new frontend written in D

[Gor Gyolchanyan]

Good point. The reason to have D compiler written in D is that D code
is far less error-prone, then C++, while giving the tools for very
high-level modeling of the problem it solves (which DMD doesn't seem
to use).
Well, seems like all the "exciting stuff", like a new major version
and a new front-end are left for serious consideration only when the
current one is fully developed.

On Wed, Sep 28, 2011 at 9:14 PM, Jonathan M Davis <jmdavisProg at gmx.com> wrote:
> On Wednesday, September 28, 2011 07:45 Gor Gyolchanyan wrote:
>> I agree, that rewriting the language is not a good idea until the
>> current version is fully studied, so i don't want D3 either. D2 is
>> good enough for now.
>> But I don't have D2 because most of what makes it unique isn't
>> implemented or is buggy. And i still won't have it for a long long
>> time (I really want classes in CTFE, for example).
>
> Having a D compiler for D would be cool, but really, does it matter? At least,
> to the average programmer? The average programmer wants a compiler that works.
> Fixing dmd's bugs gets you that. That's what's being done. Rewriting dmd in D
> doesn't help with that at all. In fact it makes it worse, because it's
> inevitable that new bugs will be introduced.
>
> In the long run, it would be nice to have a compiler in D (maybe even the
> primary compiler), and maybe such a compiler could be more performant thanks
> to slicing and the like. But until D2 is fully stable, that just seems like
> wasted effort. There are far more important things for getting D2 fully
> usable. The operative word is "nice." It would be _nice_ if we had a fully
> working D compiler in D, but it's far from necessary and really doesn't gain
> us much at this point in time.
>
> I honestly don't understand why having a D compiler in written in D is so
> important to some people. What we need is a solid compiler. The language that
> it's in doesn't matter all that much IMHO. Yes, it's a good sign for D if it
> can have a fully functional, performant compiler written in D (especially if
> it's _more_ performant than a comparable compiler written in C++), but what
> matters is being able to write your own code in D, not whether the tools
> you're using were written in any particular language.
>
> However, regardless of why you might want another D compiler with a new
> frontend, I think that it would make a _lot_ of sense to wait until D2's spec
> has completely stabilized (it's fairly stable now but not completely stable),
> and dmd is more or less bug-free (obviously not completely bug-free, but on
> the level typically expected of a compiler). That would severely reduce how
> much rewriting you would have to do as D and dmd change, and the problem would
> become much more tractable.
>
> - Jonathan M Davis
>