DMD Backend Long-term

[Eldar Insafutdinov]

== Quote from dsimcha (dsimcha at yahoo.com)'s article
> What is the long-term plan for the current DMD backend?  I've noticed the
> first steps towards 64-bit support were just checked in today (excitement to
> the extreme).  However, the backend is under such a restrictive license (which
> I understand Walter is not free to change) that it has a "bus factor" of 1.
> If Walter were to stop maintaining it, noone else would be able to, if I
> understand the licensing issues correctly.
> Is there a chance of these licensing issues being cleared up so that the
> backend can be released under a more permissive license?  If not, while I
> understand Walter's decision to use a backend he was familiar with in the
> beginning, it seems like we should abandon such a heavily encumbered backend
> now that it needs serious work.

Hi

I agree with what Sean says. Even more, DMD backend is good for development
process, because it is very fast as opposed to more popular ones like llvm or gcc.
What really worries me is what is going to happen on Windows. We have the burden
which is old file format and optlink. There are still big problems with the
linker, it has random problems on big projects, building them with debug info is
even more problematic. As far as I understood that linker is being rewritten to C,
but the process is very slow. It may take years to complete the port, and then to
make it 64bit capable, isn't it? All existing problems would be propagated
further. I would suggest(again and again) to add a new Windows backend targeting
MinGW or MSVC toolchain. It should not necessarily replace the existing one, but
people would at least have freedom and there wouldn't be situation that you are
stuck in development when linker fails. Also those toolchain support 64bit, so it
is another advantage. For those who still wants digital mars toolchain - there
will be an old one. Remembering that it took Walter about 6 weeks to implement
MacOS backend, that doesn't seem too bad. In the end, Windows is the most popular
OS despite our personal preferences, and it's worth spending some time for it.

Cheers