dmd codegen improvements

[Joakim via Digitalmars-d]

On Wednesday, 16 September 2015 at 20:44:00 UTC, Walter Bright 
wrote:
> On 9/16/2015 7:16 AM, Bruno Medeiros wrote:
>> On 28/08/2015 22:59, Walter Bright wrote:
>>> People told me I couldn't write a C compiler, then told me I 
>>> couldn't
>>> write a C++ compiler. I'm still the only person who has ever 
>>> implemented
>>> a complete C++ compiler (C++98). Then they all (100%) laughed 
>>> at me for
>>> starting D, saying nobody would ever use it.
>>>
>>> My whole career is built on stepping over people who told me 
>>> I couldn't
>>> do anything and wouldn't amount to anything.
>>
>> So your whole career is fundamentally based not on bringing 
>> value to the
>> software world, but rather merely proving people wrong? That 
>> amounts to living
>> your professional life in thrall of other people's validation, 
>> and it's not
>> commendable at all. It's a waste of your potential.
>>
>> It is only worthwhile to prove people wrong when it brings you 
>> a considerable
>> amount of either monetary resources or clout - and more so 
>> than you would have
>> got doing something else with your time.
>>
>> It's not clear to me that was always the case throughout your 
>> career... was it?
>
> Wow, such an interpretation never occurred to me. I will 
> reiterate that I worked on things that I believed had value and 
> nobody else did. I.e. I did not need validation from others.

Yeah, I was a bit stunned that that is what Bruno took from your 
post.  I don't think anybody would question that writing a C or 
C++ compiler in the '80s and '90s had value, and I'm sure you did 
pretty well off them, considering you retired at 42 
(http://www.drdobbs.com/architecture-and-design/how-i-came-to-write-d/240165322).

Your point is that nobody thought _you_ or you _alone_ could do 
these valuable things, and you repeatedly proved them wrong.  
Those doubting you in this thread, about improving the dmd 
backend so it's competitive with llvm/gcc while still having time 
to work on the frontend, may or may not turn out to be right, but 
you certainly seem to have a good track record at proving such 
doubters wrong.