So what exactly is coming with extended C++ support?

[Dan Olson via Digitalmars-d]

"Szymon Gatner" <noemail at gmail.com> writes:
>
> That is good to hear indeed. In your estimate: how much longer until D
> is usable on iOS?

Depends on your definition of "usable" Szymon.

If it is just me working on it, I think a standalone LDC cross compiler
to 32-bit arm devices with druntime/phobos can be ready in a few months.
Maybe early first quarter 2015.  By standalone I mean just the LDC
toolchain.

This would allow a D library to be embedded in an otherwise Objective-C
(or maybe Swift?) iOS app.

How about bindings for APIs in the iPhone SDK?  I think folks can build
those as needed with help from Jacob's dstep tool.  It would be nice to
have a repository for these bindings somewhere though.

It would be cool if by Feb/Mar 2015 a demo app could be submited to the
App Store, just to test acceptance.  I think Walter's D version of
"Empire", but with the original ASCII character graphics, would be a fun
choice ;-)

I really don't know how to predict the timing for the following:

Objective-C interop (DIP 43).  Without it, it will be hard to go all out
"D" in an iOS app.  I have not been following the pull request and don't
have any idea when it might bubble into LDC via DMD, but not anytime
soon I would guess.  Would it be good to merge it onto a LDC+iOS git
branch?  Just as a temporary proof of concept?

Then there are all the tool related things that might hinder D use on
iOS.  Things such as no source level debugging, lack of D/Xcode
integration.

Oh, and compiling to arm64 for newer devices.
-- 
dano