ARM first & default LDC

[Petar]

On Tuesday, 15 December 2020 at 23:11:32 UTC, twk wrote:
> I would like to point out that ARM also has other competition:
>
> https://riscv.org/
>
> So we do not want to base all of our decisions on ARM.

My point was to sidestep the whole argument about what 
ISA/platform is going to be the most popular one and also which 
backend should be the default among dmc/gcc/llvm by choosing 
neither and building a new one from scratch.
Perhaps it wasn't apparent from my post, but I was joking :)

Okay, perhaps only half joking, as choosing a virtual ISA that is 
already this widespread, stable enough, with adoption rapidly 
growing (just look at all the excitement arond WASI, wasm for 
blockchain, the bytcode alliance, wasm for backend apps (even as 
a sandbox, instead of containers) (see also the precursor to that 
- CloudABI) etc.), cross-platform (supported on way more 
platforms than what dmd can target) and with more backends than 
D's big 3, actually has some nice befits, like making it easier 
to build a REPL, safer dynamic code generation, faster edit-debug 
cycle, etc. Ability to build and run D on any platform for which 
the there is a wasm AoT compiler, JIT or at least an interpreter. 
Also a good opportunity to retractor druntime and phobos to be 
less libc, or even Posix dependent, less GC-reliant and generally 
more modular and pay-as-you go.

P.S. I know about RISC-V as I'm waiting SiFive to release their 
16GB RAM boards as I don't like being forced to use separate 
compilation to build D code especially when playing with CTFE and 
TMP monsters :P

P.S.S. Perhaps the future neither x86_64, nor IBM POWER, nor 
MIPS, nor ARM, etc., but FPGAs :P