Note from a donor

[evilrat]

On Saturday, 28 October 2017 at 00:05:53 UTC, codephantom wrote:
>
> At a minimum, I had to download 3.5GB of VS build tools just so 
> I could compile a 64 bit D program (and it took me almost a 
> whole day to work out the correct process).

At a minimum you'd better try WinSDK first, there should be all 
necessary tools. After all it is system's development kit, not 
some fancy junk.

> Is that a problem of D or VS?
>
> Is is it problem that D should accept, and just impose on it's 
> users?
>

VS is standard for C++ on Windows. Period. Not much to discuss 
here.
Why we need MS native tools? Because D offers C++ FFI. See the 
connection? But who said that we compile/link using VS itself?

And again, DMD installer offers to install whole VS most likely 
because on Windows there is not that much experienced devs in the 
team. So this probably overlooked. Also this is why there are 
some *core* features that never(or almost never) worked on 
Windows but works for ages on linux, such as "DLL support" or my 
favorite "type information across DLL/process boundaries"...


Since you already on that wave, can you test Windows SDK 
installation and make DMD's sc.ini use the SDK?