Dicebot on leaving D: It is anarchy driven development in all its glory.

Walter Bright newshound2 at digitalmars.com
Wed Sep 5 08:22:49 UTC 2018


On 9/4/2018 5:37 PM, bachmeier wrote:
> Having to deal with the 
> possibility that others might have any of twelve different compiler versions 
> installed just isn't sustainable.

Back in the bad old DOS days, my compiler depended on the Microsoft linker, 
which was helpfully included on the DOS distribution disks (!)

The problem, however, was Microsoft kept changing the linker, and every linker 
was different. At one point I had my "linker disk" which was packed with every 
version of MS-Link I could find.

Now that was unsustainable.

The eventual solution was Bjorn Freeman-Benson wrote a linker (BLINK) which we 
then used. When it had a bug, we fixed it. When we shipped a compiler, it had a 
predictable linker with it. It made all the difference in the world.

Hence my penchant for "controlling our destiny" that I've remarked on now and 
then. It's also why the DMD toolchain is boost licensed - nobody is subject to 
our whims.


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