Migrating dmd to D?

[SomeDude]

On Friday, 1 March 2013 at 16:44:53 UTC, js.mdnq wrote:
>
> There is no problem with circular dependencies as long as the 
> language spec has a fixed subset that the compiler is written 
> in. The reason is that any future version then can compile the 
> compiler source because the future versions all support the 
> subset.
>
> This is why it is so important to get the fixed language subset 
> down because it will the core language features and can't be 
> changed without causing regressive dependencies.
>
> Any evolution of the D compiler will compile it's own compiler 
> source as long as it properly implements the D language subset. 
> This subset also has to be a subset of the current dmd language 
> implementation to bootstrap from.

Exactly. This fixed subset would be very limited in comparison to 
the full language (I can imagine something looking a bit like a 
smaller Go, there would probably be no templates at all, no CTFE, 
maybe even no exceptions, for instance), but would be orthogonal, 
completely stable in terms of spec, and known to work. It could 
be defined for other real world usages as well, like embedding in 
small appliances.