefit of having a separate project dedicated to embedded 
programming is the ability to retain a standard library without 
convoluting the rest of the D ecosystem. A slim standard library 
could be developed, mimicking (or even branched from) Phobos, but 
optimized for embedded systems. As DMD is updated, the changes 
would be merged into "embedded D", but otherwise the two would be 
maintained independently of one another.

It wouldn't be too dissimilar to other projects like it. There 
are projects which add non-official extensions to other 
languages, such as adding a garbage collector to C/C++.