druntime !!!!

[Brad Roberts]

On 1/22/2011 4:32 PM, Robert Clipsham wrote:
> On 22/01/11 23:58, bioinfornatics wrote:
>> They are something wrong with druntime management!!!
>> Why druntime do not support gdc or ldc2?
>> Its is very crap thing i hope druntime will add soon gdc support. We can send
>> ldc and gdc patch.
>> Thanks for all
>>
>> best regards
> 
> I've been talking to you on IRC about this, but I'll reiterate it here for
> everyone elses benefit. Having support for each compiler in druntime is a bad
> idea. This is what druntime did initially when it was forked from tango. The
> trouble was that as the compiler got updated, the runtime needed to be updated
> too, and the compiler and runtime became out of sync very easily, and getting
> everything up to date again was a pain.
> 
> The solution to this is to have each compiler maintain its own druntime
> compiler-specifics, and have the non-compiler-specific code in a main druntime
> repository - this way all that is needed is to copy/paste the compiler specific
> code into druntime. This works, as when the compiler is updated, so is the
> compiler-specific portion of druntime and nothing gets out of sync.
> 
> Of course, a lot of druntime isn't compiler specific, for these parts patches
> should probably be applied. I'm not entirely sure where gdc and ldc are with
> respect to this kind of patch, I know they both have complete druntime
> implementations, but I'm sure if this kind of patch was made (preferably in
> smaller, individual patches for each feature/bug etc) it would be applied.
> 
> Of course, this is just the situation as I see it, and from memory, the druntime
> folk will probably chime in and give the full story.
> 

Personally, I'd like to see one common runtime, but to achieve that requires
that the compiler/runtime interface be essentially the same between the
compilers.  That's an achievable goal, but it has to actually be an agreed upon
goal.  Today, both gdc and ldc's interface with the runtime don't match dmd's.

So, where do they differ today?  Why?  Can they evolve to a common interface?

I'll happily apply patches from anyone providing them that work to achieve that
goal.  Please use bugzilla to submit them.

One implied part of this goal is that dmd is, while an important stake holder,
needs to play nice too.  Changes need to go through a discussion round before
being made.. no unilateral changes.

Also, this discussion should probably drift over to the d-runtime at puremagic.com
mailing list.. at least the parts that are directly related to accomplishing the
changes.

My 2 cents,
Brad