• solidstate1991 (14/14) Apr 14 2017 Since the backend is no longer restrained by Symantec licenses,
• rikki cattermole (4/7) Apr 14 2017 Here is my suggestion, try and document the backend.
• solidstate1991 (7/10) May 17 2017 As I see there's a lot of problem with the DLL support under
• Kagamin (2/6) May 17 2017 Can't you run it in qemu?
• solidstate1991 (6/7) May 21 2017 Probably I could, might even work parallel with other stuff,
• Stefan Koch (5/13) May 22 2017 Conditional execution is not in the later models of ARM, I
• solidstate1991 (4/8) May 25 2017 That might be the case, maybe that's how they made space to
• Patrick Schluter (20/29) May 25 2017 No, they removed it from AArch64 because it complicates things on
• Patrick Schluter (3/33) May 25 2017 Of course you're right, that's how they reused the 4 bits freed

solidstate1991 <laszloszeremi outlook.com> writes:

Since the backend is no longer restrained by Symantec licenses, 
there's no reason why there should be only be x86 and amd64 CPU 
support even if GDC and LDC already have their own 
implementations.

I would help out after I either finish my college or get booted 
out from there for failing to finish it (I currently need a 
consultant for my master's thesis I'm making on my project 
written in D, contact me if you would want to help me out in 
this, I'll provide you with two way Hungarian-English 
translation), I'm already planning my suggestions and 
contribution for a better vector support (I would suggest to add 
32 bit and 64 bit fixed-point vectors, the 32 bit ones would be 
great for per-pixel graphics in certain cases to avoid 
workarounds).

rikki cattermole <rikki cattermole.co.nz> writes:

On 14/04/2017 2:22 PM, solidstate1991 wrote:
 Since the backend is no longer restrained by Symantec licenses, there's
 no reason why there should be only be x86 and amd64 CPU support even if
 GDC and LDC already have their own implementations.

Here is my suggestion, try and document the backend.
You may form a very different opinion after trying to do that or come up 
with a game plan on how to implement non-X86 targets.

solidstate1991 <laszloszeremi outlook.com> writes:

On Friday, 14 April 2017 at 13:29:35 UTC, rikki cattermole wrote:
 Here is my suggestion, try and document the backend.
 You may form a very different opinion after trying to do that 
 or come up with a game plan on how to implement non-X86 targets.

As I see there's a lot of problem with the DLL support under 
Windows, I'm accepting your suggestion and help the x86 side 
first instead. I still don't have a hardware to test the compiler 
in the future (will getting a RPi Zero and RPi 3 in the future as 
well as other popular single board PCs to debug my own projects 
on different targets).

Kagamin <spam here.lot> writes:

On Wednesday, 17 May 2017 at 18:05:32 UTC, solidstate1991 wrote:
 I still don't have a hardware to test the compiler in the 
 future (will getting a RPi Zero and RPi 3 in the future as well 
 as other popular single board PCs to debug my own projects on 
 different targets).

Can't you run it in qemu?

solidstate1991 <laszloszeremi outlook.com> writes:

On Wednesday, 17 May 2017 at 22:16:35 UTC, Kagamin wrote:
 Can't you run it in qemu?

Probably I could, might even work parallel with other stuff, 
especially stuff that are mainly lexical (register naming, etc). 
So far I studied the ARM assembly language, and it seems less 
scary than the x86 one, also the conditional execution might be 
useful with the ? : operators (if thumb isn't used).

Stefan Koch <uplink.coder googlemail.com> writes:

On Monday, 22 May 2017 at 01:05:04 UTC, solidstate1991 wrote:
 On Wednesday, 17 May 2017 at 22:16:35 UTC, Kagamin wrote:
 Can't you run it in qemu?

 Probably I could, might even work parallel with other stuff, 
 especially stuff that are mainly lexical (register naming, 
 etc). So far I studied the ARM assembly language, and it seems 
 less scary than the x86 one, also the conditional execution 
 might be useful with the ? : operators (if thumb isn't used).

Conditional execution is not in the later models of ARM, I 
believe.
Also does not really provide advantages over conditional jumps, 
except in rare circumstances.

solidstate1991 <laszloszeremi outlook.com> writes:

On Monday, 22 May 2017 at 14:49:46 UTC, Stefan Koch wrote:
 Conditional execution is not in the later models of ARM, I 
 believe.
 Also does not really provide advantages over conditional jumps, 
 except in rare circumstances.

That might be the case, maybe that's how they made space to 
address the 32 registers by cutting the rarely used conditional 
execution function.

Patrick Schluter <Patrick.Schluter bbox.fr> writes:

On Thursday, 25 May 2017 at 20:47:42 UTC, solidstate1991 wrote:
 On Monday, 22 May 2017 at 14:49:46 UTC, Stefan Koch wrote:
 Conditional execution is not in the later models of ARM, I 
 believe.
 Also does not really provide advantages over conditional 
 jumps, except in rare circumstances.

 That might be the case, maybe that's how they made space to 
 address the 32 registers by cutting the rarely used conditional 
 execution function.

No, they removed it from AArch64 because it complicates things on 
modern Out Of Order Execution high performance CPU. It was a 
brillant idea on the original ARM design that had no caches and a 
very small transistor budget, but doesn't bring much, or even is 
hindering, in the times of pipelining, OOOE and branch 
predictions.
The transition from 32 to 64 bits brought the opportunity to 
clean up the ISA. Because one thing that people often do not 
know, is that ARM ISA has probably even more legacy baggage than 
x86 (ARM encoding, thumbs, thumbs2, vfp, arm4, arm5, arm6, arm7, 
etc.).
It is often a problem and it happens in a lot of ISA's that 
things that were good ideas for a certain process size become 
real problems later on that slow down or block evolution. 
Examples abound, double indirect addressing modes in m68k, branch 
delay slots in MIPS and SPARC, register windows in SPARC, memory 
based register in TMS9900, predicates, shifts and PC in normal 
register in ARM, variable length encoding and segments in x86 
etc...

Patrick Schluter <Patrick.Schluter bbox.fr> writes:

On Thursday, 25 May 2017 at 21:15:57 UTC, Patrick Schluter wrote:
 On Thursday, 25 May 2017 at 20:47:42 UTC, solidstate1991 wrote:
 On Monday, 22 May 2017 at 14:49:46 UTC, Stefan Koch wrote:
 Conditional execution is not in the later models of ARM, I 
 believe.
 Also does not really provide advantages over conditional 
 jumps, except in rare circumstances.

 That might be the case, maybe that's how they made space to 
 address the 32 registers by cutting the rarely used 
 conditional execution function.


Of course you're right, that's how they reused the 4 bits freed 
by the predicates. I should not answer posts when I'm half asleep.

 No, they removed it from AArch64 because it complicates things 
 on modern Out Of Order Execution high performance CPU. It was a 
 brillant idea on the original ARM design that had no caches and 
 a very small transistor budget, but doesn't bring much, or even 
 is hindering, in the times of pipelining, OOOE and branch 
 predictions.
 The transition from 32 to 64 bits brought the opportunity to 
 clean up the ISA. Because one thing that people often do not 
 know, is that ARM ISA has probably even more legacy baggage 
 than x86 (ARM encoding, thumbs, thumbs2, vfp, arm4, arm5, arm6, 
 arm7, etc.).
 It is often a problem and it happens in a lot of ISA's that 
 things that were good ideas for a certain process size become 
 real problems later on that slow down or block evolution. 
 Examples abound, double indirect addressing modes in m68k, 
 branch delay slots in MIPS and SPARC, register windows in 
 SPARC, memory based register in TMS9900, predicates, shifts and 
 PC in normal register in ARM, variable length encoding and 
 segments in x86 etc...