On 11 September 2014 11:13, ketmar via Digitalmars-d <[email protected]> wrote: > On Thu, 11 Sep 2014 11:54:08 +0200 > Daniel Kozak via Digitalmars-d <[email protected]> wrote: > >> What? I don't see any problem with binary blob. With gcc it is same I >> need binary blob to be able to compile gcc from source. And if I am >> really scary of binary dmd compiler I can still use last C++ version >> and compile it with gcc, then use this product to compile next ddmd >> and so on. > as i said -- good luck with it. D is not GCC (yet?), and GDC is not a > part of GCC. it's very naive to assume that FOSS programmer that wants > to try D will take last C++ version, then compiles it, than compiles > next D version and so on. he will take either gdc from distro repo (and > this will be old, if not ancient) just to find that it has no shiny new > features the programmer just read about in NG, or will try to build > HEAD and... and drop D, 'cause "if they make it so hard to build their > compiler, they can play with it without me". >
Two ways of looking at it, this is a problem if: 1) A distribution doesn't ship gdc already (ie: opensuse, fedora) 2) A developer building gdc doesn't have a D compiler available. As for binary blob, well, gcc had to start from somewhere, and was originally too built by a closed source binary blob. If you are concerned, enable bootstrapping, that will give you an ethically clean compiler. > inability to be built with GCC out-of-the-box pushing D into > marginality. and inability to use new shiny compiler features 'cause > compiler should be buildable with previous versions too. and this will > effectively kill language progress: > Just because the compiler is not implemented with shiny new features, does not stop progress of implementing shiny new features. Iain.
