Surely the main requirements would be gui and networking? Which would be completely possible. On 15 Nov 2013 12:05, "John Colvin" <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Friday, 15 November 2013 at 08:50:14 UTC, Paulo Pinto wrote: > >> On Friday, 15 November 2013 at 07:13:34 UTC, Jeremy DeHaan wrote: >> >>> Hey everyone! >>> >>> I have been experimenting for the past couple of days with an idea I >>> had, and since I recently made a little progress I thought I would share >>> some of what I have been doing with you. What I have done, in a nutshell, >>> is began the process for a language converter that takes D source files, >>> converts them into Java source files, and then compiles them as Java class >>> files so that they can be ran on Java's VM. It is extremely limited in what >>> it can do right now, only being able to convert/compile a simple Hello >>> World program, but I was proud of myself for getting even that far so I >>> wanted to brag. :P >>> >>> You may want to ask, "Hey, man. D is a great language. Why would I ever >>> want to convert it to Java?" Normally, you wouldn't. Java blows. What I am >>> envisioning for this project is something quite magical in my opinion. If >>> we can take D code and have it compile into Java class files, we can then >>> compile them into Android dex files. This would make D able to build and >>> run on Android devices through its VM. Sure, people are working on getting >>> D to compile to ARM binaries, but this could be another option as a Java >>> alternative on Android.(eventually) >>> >>> Unfortunately I do not know much about compilers, but even in the last >>> couple of days I feel like I have learned a great deal about what kinds of >>> stuff goes into them. Eventually I'd like to make a full blown compiler >>> that takes D code and can go right to dex files, but that would be >>> something that would happen way down the road. In order to get D working on >>> Android sooner, I figured a language converter would be the easier route. >>> >>> I can, and would love to go in to more detail about this, but it is >>> getting late and this post is already quite long. Maybe I should start a >>> blog about my D escapades? Anyways, I would love to hear feedback on this >>> idea! Thanks for your time! >>> >> >> It is an impossible task, because many of the D semantics cannot be >> expressed in JVM/Dalvik bytecode. >> >> -- >> Paulo >> > > Like what? Barring low-level device access, they are both turing complete > languages and given the necessary transformations a complete program in one > can always be statically* translated to the one in the other. However, > efficient java code would be a different matter. > > *very important. There are many code-level concepts in D that are not > expressible in the JVM, but a static translation doesn't need to honor > those: it simply needs to make a program that has the same observable > effects for any given input. This is definitely possible, although quite > possibly monstrously involved when done in detail. >
