ARM first & default LDC

[Iain Buclaw]

On Monday, 14 December 2020 at 13:36:45 UTC, 9il wrote:
> On Monday, 14 December 2020 at 11:53:26 UTC, Ola Fosheim 
> Grøstad wrote:
>> On Monday, 14 December 2020 at 04:35:31 UTC, 9il wrote:
>>> ARM is going to conquer laptop and PC markets in the next few 
>>> years.
>>>
>>> Making LDC a default compiler looks like a more rational 
>>> solution.
>>
>> Why does there have to be a default compiler?
>
> The meaning of `default` has been described in the following 
> sentences of the original post, maybe in a bit strange form 
> because of my English level. We would always have a default 
> compiler or say `master` compiler. Changes go to DMD first and 
> then to other compilers. A one with an ARM notebook can 
> compile, run, test, and patch LDC, but actually, she/he would 
> need to patch DMD, which can't be compiled for ARM.
>

This would happen anyway regardless of the compiler used for 
testing.

Genuine example: I am (with an intermediate) running the 
testsuite and fixing compiler and library bugs on all macOS 
platforms from darwin8 to darwin20 on i386, x86_64, PPC, and 
PPC64 hardware.  I would *still* actually need to send a patch to 
LDC which can't be compiled for that entire compilation matrix.

IMO, there is something wrong with the language being used to 
compartmentalize the various D language compilers.  Also it is 
pointless changing the status-quo, and frankly it doesn't matter 
what the back-end is.

The way I see things, there is a common base upstream 
implementation, central for all parties involved.  Moving it to 
LDC would be the opposite of centralizing the front-end 
implementation.