dmd for ARM

[Jesse Phillips]

On Tue, 27 Sep 2011 16:30:36 -0700, Ruben wrote:

> Hello, is there a chance an ARM backend can be written for dmd this
> year?  I realize this question has been asked periodically going back
> 4-5 years, but ARM is turning into a major platform and I feel D2 could
> do very well in this market, particularly with the renewed emphasis on
> mobile performance favoring a native compiled language.  Looking at
> previous newsgroup posts, it appears that those wanting to use ARM are
> pointed at gdc/ldc, but it seems like those two projects are usually
> behind in D2 support.  I think it would help D2 if dmd directly
> supported ARM, even Windows 8 runs on ARM.
> 
> I don't know how much time it would require to port dmd's backend to
> ARM, but it may not require much more than that.  Android comes with an
> ARM emulator powered by QEMU, one could probably try the port simply
> using the free Android NDK.  Iain mentioned getting a SheevaPlug almost
> a year ago; I'd chip in a donation towards getting Walter or whoever a
> Pandaboard (http://pandaboard.org/content/platform) or Trim Slice
> (http://trimslice.com/web/models) to work on.  Some estimate of when dmd
> might come to ARM or why such a port is not a priority would be
> appreciated.

Lots of priorities.

GDC is only one release behind DMD: https://bitbucket.org/goshawk/gdc/
wiki/Home

Also, D has appeal for many developer types. It would fit really well for 
the needs of embedded development, once someone takes it on and makes it 
happen. But it also would work great in the Application world, the web 
world, scripting.

There is a lot of development going on, and someone needs to run with 
what they feel will help them the most. At this time D isn't a battery 
included language, someone needs to build those batteries.