DMD backend quality (Was: Re: DIP 1031--Deprecate Brace-Style Struct Initializers--Community Review Round 1 Discussion)

[jmh530]

On Thursday, 20 February 2020 at 14:37:36 UTC, Guillaume Piolat 
wrote:
> On Thursday, 20 February 2020 at 14:31:44 UTC, jmh530 wrote:
>>
>> I think you need to be a bit more concrete in explaining how 
>> dropping a backend would keep contributors happy.
>
> Have you read Seb suggestions?

Had to go back to re-read it. It's more of a list of issues with 
supporting multiple compilers than a list of suggestions, but it 
does address my point about keeping contributors happy. It sounds 
like a tricky management problem, to be honest. However, I think 
there is an important trade-off to consider between the value of 
keeping DMD and the cost of maintaining support for it. For 
instance, I don't know how much more work it is to maintain CIs 
for three compilers rather than two. It doesn't sound like much 
more work, but I really have no idea. Similarly, I would expect 
that the other backends would need to support new features, even 
if DMD is put out to pasture. That cost doesn't go away. 
Regardless, I would hope that Walter considers it is possible to 
reduce the cost for some of those issues.