On Friday, 14 November 2014 at 14:20:00 UTC, Chad Joan wrote:
We really should have had a toolchain compiling D into working (release quality) Android/iOS executables about 3-5 years ago.
I agree. Well, to a large extent: the first Android smartphone was only released 6 years ago, would've been a bit early to jump in the year after. I picked it up last year because nobody was working on it, after years of people asking.
This would have allowed D to scoop up a HUGE share of deployment in a market that was very new and welcoming of experimentation.
I don't know, I think D really has a chance to do well on mobile, but have other alternative languages, ie not C/C++/java, done _that_ well on Android? I know the Rust guys are now working on it, but while languages like FreePascal are on there, I have not heard of any big success story.
It seems like there have been a few people enthusiastically working on this, but with little support from the broader community. I really wish this were a higher development priority and more actively encouraged a long time ago.
I have been a bit surprised by this. It definitely seems many are x86/desktop/server-centric and seemingly ignoring the great opportunity for native languages and furious growth in mobile.
