On processors for D

[Walter Bright]

Georg Wrede wrote:
> I admit this is a "feelings based" thing with most people I've talked 
> with. It seems that on embedded platforms, many expect to write all the 
> needed code themselves. It's also felt (possibly unduely??) that Phobos 
> (or whatever general Win+*nix standard library) is mostly useless in 
> embedded applications.

I'd like to get to the bottom of this feeling. For example, Kris was 
unhappy that typeinfo imported std.strings. I can't figure out what the 
problem with that is.

> To give a parallell (to explain my view here): There are many Linux 
> distributions that are compiled with 386 as target. At the same time, 
> their specs for memory, clock speed, etc. _in_practice_ rule out any 
> machine not using recent Intel processors. I see this as a joke.
> 
> Call this inconsistent specs. I'm discussing here so D would avoid this 
> kind of inconsistencies.

For the embedded people I've talked with, D without floating point would 
have been a good match.

> Insisting on not needing hardware FP is ok. But to legitimize that, one 
> has to cater to scarce resources in other areas too. Conversely, not 
> genuinely making the language usable in smaller environments, makes 
> striving to independence of FPU not worth the effort and inconvenience.

It isn't necessary to strive to not use the FPU. Just don't use it 
unless floating point is actually needed. There is no need nor benefit 
to use floating point for calendar time. I've also seen people use 
floating point for random number generators - this is also neither 
necessary nor beneficial.