GNU version 0.18

[Brad Roberts]

On Fri, 24 Mar 2006, Jim Miller wrote:
> On 3/24/06, Brad Roberts <braddr at puremagic.com> wrote:
> > On Fri, 24 Mar 2006, Jim Miller wrote:
> >
> > > I'm trying to find the gdc-0.18 alpha1 that was supposedly released some
> > > time ago.  Is this still available?  I'm trying to figure out the best
> > way
> > > that I can help move gdc forward but want to start from the "latest"
> > > sources.  I've looked at the D Bugzilla site for some ideas on what I
> > can
> > > start on.  I'm not particularly familiar with the internals of gcc so
> > I'm
> > > not sure how much I can help in that area but I'm very willing to write
> > > documentation or help clean up libraries if someone wants to make a
> > > suggestion on where I should start.
> >
> > I don't recommend working on the gdc front end.  David, the gdc guy, has
> > been working on getting a new release ready.  The 0.18 alpha 1 release I
> > did is available if you want to play with it, but David's release won't be
> > based on it, so I'm not sure what value it has.  I've stopped working on
> > it and won't be making any sort of official gdc release based off of it at
> > this point.  Once a new gdc release is done that's caught up, then more
> > input on it might be of value.  Anything you find wrong with the current
> > release, based on dmd 0.140, is so far out of date that I'm not sure how
> > useful it is.
> >
> > Are you interested in working on the d compiler itself or on libraries
> > that people use to support their applications?  IMHO, the latter is where
> > d needs the most help.  Looking at projects like ares or mango would be
> > good, though I haven't looked at either yet.
> >
> > That help?
> >
> > Later,
> > Brad
> >
> 
> Thanks for the feedback, I'll hold off on doing anything with the compiler
> until David releases his next version.
> 
> I'm actually more interested in the supporting libraries since that's what I
> think will hold back acceptance of D.  I'll take a look at Ares and see what
> I can do.

Agreed.

> With regards to gdc, do you know if the intent is to continue using Phobos
> as it is distributed by Walter or is it going to use a parallel one?  Sorry
> for directing these questions to you but you seem to be the one that's the
> most vocal with gdc.

I have never talked with David about that, but I suspect that the intent 
of gdc is to mirror dmd except for switching out the compiler backend.  
Therefore, it'd stick with phobos, adding runtime support for more 
platforms as porting work is done for them.  The phobos that comes with 
gdc isn't stock phobos, there's a number of changes, primarily constrained 
to the runtime support (exceptions, interfaces between the runtime and 
compiler, etc).

Later,
Brad