[dmd-internals] DMD now requires a working D compiler to be build

[Daniel Murphy via Digitalmars-d]

"Vladimir Panteleev"  wrote in message 
news:sjlsydcjflglxpwuscpk at forum.dlang.org...

> OK, then can a file please be added to the DMD source repo which indicates 
> which host DMD version is needed to build it?

This seems reasonable.  We could also add a static assert to provide a 
helpful error message when attempting to build with older versions, as 
currently it most likely results in memory corruption and segfaults.

Assuming no critical bugs are found in 2.067, that should be the requirement 
for now.  I think we avoid bumping the version again until a) critical 
issues are found that significantly hinder dmd's development or b) the newer 
compiler version offers significant advantages to development.

An example of a would be if a new version of ld stopped accepting the object 
files generated by 2.067, or we wanted to add a new supported target that 
2.067 didn't support.

An example of B would be if changes to the compiler allowed a large 
performance boost or a lot of code to be deleted.

Another issues is that the old D source may not compile with the latest 
compiler.  eg the current source will stop building when overriding without 
override becomes an error.  Sometimes this can be worked around, sometimes 
it can't.