On Friday, 12 April 2024 at 18:45:21 UTC, Chris Piker wrote:
Even though DMD can't compile some C code, that's pretty much a
non-issue for me anyway. In my environment the servers are all
Linux so "apt-get" (or equivalent) typically provides a
pre-compiled dependency. Being able to list a package as a
system dependency and then just call it from D with no
interface code is a Big Freaking Deal!
Compared to Python interfaces this is a huge improvement. It
makes D an even better replacement for the mixed mode python +
C development I was doing before switching to D for new
projects.
I agree that it's really good, but the issues I listed were just
examples of the things I came across, and I know there are a
decent number of other open issues for ImportC. What I'd prefer
to avoid is having people try it out and concluding that it's not
ready. Kind of like when I tried out Zig. Everyone was saying
it's this great language but my trial was brief and I haven't
been tempted to try it since.
Header files are a different story. They really should "just
work" based on my experience. Other things like compiling large
libraries or translating C code to D should probably be more in
the camp of "experience reports" posted on individual blogs, and
they should talk about both the successes and the edge cases.
