I think dmd should keep going its way and provide a base..
(remember that it also provides a base for gdc/ldc. If dmd switched to D
there would also be no updates for LDC and GDC anymore)
Why wouldn't it? LDC and GDC can use the frontend written in D.
No, they are totally based on dmd. Written in C++, directly accessing the
AST nodes (i.e. no "interface") and even modifying the nodes to contain
additional info.
To get this frontend I think the DMD frontend needs to be ported to D
without much modification in the first step. DMD would then use the D
version of the frontend. When the complete frontend is ported and used
by DMD, then we could start refactoring the frontend to make it more
modular.
I think this is the most realistic approach. I don't think Walter would
just drop the DMD frontend and start with a new one, or use some other
frontend developed by someone else.
And he also won't drop dmd even for a 1-to-1 port ;)