Microsoft now giving away VS 2013

[Chad Joan via Digitalmars-d]

On Friday, 14 November 2014 at 06:21:45 UTC, Joakim wrote:
> On Thursday, 13 November 2014 at 13:59:32 UTC, Wyatt wrote:
>> On Thursday, 13 November 2014 at 08:50:29 UTC, Ola Fosheim 
>> Grøstad wrote:
>>>
>>> So, how to write a source-to-source compiler from CS to D…? 
>>> ;-)
>>
>> I think it would be more useful would be to go the other way 
>> around for targeting Windows Phone.  Or rather, it would be if 
>> anyone actually used WP.  (Going after Microsoft's also-ran 
>> mobile OS isn't particularly compelling when our story for 
>> targeting Android is still in such a dire state.)
>
> Dire state?  All druntime/phobos tests pass on Android/x86, 
> except for std.datetime:
>
> http://wiki.dlang.org/Build_DMD_for_Android
>
> OK, that's not ARM that everybody cares about, but that just 
> means combining an ARM backend from ldc or gdc and the existing 
> linux/ARM and Android support in druntime/phobos, then hacking 
> around the lack of native TLS on Android.  gdc supposedly 
> supports emulated TLS, so all the pieces should be in place 
> there to do it.  I've been recently looking into hacking the 
> packed TLS solution I used with dmd for Android/x86 into ldc 
> and llvm.
>
> Dan Olson got pretty far with iOS support too, early this year:
>
> http://forum.dlang.org/thread/m2txc2kqxv.fsf@comcast.net
>
> D has some support for mobile, albeit not fully polished.

We really should have had a toolchain compiling D into working 
(release quality) Android/iOS executables about 3-5 years ago.  
This would have allowed D to scoop up a HUGE share of deployment 
in a market that was very new and welcoming of experimentation.  
It seems like there have been a few people enthusiastically 
working on this, but with little support from the broader 
community.  I really wish this were a higher development priority 
and more actively encouraged a long time ago.