LLVM progress

[Flamaros]

On Saturday, 7 September 2013 at 19:35:47 UTC, Russel Winder 
wrote:
> On Sat, 2013-09-07 at 10:08 -0700, Walter Bright wrote:
> […]
>> Having 3 different D compilers with different strengths and 
>> weaknesses spurs improvements in all of them. When I was at 
>> GoingNative2013, it was pretty obvious to me that the playful 
>> and friendly competition between gcc, clang, and vc has 
>> improved all three greatly.
>
> As has been proved in many areas of life, having multiple 
> players in a
> game validates the game. Having multiple compilers, books, IDEs 
> etc. for
> D programming is a mark that D is player in the programming 
> languages
> game.
>
> Sadly D is still not competing against C++ in the way it 
> deserves. Of
> course C++ is now a niche language. The primary "war" just now 
> is native
> vs. VM, and VM remains in the ascendency. Go and Rust are the 
> "poster
> children" for native due to their backers. The questions is 
> whether D
> should position itself in this "war". I say yes.
>
> There needs to be more books on D, and use of D in various 
> areas. QtD,
> GtkD, (wxD?), D drivers for SQL, Mongo, Couch, Redis, Neo, 
> Riak, etc.
> all need to be high quality and pushed via reports and talks at 
> non-D
> conferences. Vibe.d is a huge possibility now that Node.js is 
> losing
> it's "lustre" and Vert.x and Go are getting serious traction. 
> (At least
> in the small start-ups arena.)
>
> D in GCC and D on LLVM are, for me, far more important than 
> DMD, since
> they provide penetration into the market via the market 
> leaders. D on
> Linux via GCC and LLVM, D on OX S via LLVM, (and on Windows, I 
> suppose,
> via any route :-).

That also my concern, LLVM tends to replace gcc as C/C++ compiler.
LLVM promise to simplify languages compatibility, Apple show us 
how
much is important to improve developers productivity.
Google think in the same way with the Go.

I think the LLVM message is :
developers would be more productive if compiler generate better 
reports, can aggregate more pieces of software and have better 
tools (IDE, static analyzer, debugger).

In this way D and LLVM philosophies seems compatible.


> The issue for me is to stop worrying about internal 
> contemplative
> reflection on 10 years of D evolution, and get knowledge of the
> real-world use of D out there and in people's faces. Stop 
> looking inward
> and start looking outward. This is the trick Go and Rust have 
> picked up,
> albeit not as well as they could.  D is a major player in the 
> GCC and
> LLVM worlds, let's take this as read and exploit it for the 
> future of
> high-quality, effective and pleasurable native code development.