DDT and Descent

[Bruno Medeiros]

On 05/01/2013 01:37, Jeremy Powers wrote:
> Recently I was poking around seeing what it would take to create a D
> plugin for IntelliJ, and took a look at DDT as a staring point.
> Referencing:
>
> http://code.google.com/a/eclipselabs.org/p/ddt/wiki/DevelopmentGuide
>
> There is a relation between the DDT project and the Descent compiler
> that isn't clear to me - on the one hand, they are separate, with
> separate repositories, but on the other descent.compiler contains
> references to DDT in the build...
>
> Is the descent compiler now considered a sub-project of DDT, owned and
> maintained by the same folks, or is it 'legacy', or what?  What is the
> future path for the descent.compiler vs. DDT?
>
> As mentioned, my interest is in re-using parts for a separate IDE
> plugin (having used Eclipse for years, I am heavily biased towards
> IntelliJ).  From a first glance it looks like the descent.compiler
> only has some _very_ minimal dependencies on Eclipse/OSGI, and could
> easily be a reusable lexer/parser library for any java code what needs
> it.  It looks like there hasn't been any changes to descent.compiler
> in quite some time (latest was an addition of ddt referencing pom.xml)
> - is Descent still considered an active project on its own, or is it
> being fully consumed by DDT, or somewhere in the middle?
>
> Thanks,
> Jeremy
>

Hi Jeremy. Descent is pretty much dead, and even the subcomponent 
descent.compiler is no longer mantained, even though it's used by DDT. 
Current plans for DDT is to develop a new parser (work is under way), 
and drop usage of descent.compiler altoghether.

The new parser will be part of the org.dsource.ddt.dtool bundle/plug-in, 
which also contains most of the semantic functionality of DDT (code 
complete, etc.), and has no dependencies on Eclipse - it is designed to 
be reusable by other Java IDEs or programs.

-- 
Bruno Medeiros - Software Engineer