gdc in Linux distros recommended?

[bachmeier via Digitalmars-d]

On Tuesday, 18 October 2016 at 23:02:28 UTC, Ali Çehreli wrote:
> I have a friend who has started writing a library in D.
>
> Although I recommended that he should use a recent dmd or ldc, 
> he thinks gdc is a better candidate because it's "available to 
> the masses" through Linux distros similar to how gcc is. 
> Although he has a good point, the gdc that came with his distro 
> does not even support @nogc.
>
> Thoughts? Can you please tell him to change his mind! :p
>
> Ali

That's not a very convincing argument IMO. DMD packages are 
available for download on this site. As I have learned the hard 
way, the experience isn't always the best when you rely on distro 
packagers. I once had to change distros because of a package 
maintainer that didn't care that things were broken. I would much 
rather rely on a project's own packages, because there is an 
incentive to make sure they work, they won't get abandoned, and 
the latest version is always available. There is no sense in 
which DMD is not available to the masses.