Mobile is the new PC and AArch64 is the new x64

[Chris]

On Wednesday, 12 September 2018 at 08:09:46 UTC, Joakim wrote:

>
> I don't think there's a "dedicated team" for any platform that 
> D runs on, so we don't have "first class support" for any 
> platform then.

But ARM (Android/iOS) has always been treated worse than a 
stepchild by D devs. No interest whatsoever, leave it to the LDC 
guys...

> D is largely a volunteer effort: if that's not enough, maybe D 
> isn't right for you. This isn't Kotlin or Swift, where one of 
> the largest companies in the world puts full-time devs on the 
> language and gives everything away for free because it suits 
> their agenda.
>
> In Apple's case, that means Swift doesn't really support 
> Android and definitely doesn't support Android/AArch64, because 
> putting full-time devs on getting Swift working well with 
> Android doesn't suit their agenda of pushing iOS:

Swift locks you in too much.

> Kotlin is becoming more cross-platform now since google is more 
> cross-platform, but then you're depending on google continually 
> funding development on an OSS project, which they've backed out 
> of before:
>
> https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/07/googles-iron-grip-on-android-controlling-open-source-by-any-means-necessary/
>
> I don't fault google for making those choices, as nobody has a 
> right to their OSS contributions, but it is something to 
> consider when using any platform, and even more so for an OSS 
> project: who is funding this and why? Will their model be 
> sustainable?
>
> There are no easy answers here: if you want a free-priced, OSS 
> toolchain, you're going to be marching to the beat of someone's 
> drum.

We all understand that. But often you don't get to choose. If the 
user wants an app for Android/iOS what you're gonna tell him or 
her? "I'm not marching to the beat of Google's drum."?

Also, having no or no smooth support for something doesn't make 
the D community "rebels".

> As for ongoing maintenance, Android/ARM was done years ago and 
> hasn't taken much in the way of maintenance to keep most of the 
> stdlib/dmd tests passing, so I don't think that's much of an 
> issue.

Just to make sure it all works. The less work the better.

> btw, it was a thread _you_ started that finally spurred me to 
> begin this Android port five years back, though I'd enquired 
> about and had been considering it earlier:
>
> https://forum.dlang.org/thread/yhulkqvlwnxjklnogmfv@forum.dlang.org

Ha ha! I know and you picked up on it. Thank you very much, it's 
much appreciated. But look at the date: November 2013 (!) and 
we're still talking about it while others have overtaken D in 
this respect. 5 years + the founding of the D Language 
Foundation. Sometimes it's good to think outside the box a little 
and see what's going on around you. It's not just fancy ranges 
and allocators. The software has to actually run somewhere.