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D.gnu - Which version to use?

reply Jeremy DeHaan <dehaan.jeremiah gmail.com> writes:
On (my version of) Linux, gdc has an official apt repository, but 
there also exists a download page with what appears to be a much 
more recent version of gdc. So..which one should I use? I'd like 
to have pre-built binaries for my library ready to go for users, 
but I'm not sure which one I should build with.

Right now I am leaning towards the one on the download page due 
to updates, bug fixes, etc, but many people will presumably use 
whats in apt.

Suggestions?
Sep 23 2015
parent reply Johannes Pfau <nospam example.com> writes:
Am Thu, 24 Sep 2015 03:07:53 +0000
schrieb Jeremy DeHaan <dehaan.jeremiah gmail.com>:


 On (my version of) Linux, gdc has an official apt repository, but 
 there also exists a download page with what appears to be a much 
 more recent version of gdc. So..which one should I use? I'd like 
 to have pre-built binaries for my library ready to go for users, 
 but I'm not sure which one I should build with.
 
 Right now I am leaning towards the one on the download page due 
 to updates, bug fixes, etc, but many people will presumably use 
 whats in apt.
 
 Suggestions?


The downloads from gdcproject.org/downloads provide more recent
frontend (<=> DMD) versions. The frontend introduces new features in
the language, so most D projects require very recent frontend versions.
Even the latest available GDC version right now (2.066) is two
versions behind DMD (2.068). The debian packages usually provide even
older frontend versions.

So if you use code which requires a newer frontend version you'll have
to use the downloads from gdcproject.org. Otherwise you can look up the
changelog here to check if you need/want any of the features or
bugfixes in newer frontends: http://dlang.org/changelog/index.html

The other version is the GCC version. While newer GCC versions might
produce better optimized code (https://gcc.gnu.org/gcc-5/changes.html)
we recommend using the same GCC version as used by your Linux
distribution. The main reason for this is that there might be cases
where newer GCC versions are not compatible with older GDB versions.
However, you can usually use any GCC version.

Generally speaking distribution packages are easier to support as
they're built explicitly for one Linux distribution. The packages from
gdcproject.org have to work on many Linux versions which sometimes can
be difficult (if your distribution installs libraries into unusual
directories, the compiler might not find them, ...). However, we
haven't really heard about problems with the packages from
gdcproject.org, so they should work fine for most distributions.


BTW: Shipping prebuilt D libraries is uncommon. The main compilers
(gdc/dmd/ldc) do not produce compatible libraries. Libraries compiled
with other frontend versions are usually not compatible even when
compiled with the same compiler. If you want to provide binaries most
people will probably use the newest frontend version, so I'd say use
the version from gdcproject.org
Sep 24 2015
parent reply Jeremy DeHaan <dehaan.jeremiah gmail.com> writes:
On Thursday, 24 September 2015 at 10:21:03 UTC, Johannes Pfau 
wrote:

 Am Thu, 24 Sep 2015 03:07:53 +0000
 schrieb Jeremy DeHaan <dehaan.jeremiah gmail.com>:


Thanks for the info. That was pretty much what I thought.


 BTW: Shipping prebuilt D libraries is uncommon. The main 
 compilers (gdc/dmd/ldc) do not produce compatible libraries. 
 Libraries compiled with other frontend versions are usually not 
 compatible even when compiled with the same compiler. If you 
 want to provide binaries most people will probably use the 
 newest frontend version, so I'd say use the version from 
 gdcproject.org


Is it that uncommon? I was aware they were incompatible between 
frontends, so I was going to have two for each (32 and 64) and 
label which frontend/compiler version they were built with. I 
figure that will cover most people if they don't want to bother 
building them, but I'll also make it easy for those that 
need/want to build them.
Sep 26 2015
parent reply "Iain Buclaw via D.gnu" <d.gnu puremagic.com> writes:
On 27 Sep 2015 12:05 am, "Jeremy DeHaan via D.gnu" <d.gnu puremagic.com>
wrote:

 On Thursday, 24 September 2015 at 10:21:03 UTC, Johannes Pfau wrote:

 Am Thu, 24 Sep 2015 03:07:53 +0000
 schrieb Jeremy DeHaan <dehaan.jeremiah gmail.com>:



 Thanks for the info. That was pretty much what I thought.



 BTW: Shipping prebuilt D libraries is uncommon. The main compilers




(gdc/dmd/ldc) do not produce compatible libraries. Libraries compiled with
other frontend versions are usually not compatible even when compiled with
the same compiler. If you want to provide binaries most people will
probably use the newest frontend version, so I'd say use the version from
gdcproject.org

 Is it that uncommon? I was aware they were incompatible between


frontends, so I was going to have two for each (32 and 64) and label which
frontend/compiler version they were built with. I figure that will cover
most people if they don't want to bother building them, but I'll also make
it easy for those that need/want to build them.

The more 'common' thing to do nowadays is to hook your library into dub.
No need to provide binaries of the library.

http://code.dlang.org

Iain.
Sep 26 2015
parent reply Jeremy DeHaan <dehaan.jeremiah gmail.com> writes:
On Sunday, 27 September 2015 at 06:03:00 UTC, Iain Buclaw wrote:


 The more 'common' thing to do nowadays is to hook your library 
 into dub. No need to provide binaries of the library.



Oh, I do both. This is just for the people that don't use dub.
Sep 27 2015
parent John Colvin <john.loughran.colvin gmail.com> writes:
On Monday, 28 September 2015 at 00:53:57 UTC, Jeremy DeHaan wrote:

 On Sunday, 27 September 2015 at 06:03:00 UTC, Iain Buclaw wrote:


 The more 'common' thing to do nowadays is to hook your library 
 into dub. No need to provide binaries of the library.



 Oh, I do both. This is just for the people that don't use dub.


Why not offer a source download with a dub binary (or even 
sources for dub, it's only 5 seconds in one ./build.sh from being 
a binary...)? The user doesn't even have to know they're using 
dub.
Sep 28 2015