[ABI] 128bit integers and other vendor types

[Iain Buclaw via Digitalmars-d]

On 28 July 2014 07:24, Iain Buclaw <ibuclaw at gdcproject.org> wrote:
> On 28 July 2014 07:08, Jonathan M Davis via Digitalmars-d
> <digitalmars-d at puremagic.com> wrote:
>> On Sunday, 27 July 2014 at 13:17:42 UTC, Iain Buclaw wrote:
>>>
>>> Now we have DDMD approaching fast round the corner, with it comes the
>>> prospect of leveraging the many library types in D for use in the compiler
>>> frontend; BigInt, CustomFloat, HalfFloat;
>>
>>
>> I would point out that every time I've seen compiler devs discuss using
>> Phobos in dmd, there has been a large reluctance to do so (if not outright a
>> desire to avoid it entirely) in order to avoid the circular dependencies
>> that would ensue (Daniel Murphy in particular really doesn't seem to like
>> the idea). It's much easier to control what's going on with dmd if it
>> doesn't rely on Phobos. So, while it may very well be that ddmd eventually
>> uses Phobos, I suspect that you have an uphill battle in trying to make it
>> happen. It's more likely that ddmd would end up with some simplified copies
>> of the necessary functionality from Phobos within its own source code in
>> order to avoid any such dependencies.
>>
>
> I was fairly reluctant initially given Phobos' track-record.  However
> someone did point out that if we don't use Phobos in DDMD, we might as
> well apply the brakes now to the project before its allowed to set
> sail.
>

And I can say (as of writing):

- Me and Daniel did discuss using a library-defined float-point type
in DDMD at DConf 2014
- Daniel is considering the use of BigInt for integer operations in DDMD.

Both will need work for support.  But it is not something that is being ignored.

Iain