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digitalmars.D - dmd platform support - poll

reply Walter Bright <newshound1 digitalmars.com> writes:
What platforms for dmd would you be most interested in using?

.net
jvm
mac osx 32 bit intel
mac osx 64 bit intel
linux 64 bit
windows 64 bit
freebsd 32 bit
netbsd 32 bit

other?
Dec 25 2008
next sibling parent "Bill Baxter" <wbaxter gmail.com> writes:
On Fri, Dec 26, 2008 at 5:30 AM, Walter Bright
<newshound1 digitalmars.com> wrote:

 What platforms for dmd would you be most interested in using?


mac osx 32 bit intel

If I can only vote for one that would be my pick.

--bb
Dec 25 2008
prev sibling next sibling parent Yigal Chripun <yigal100 gmail.com> writes:
Walter Bright wrote:

 What platforms for dmd would you be most interested in using?

 .net
 jvm
 mac osx 32 bit intel
 mac osx 64 bit intel
 linux 64 bit
 windows 64 bit
 freebsd 32 bit
 netbsd 32 bit

 other?


64bit - both windows and linux.

personally I don't see a point in JVM/.NET - One of the best things 
about D is that you get the ease of use of Ruby/python/etc with the 
benefits of native compiling like in c/c++. Why throw that away and make
Dec 25 2008
prev sibling next sibling parent Jason House <jason.james.house gmail.com> writes:
Walter Bright Wrote:


 What platforms for dmd would you be most interested in using?
 
 .net
 jvm
 mac osx 32 bit intel
 mac osx 64 bit intel
 linux 64 bit
 windows 64 bit
 freebsd 32 bit
 netbsd 32 bit


Linux 64 bit
Mac osx 32 bit intel
Dec 25 2008
prev sibling next sibling parent "Denis Koroskin" <2korden gmail.com> writes:
On Thu, 25 Dec 2008 23:30:52 +0300, Walter Bright <newshound1 digitalmars.com>
wrote:


 What platforms for dmd would you be most interested in using?

 .net
 jvm
 mac osx 32 bit intel
 mac osx 64 bit intel
 linux 64 bit
 windows 64 bit
 freebsd 32 bit
 netbsd 32 bit

 other?


Linux 64 bit
Windows 32 bit :)
Dec 25 2008
prev sibling next sibling parent "Adam D. Ruppe" <destructionator gmail.com> writes:
On Thu, Dec 25, 2008 at 12:30:52PM -0800, Walter Bright wrote:

 What platforms for dmd would you be most interested in using?


The ones I wouldn't mind seeing in order of descending preference:
 windows 64 bit
 linux 64 bit
 freebsd 32 bit
 .net
 jvm

However, if implementing any of this takes resources away from continuing
work on the existing platforms, I'd say don't worry about it; Windows
and Linux 32 bit are certainly good enough for me.

-- 
Adam D. Ruppe
http://arsdnet.net
Dec 25 2008
prev sibling next sibling parent BCS <ao pathlink.com> writes:
Reply to Walter,


 What platforms for dmd would you be most interested in using?
 
 .net


kind'a sort'a


 jvm


no


 mac osx 32 bit intel


yes


 mac osx 64 bit intel


yes


 linux 64 bit


yes (YES if cross compile avalable)


 windows 64 bit


ditto linux 64 bit


 freebsd 32 bit


no


 netbsd 32 bit


no


 other?
Dec 25 2008
prev sibling next sibling parent reply Sean Kelly <sean invisibleduck.org> writes:
Walter Bright wrote:

 What platforms for dmd would you be most interested in using?


In order of preference:

mac osx 32 bit intel
linux 64 bit
mac osx 64 bit intel
Dec 25 2008
parent Graham St Jack <Graham.StJack internode.on.net> writes:
On Thu, 25 Dec 2008 15:56:29 -0800, Sean Kelly wrote:


 Walter Bright wrote:

 What platforms for dmd would you be most interested in using?


 
 In order of preference:
 
 mac osx 32 bit intel
 linux 64 bit
 mac osx 64 bit intel


Ditto
Jan 04 2009
prev sibling next sibling parent Sergey Kovrov <kovrov gmail.com> writes:
Windows 64 bit
Mac OSX 64 bit - intel
Maemo - ARM (Texas Instruments OMAP)


-- 
serg.
Dec 25 2008
prev sibling next sibling parent reply "Robert Jacques" <sandford jhu.edu> writes:
I'm perfectly happy with 32 windows & linux, but have some minor interest  
in:
Solaris x86
JVM
Windows 64-bit
.net
Dec 25 2008
parent reply Sean Kelly <sean invisibleduck.org> writes:
Robert Jacques wrote:

 
 I'm perfectly happy with 32 windows & linux, but have some minor 
 interest in:
 Solaris x86


Oh good point.  SPARC Solaris would be nice as well.  Though that's only 
if I plan to use D at work.


Sean
Dec 25 2008
next sibling parent BCS <ao pathlink.com> writes:
Reply to Sean,


 Robert Jacques wrote:
 

 I'm perfectly happy with 32 windows & linux, but have some minor
 interest in:
 Solaris x86


 Oh good point.  SPARC Solaris would be nice as well.  Though that's
 only if I plan to use D at work.
 
 Sean
 


Ditto, because it would be nice to be able to bootstrap without cross compiling 
at the same time. ("When I get time" I'm planning on finishing a D compiler 
and plan on targeting sparc first)
Dec 25 2008
prev sibling parent Yigal Chripun <yigal100 gmail.com> writes:
Sean Kelly wrote:

 Robert Jacques wrote:

 I'm perfectly happy with 32 windows & linux, but have some minor
 interest in:
 Solaris x86


 Oh good point. SPARC Solaris would be nice as well. Though that's only
 if I plan to use D at work.


 Sean


Same for me. I also have solaris at work though I very much doubt it 
that I'll be allowed to use D instead of C++.
Dec 26 2008
prev sibling next sibling parent dsimcha <dsimcha yahoo.com> writes:
== Quote from Walter Bright (newshound1 digitalmars.com)'s article

 What platforms for dmd would you be most interested in using?
 .net
 jvm
 mac osx 32 bit intel
 mac osx 64 bit intel
 linux 64 bit
 windows 64 bit
 freebsd 32 bit
 netbsd 32 bit
 other?


Windows or Linux 64-bit, whichever is easier to implement/useful to more people.
I'm just sometimes aggravated by the obsolete 32-bit address space limit when
working with large amounts of data on machines that have plenty of memory if
only
I could address it.
Dec 25 2008
prev sibling next sibling parent "Tiago Carvalho" <merlin3000 c-core.org> writes:
"Walter Bright" <newshound1 digitalmars.com> wrote in message 
news:gj0qht$2lc1$1 digitalmars.com...

 What platforms for dmd would you be most interested in using?

 .net
 jvm
 mac osx 32 bit intel
 mac osx 64 bit intel
 linux 64 bit
 windows 64 bit
 freebsd 32 bit
 netbsd 32 bit

 other?


Windows 64 Bits
Linux 64 Bits
Dec 25 2008
prev sibling next sibling parent redseabay <redsea 163.com> writes:
1. linux 32bit & linux 64bit
2. windows 32 bit & windows 64bit

I'm using dmd to develop real project in linux 32bit.

Walter Bright Wrote:


 What platforms for dmd would you be most interested in using?
 
 .net
 jvm
 mac osx 32 bit intel
 mac osx 64 bit intel
 linux 64 bit
 windows 64 bit
 freebsd 32 bit
 netbsd 32 bit
 
 other?
Dec 25 2008
prev sibling next sibling parent Mike Parker <aldacron gmail.com> writes:
Walter Bright wrote:

 What platforms for dmd would you be most interested in using?



In order of preference:

Mac OSX 32 bit
Windows 64 bit
Mac OSX 64 bit
Dec 25 2008
prev sibling next sibling parent Nick B <nick.barbalich gmail.com> writes:
Walter Bright wrote:

 What platforms for dmd would you be most interested in using?
 
 .net
 jvm
 mac osx 32 bit intel
 mac osx 64 bit intel
 linux 64 bit
 windows 64 bit
 freebsd 32 bit
 netbsd 32 bit
 
 other?


64bit - both windows and linux.

Nick B
Dec 25 2008
prev sibling next sibling parent Andrei Alexandrescu <SeeWebsiteForEmail erdani.org> writes:
Walter Bright wrote:

 What platforms for dmd would you be most interested in using?
 
 .net
 jvm
 mac osx 32 bit intel
 mac osx 64 bit intel
 linux 64 bit
 windows 64 bit
 freebsd 32 bit
 netbsd 32 bit
 
 other?


Linux 64

Andrei
Dec 25 2008
prev sibling next sibling parent Derek Parnell <derek psych.ward> writes:
On Thu, 25 Dec 2008 12:30:52 -0800, Walter Bright wrote:


 What platforms for dmd would you be most interested in using?
 
 .net
 jvm
 mac osx 32 bit intel
 mac osx 64 bit intel
 linux 64 bit
 windows 64 bit
 freebsd 32 bit
 netbsd 32 bit
 
 other?


Amiga  (I can dream can't I?)
Windows 64
Linux 64

-- 
Derek Parnell
Melbourne, Australia
skype: derek.j.parnell
Dec 25 2008
prev sibling next sibling parent =?UTF-8?B?QWxleGFuZGVyIFDDoW5law==?= writes:
Walter Bright wrote:

 What platforms for dmd would you be most interested in using?


32 & 64bit OS X
64bit Linux
Dec 25 2008
prev sibling next sibling parent reply "Nick Sabalausky" <a a.a> writes:
"Walter Bright" <newshound1 digitalmars.com> wrote in message 
news:gj0qht$2lc1$1 digitalmars.com...

 What platforms for dmd would you be most interested in using?

 .net
 jvm
 mac osx 32 bit intel
 mac osx 64 bit intel
 linux 64 bit
 windows 64 bit
 freebsd 32 bit
 netbsd 32 bit

 other?


- ARM7/ARM9
- Other misc microcontrollers, like Parallax's Propeller
- Mac osx 32 bit intel
- *maybe* bsd 32-bit, .net and jvm (and with .net and jvm I'd want to still 
be able to use tango and phobos, and not be forced to switch to the .net and 
jvm standard libs)
Dec 25 2008
parent reply "Nick Sabalausky" <a a.a> writes:
"Nick Sabalausky" <a a.a> wrote in message 
news:gj1olu$1390$1 digitalmars.com...

 "Walter Bright" <newshound1 digitalmars.com> wrote in message 
 news:gj0qht$2lc1$1 digitalmars.com...

 What platforms for dmd would you be most interested in using?

 .net
 jvm
 mac osx 32 bit intel
 mac osx 64 bit intel
 linux 64 bit
 windows 64 bit
 freebsd 32 bit
 netbsd 32 bit

 other?


 - ARM7/ARM9
 - Other misc microcontrollers, like Parallax's Propeller
 - Mac osx 32 bit intel
 - *maybe* bsd 32-bit, .net and jvm (and with .net and jvm I'd want to 
 still be able to use tango and phobos, and not be forced to switch to the 
 .net and jvm standard libs)


To elaborate:

1. A "systems language" that doesn't compile to any embedded microcontroller 
seems more than a little bit silly to me. (Sad as it is to say, I don't 
think GDC counts anymore.)

2. I have absolutely zero interest in 64-bit. To the people annoyed at the 
limitations of the 32-bit address space: What in the world are you working 
on? Non-linear video editors and 3D modeling packages?

I should also add near the top of my list, "the CPUs of all major game 
consoles". I think console game programmers are very much in need of a 
language that doesn't suck as horribly as C++, and D is the only one out 
there that doesn't contain fundamental deal-breakers for modern console game 
dev.
Dec 25 2008
next sibling parent BCS <ao pathlink.com> writes:
Reply to Nick,


 2. I have absolutely zero interest in 64-bit. To the people annoyed at
 the limitations of the 32-bit address space: What in the world are you
 working on? Non-linear video editors and 3D modeling packages?



how about DBs? Or most anything that uses more than about 2GB of data.
Dec 25 2008
prev sibling next sibling parent John Reimer <terminal.node gmail.com> writes:
Hello Nick,


 "Nick Sabalausky" <a a.a> wrote in message
 news:gj1olu$1390$1 digitalmars.com...
 

 "Walter Bright" <newshound1 digitalmars.com> wrote in message
 news:gj0qht$2lc1$1 digitalmars.com...
 

 What platforms for dmd would you be most interested in using?
 
 .net
 jvm
 mac osx 32 bit intel
 mac osx 64 bit intel
 linux 64 bit
 windows 64 bit
 freebsd 32 bit
 netbsd 32 bit
 other?
 


 - ARM7/ARM9
 - Other misc microcontrollers, like Parallax's Propeller
 - Mac osx 32 bit intel
 - *maybe* bsd 32-bit, .net and jvm (and with .net and jvm I'd want to
 still be able to use tango and phobos, and not be forced to switch to
 the
 .net and jvm standard libs)


 To elaborate:
 
 1. A "systems language" that doesn't compile to any embedded
 microcontroller seems more than a little bit silly to me. (Sad as it
 is to say, I don't think GDC counts anymore.)
 
 2. I have absolutely zero interest in 64-bit. To the people annoyed at
 the limitations of the 32-bit address space: What in the world are you
 working on? Non-linear video editors and 3D modeling packages?
 
 I should also add near the top of my list, "the CPUs of all major game
 consoles". I think console game programmers are very much in need of a
 language that doesn't suck as horribly as C++, and D is the only one
 out there that doesn't contain fundamental deal-breakers for modern
 console game dev.
 



You want D working on Game consoles?  Aren't most of those 64-bit now? :)

-JJR
Dec 26 2008
prev sibling next sibling parent reply Walter Bright <newshound1 digitalmars.com> writes:
Nick Sabalausky wrote:

 2. I have absolutely zero interest in 64-bit. To the people annoyed at the 
 limitations of the 32-bit address space: What in the world are you working 
 on? Non-linear video editors and 3D modeling packages?


Games. See http://arstechnica.com/articles/paedia/cpu/x86-64.ars/5
Dec 27 2008
next sibling parent "Nick Sabalausky" <a a.a> writes:
"Walter Bright" <newshound1 digitalmars.com> wrote in message 
news:gj5422$1hkv$1 digitalmars.com...

 Nick Sabalausky wrote:

 2. I have absolutely zero interest in 64-bit. To the people annoyed at 
 the limitations of the 32-bit address space: What in the world are you 
 working on? Non-linear video editors and 3D modeling packages?


 Games. See http://arstechnica.com/articles/paedia/cpu/x86-64.ars/5


The only reason games ever need 64-bit is for the ever-increasing graphics 
whoring. Sure, you'll probably need 64-bit for Gear-of-War quality graphics, 
but as a gamer, why the fuck should I care about that? That article heavily 
cites Epic, but Epic's had their heads firmly up their asses for a good long 
while now. They're far more interested in forcing hardware upgrades on 
people than anything else.
Dec 27 2008
prev sibling parent "Bill Baxter" <wbaxter gmail.com> writes:
On Sat, Dec 27, 2008 at 8:37 PM, Walter Bright
<newshound1 digitalmars.com> wrote:

 Nick Sabalausky wrote:

 2. I have absolutely zero interest in 64-bit. To the people annoyed at the
 limitations of the 32-bit address space: What in the world are you working
 on? Non-linear video editors and 3D modeling packages?


 Games. See http://arstechnica.com/articles/paedia/cpu/x86-64.ars/5


Interesting read.  Basically it's not the game playing they say
requires 64-bit, but the game authoring.  That I can certainly
believe.

On the other hand it mentions reports of 30% speed-ups on 64-bit
platforms from the Counter Strike developers.  But apparently that has
nothing to do with having a 64-bit address space, but rather because
the x86-64 architecture has more registers and because the 64-bit CPUs
at the time of writing (c. 2002) had some other performance features
that were missing from the x86-32 CPUs of the time.  I'm guessing all

boost that gives these days.

--bb
Dec 27 2008
prev sibling next sibling parent "Dominik" <dominik REMOVETHISvga.hr> writes:
"Nick Sabalausky" <a a.a> wrote in message 
news:gj1pit$14io$1 digitalmars.com...

 To the people annoyed at the limitations of the 32-bit address space: What 
 in the world are you working on? Non-linear video editors and 3D modeling 
 packages?


yes
Dec 27 2008
prev sibling next sibling parent reply Andrei Alexandrescu <SeeWebsiteForEmail erdani.org> writes:
Nick Sabalausky wrote:

 "Nick Sabalausky" <a a.a> wrote in message 
 news:gj1olu$1390$1 digitalmars.com...

 "Walter Bright" <newshound1 digitalmars.com> wrote in message 
 news:gj0qht$2lc1$1 digitalmars.com...

 What platforms for dmd would you be most interested in using?

 .net
 jvm
 mac osx 32 bit intel
 mac osx 64 bit intel
 linux 64 bit
 windows 64 bit
 freebsd 32 bit
 netbsd 32 bit

 other?


 - ARM7/ARM9
 - Other misc microcontrollers, like Parallax's Propeller
 - Mac osx 32 bit intel
 - *maybe* bsd 32-bit, .net and jvm (and with .net and jvm I'd want to 
 still be able to use tango and phobos, and not be forced to switch to the 
 .net and jvm standard libs)


 
 To elaborate:
 
 1. A "systems language" that doesn't compile to any embedded microcontroller 
 seems more than a little bit silly to me. (Sad as it is to say, I don't 
 think GDC counts anymore.)
 
 2. I have absolutely zero interest in 64-bit. To the people annoyed at the 
 limitations of the 32-bit address space: What in the world are you working 
 on? Non-linear video editors and 3D modeling packages?


I have to say I'm appalled by this, particularly coming from someone who 
ought to know better. Should we really settle our ambitions with 
computers to glorified typewriters, networking tools, and the such?

Andrei
Dec 27 2008
parent reply "Nick Sabalausky" <a a.a> writes:
"Andrei Alexandrescu" <SeeWebsiteForEmail erdani.org> wrote in message 
news:gj5r9e$dom$1 digitalmars.com...

 Nick Sabalausky wrote:

 "Nick Sabalausky" <a a.a> wrote in message 
 news:gj1olu$1390$1 digitalmars.com...

 "Walter Bright" <newshound1 digitalmars.com> wrote in message 
 news:gj0qht$2lc1$1 digitalmars.com...

 What platforms for dmd would you be most interested in using?

 .net
 jvm
 mac osx 32 bit intel
 mac osx 64 bit intel
 linux 64 bit
 windows 64 bit
 freebsd 32 bit
 netbsd 32 bit

 other?


 - ARM7/ARM9
 - Other misc microcontrollers, like Parallax's Propeller
 - Mac osx 32 bit intel
 - *maybe* bsd 32-bit, .net and jvm (and with .net and jvm I'd want to 
 still be able to use tango and phobos, and not be forced to switch to 
 the .net and jvm standard libs)


 To elaborate:

 1. A "systems language" that doesn't compile to any embedded 
 microcontroller seems more than a little bit silly to me. (Sad as it is 
 to say, I don't think GDC counts anymore.)

 2. I have absolutely zero interest in 64-bit. To the people annoyed at 
 the limitations of the 32-bit address space: What in the world are you 
 working on? Non-linear video editors and 3D modeling packages?


 I have to say I'm appalled by this, particularly coming from someone who 
 ought to know better. Should we really settle our ambitions with computers 
 to glorified typewriters, networking tools, and the such?


I never said D shouldn't have 64-bit support, I just don't personally have 
any interest in it. I've done a lot of work on "low-end" systems and older 
platforms, and frankly *I'm* appalled by how much a lot of developers 
underestimate a piece of hardware just because it isn't the latest and 
greatest (and most expensive). Like I indicated, I'm well aware that there 
are legitimate applications for 64-bit, such as non-linear video editing and 
3D modeling (and DBs, servers, and *with caveats* certain types of gaming.) 
But first of all, I haven't been working on such things, hence my lack of 
personal interest. And secondly, judging by number of people here asking for 
64-bit, I find it highly unlikely that most of them have plans to work on 
such things either.
Dec 27 2008
parent reply Derek Parnell <derek psych.ward> writes:
On Sat, 27 Dec 2008 15:45:57 -0500, Nick Sabalausky wrote:


 ... judging by number of people here asking for 
 64-bit, I find it highly unlikely that most of them have plans to work on 
 such things either.


My interest in 64-bit hardware support is based on the belief that before
too long, buying a new 32-bit platform might be a difficult thing to do.
Five years from now, I don't want to be forced into finding a good
second-hand machine just so I can work with D.

-- 
Derek Parnell
Melbourne, Australia
skype: derek.j.parnell
Dec 27 2008
parent reply "Nick Sabalausky" <a a.a> writes:
"Derek Parnell" <derek psych.ward> wrote in message 
news:nkr1wyvyj3vv$.qr1gd1h779fx.dlg 40tude.net...

 On Sat, 27 Dec 2008 15:45:57 -0500, Nick Sabalausky wrote:


 ... judging by number of people here asking for
 64-bit, I find it highly unlikely that most of them have plans to work on
 such things either.


 My interest in 64-bit hardware support is based on the belief that before
 too long, buying a new 32-bit platform might be a difficult thing to do.
 Five years from now, I don't want to be forced into finding a good
 second-hand machine just so I can work with D.


I don't want to be forced into buying a new 64-bit machine just because a 
whole bunch of "gotta have the faciest stuff out there" people have deemed 
32-bit insufficient for all computing needs. Besides, can't 64-bit machines 
run 32-bit code?
Dec 27 2008
next sibling parent reply Andrei Alexandrescu <SeeWebsiteForEmail erdani.org> writes:
Nick Sabalausky wrote:

 "Derek Parnell" <derek psych.ward> wrote in message 
 news:nkr1wyvyj3vv$.qr1gd1h779fx.dlg 40tude.net...

 On Sat, 27 Dec 2008 15:45:57 -0500, Nick Sabalausky wrote:


 ... judging by number of people here asking for
 64-bit, I find it highly unlikely that most of them have plans to work on
 such things either.


 My interest in 64-bit hardware support is based on the belief that before
 too long, buying a new 32-bit platform might be a difficult thing to do.
 Five years from now, I don't want to be forced into finding a good
 second-hand machine just so I can work with D.


 
 I don't want to be forced into buying a new 64-bit machine just because a 
 whole bunch of "gotta have the faciest stuff out there" people have deemed 
 32-bit insufficient for all computing needs. Besides, can't 64-bit machines 
 run 32-bit code? 


Related: a rant of Knuth to be found at 
http://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/news.html.

===============================
A Flame About 64-bit Pointers

It is absolutely idiotic to have 64-bit pointers when I compile a 
program that uses less than 4 gigabytes of RAM. When such pointer values 
appear inside a struct, they not only waste half the memory, they 
effectively throw away half of the cache.

The gcc manpage advertises an option "-mlong32" that sounds like what I 
want. Namely, I think it would compile code for my x86-64 architecture, 
taking advantage of the extra registers etc., but it would also know 
that my program is going to live inside a 32-bit virtual address space.

Unfortunately, the -mlong32 option was introduced only for MIPS 
computers, years ago. Nobody has yet adopted such conventions for 
today's most popular architecture. Probably that happens because 
programs compiled with this convention will need to be loaded with a 
special version of libc.

Please, somebody, make that possible.
===============================

In my opinion, it's not application pressure that drives 64-bit machine 
adoption, now or in the near future. It's RAM price, availability, and 
usefulness. A 32-bit machine cannot gainfully have more than 4GB of RAM, 
period. That's an awful limitation in wake of increased OS and 
application demands and falling RAM prices. So people don't migrate to 
64 bits just because a whole bunch of "gotta have the fanciest stuff out 
there". They migrate (often without even knowing it) just because they 
want more RAM. And they want more RAM because machines with more RAM 
often run smoother and faster.


Andrei
Dec 27 2008
parent reply BCS <ao pathlink.com> writes:
Reply to Andrei,


 In my opinion, it's not application pressure that drives 64-bit
 machine adoption, now or in the near future. It's RAM price,
 availability, and usefulness. A 32-bit machine cannot gainfully have
 more than 4GB of RAM, period.


IIRC 32 bit Intel chips can address more like 64GB of RAM (I can't find the 
ref but I seem to recall about 4 extra address bits). It's just virtual address 
spaces that are limited to 4GB (or 2-3GB after the OS takes it's pound of 
flesh) 

As pointed out, only a few apps need anything near 2GB of RAM per process.


 That's an awful limitation in wake of
 increased OS and application demands and falling RAM prices. So people
 don't migrate to 64 bits just because a whole bunch of "gotta have the
 fanciest stuff out there". They migrate (often without even knowing
 it) just because they want more RAM. And they want more RAM because
 machines with more RAM often run smoother and faster.
 
 Andrei
Dec 27 2008
parent reply Andrei Alexandrescu <SeeWebsiteForEmail erdani.org> writes:
BCS wrote:

 Reply to Andrei,
 

 In my opinion, it's not application pressure that drives 64-bit
 machine adoption, now or in the near future. It's RAM price,
 availability, and usefulness. A 32-bit machine cannot gainfully have
 more than 4GB of RAM, period.


 
 IIRC 32 bit Intel chips can address more like 64GB of RAM (I can't find 
 the ref but I seem to recall about 4 extra address bits). It's just 
 virtual address spaces that are limited to 4GB (or 2-3GB after the OS 
 takes it's pound of flesh)
 As pointed out, only a few apps need anything near 2GB of RAM per process.


Even if only a few apps need anything near 2GB of RAM per process, their 
sum will exceed that limit rather quickly, which gives strong 
justification to 64-bit OSs. (Not sure if you meant to basically say the 
same.)

The real problem is that there are applications that need as much memory 
as they could possibly get, and for those dmd simply offers no option.


Andrei
Dec 27 2008
parent reply BCS <ao pathlink.com> writes:
Reply to Andrei,


 BCS wrote:
 

 Reply to Andrei,
 

 In my opinion, it's not application pressure that drives 64-bit
 machine adoption, now or in the near future. It's RAM price,
 availability, and usefulness. A 32-bit machine cannot gainfully have
 more than 4GB of RAM, period.
 


 IIRC 32 bit Intel chips can address more like 64GB of RAM (I can't
 find
 the ref but I seem to recall about 4 extra address bits). It's just
 virtual address spaces that are limited to 4GB (or 2-3GB after the OS
 takes it's pound of flesh)
 As pointed out, only a few apps need anything near 2GB of RAM per
 process.




found a ref:  

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa366778.aspx
http://forums11.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/questionanswer.do?threadId=1168664

the CPU limit has to be >=128GB (look at Server 2003) or it might be 64GB 
(re linux)


 Even if only a few apps need anything near 2GB of RAM per process,
 their sum will exceed that limit rather quickly, which gives strong
 justification to 64-bit OSs. (Not sure if you meant to basically say
 the same.)


Most people will not have problems with 2GB/process limits, those that do 
can go 64bit. Most people won't have much use for more than about 8-16GB 
total of RAM and those are well within the CPU's limit (but outside the OS's 
[vista/XP]).

My point is that few people are pushing either the per process or system 
total memory limits of the x86-32bit CPUs and need something that only 64bit 
CPU's will give them. (OTOH you might need 64bit to run the OS you need to 
get at enough RAM)


 
 The real problem is that there are applications that need as much
 memory as they could possibly get, and for those dmd simply offers no
 option.


Agree. Compilers seem to need to be written for the corner cases. "No one 
will ever need to do that" is never a valid answer.


 
 Andrei
Dec 27 2008
parent reply Walter Bright <newshound1 digitalmars.com> writes:
BCS wrote:

 Agree. Compilers seem to need to be written for the corner cases. "No 
 one will ever need to do that" is never a valid answer.


The other thing to consider is that the type of programmer interested in 
D likely would also be one wanting to work with the latest and greatest 
machines, pushing their limits, and that means 64 bits.
Dec 27 2008
parent Derek Parnell <derek psych.ward> writes:
On Sat, 27 Dec 2008 19:45:48 -0800, Walter Bright wrote:


 BCS wrote:

 Agree. Compilers seem to need to be written for the corner cases. "No 
 one will ever need to do that" is never a valid answer.


 
 The other thing to consider is that the type of programmer interested in 
 D likely would also be one wanting to work with the latest and greatest 
 machines, pushing their limits, and that means 64 bits.


I'm already saving up for the 128-bits CPU's. ;-)

-- 
Derek Parnell
Melbourne, Australia
skype: derek.j.parnell
Dec 28 2008
prev sibling next sibling parent reply Yigal Chripun <yigal100 gmail.com> writes:
Nick Sabalausky wrote:

 "Derek Parnell"<derek psych.ward>  wrote in message
 news:nkr1wyvyj3vv$.qr1gd1h779fx.dlg 40tude.net...

 On Sat, 27 Dec 2008 15:45:57 -0500, Nick Sabalausky wrote:


 ... judging by number of people here asking for
 64-bit, I find it highly unlikely that most of them have plans to work on
 such things either.


 My interest in 64-bit hardware support is based on the belief that before
 too long, buying a new 32-bit platform might be a difficult thing to do.
 Five years from now, I don't want to be forced into finding a good
 second-hand machine just so I can work with D.


 I don't want to be forced into buying a new 64-bit machine just because a
 whole bunch of "gotta have the faciest stuff out there" people have deemed
 32-bit insufficient for all computing needs. Besides, can't 64-bit machines
 run 32-bit code?


two things:
a) current hardware is 64bit (if you go and buy a PC), so supporting 
64bit is just supporting the current technology. it's not about fancy 
servers or anything like that, just supporting the current standards. 
that's a minimun that should be expected from any compiler 
implementation nowadays.
b) even though for now there is a compatability mode in most OSes, why 
would I want to limit the performance and abilities of my PC to old 
technology which is being faded away?
64bit machines can run old *legacy* software which is 32bit, but that 
doesn't mean *new* software should be written as 32 bit.

no one forcing you to buy a new PC and DMD will continue to support 
32bit for a long time, I presume. but you cannot force people who did 
buy a new PC in the last few *years* to be limited to your old ancient 
hardware.

One last thing, you can always continue using an older version of the 
compiler even if Walter drops support for 32bit in later versions. In 
any case, you don't have any valid reason to object to 64bit support.
Dec 27 2008
parent reply "Nick Sabalausky" <a a.a> writes:
"Yigal Chripun" <yigal100 gmail.com> wrote in message 
news:gj6e3m$1ilv$1 digitalmars.com...

 Nick Sabalausky wrote:

 "Derek Parnell"<derek psych.ward>  wrote in message
 news:nkr1wyvyj3vv$.qr1gd1h779fx.dlg 40tude.net...

 On Sat, 27 Dec 2008 15:45:57 -0500, Nick Sabalausky wrote:


 ... judging by number of people here asking for
 64-bit, I find it highly unlikely that most of them have plans to work 
 on
 such things either.


 My interest in 64-bit hardware support is based on the belief that 
 before
 too long, buying a new 32-bit platform might be a difficult thing to do.
 Five years from now, I don't want to be forced into finding a good
 second-hand machine just so I can work with D.


 I don't want to be forced into buying a new 64-bit machine just because a
 whole bunch of "gotta have the faciest stuff out there" people have 
 deemed
 32-bit insufficient for all computing needs. Besides, can't 64-bit 
 machines
 run 32-bit code?


 two things:
 a) current hardware is 64bit (if you go and buy a PC),


Ah ha, there's that usual "if you go and buy a PC" catch. Which begs the 
question, why would I? My existing system does everything I need it to do 
perfectly fine. And since I'm not petty enough to allow anyone to shame me 
into buying a new system just by calling my *current* system "legacy", that 
leaves no real reason for me to buy a new one.

Saying that "most of the ones being sold are 64-bit" is completely different 
from saying "most of the ones *in use* (ie *current*) are 64-bit". People 
constantly misuse "this is what you would get if you went out and bought a 
new system today" as a meaningful assessment of the current state of 
computing. "What the stores are carrying" could only be an accurate 
indicator of "current systems" if everyone was going out and buying new 
systems every single time anyone used that overplayed "if you go and buy a 
PC" argument.


 so supporting 64bit is just supporting the current technology. it's not 
 about fancy servers or anything like that, just supporting the current 
 standards. that's a minimun that should be expected from any compiler 
 implementation nowadays.
 b) even though for now there is a compatability mode in most OSes, why 
 would I want to limit the performance and abilities of my PC to old 
 technology which is being faded away?


Even in 32-bit "legacy" mode, 64-bit systems are absurdly fast anyway. I 
mean, what's the slowest 64-bit x86 out there? A chip that's still pretty 
damn fast, that's what. It's pretty difficult to be sympathetic about an 
overkill system being rendered "still overkill, but only *slightly* 
less-so". If you're going to try to wring every bit of performance out of a 
system, it's ridiculous to be focusing that effort on the higher-end. That's 
just pure wasted effort.

And as for people who whine "But I paid big bucks for this high-end system! 
I deserve to get full-performance out of it!": If they feel that not enough 
of that system's full potential is getting utilized, then it was pretty 
stupid for them buy it in the first place. If they were buying it as a 
future-proofing measure, then they need to learn patience.


 64bit machines can run old *legacy* software which is 32bit, but that 
 doesn't mean *new* software should be written as 32 bit.


No, you're right, it doesn't. But what *does* mean that new software should 
be written as 32-bit is that there are still a hell of a lot of 32-bit 
systems in regular use. If you want to toss a 64-bit version out there too, 
fine. But don't go leaving people out in the cold just because they haven't 
hopped onto your bandwagon.


 no one forcing you to buy a new PC and DMD will continue to support 32bit 
 for a long time, I presume. but you cannot force people who did buy a new 
 PC in the last few *years* to be limited to your old ancient hardware.


A *few* years is not nearly a long as most people in the tech sector would 
like to believe (And one hell of a far cry from "ancient"). Something that's 
only a few years old is still very useful, as well it *should* be. If you 
feel like you have to replace a machine every couple of years, you're 
wasting your money. (I'm using the general "you" here, not *you* 
specifically.) It's just an example of this society's rampant 
over-consumerism (ie, the so-called "consumer whore") and ever-decreasing 
pragmatism.


 One last thing, you can always continue using an older version of the 
 compiler even if Walter drops support for 32bit in later versions. In any 
 case, you don't have any valid reason to object to 64bit support.


I never said D shouldn't support 64-bit. Obviously it should. I'm saying it 
shouldn't be such a high priority.
Dec 27 2008
next sibling parent reply John Reimer <terminal.node gmail.com> writes:
Hello Nick,


 no one forcing you to buy a new PC and DMD will continue to support
 32bit for a long time, I presume. but you cannot force people who did
 buy a new PC in the last few *years* to be limited to your old
 ancient hardware.
 


 A *few* years is not nearly a long as most people in the tech sector
 would like to believe (And one hell of a far cry from "ancient").
 Something that's only a few years old is still very useful, as well it
 *should* be. If you feel like you have to replace a machine every
 couple of years, you're wasting your money. (I'm using the general
 "you" here, not *you* specifically.) It's just an example of this
 society's rampant over-consumerism (ie, the so-called "consumer
 whore") and ever-decreasing pragmatism.
 



Although your manner tends toward aggressive here, you have some very good 
points. :)

Our society is indeed caught up in over-consumerisim.   A 64-bit port will 
appear eventually because of demand.  For a few people the need will be a 
valid one; but for most, the port will only satisfy the ever-growing
/perception/ 
of the need, rather than the need itself.  For consumers, this has been how 
the computer industry has operated for awhile.

Incidentally, I'm still using my Compaq Presario X1000 laptop (Pentium M 
1.4 GHz) which is probably close to 6 years old now.  I've updated certain 
aspects of it and fixed it a couple of times.  Amazingly it keeps running... 
and performs quite well for my needs.  But... I do recall the days when I 
used to throw money at computer upgrade after computer upgrade... probably 
every year.  For me, that was a huge waste of money, and I look back in horror 
at my spending practice.  For businesses, I imagine annual upgrades might 
be a necessity, however.

-JJR
Dec 27 2008
parent reply Walter Bright <newshound1 digitalmars.com> writes:
John Reimer wrote:

 Incidentally, I'm still using my Compaq Presario X1000 laptop (Pentium M 
 1.4 GHz) which is probably close to 6 years old now.  I've updated 
 certain aspects of it and fixed it a couple of times.  Amazingly it 
 keeps running... and performs quite well for my needs.


As my main machine, I use a P4 at 1.6 GHz, 512 Mb ram. I'm not sure how 
old it is, but when the power supply failed and I went to the nerd store 
to replace it, the guy said "I haven't seen one of these power supply 
configurations in years!" He sent me to the local pc recycler, where I 
got one out of a bin for $10.

Compilers don't need a lot of horsepower, and I'm not a gamer, so this 
machine has been just fine.
Dec 27 2008
next sibling parent BCS <ao pathlink.com> writes:
Reply to Walter,


 Compilers don't need a lot of horsepower
 


LOL, but then I'm me.
Dec 27 2008
prev sibling parent reply "Nick Sabalausky" <a a.a> writes:
"Walter Bright" <newshound1 digitalmars.com> wrote in message 
news:gj6mld$294o$1 digitalmars.com...

 John Reimer wrote:

 Incidentally, I'm still using my Compaq Presario X1000 laptop (Pentium M 
 1.4 GHz) which is probably close to 6 years old now.  I've updated 
 certain aspects of it and fixed it a couple of times.  Amazingly it keeps 
 running... and performs quite well for my needs.


 As my main machine, I use a P4 at 1.6 GHz, 512 Mb ram. I'm not sure how 
 old it is, but when the power supply failed and I went to the nerd store 
 to replace it, the guy said "I haven't seen one of these power supply 
 configurations in years!" He sent me to the local pc recycler, where I got 
 one out of a bin for $10.


Now that I don't feel like I'd be laughed out of the discussion in a flurry 
of posts involving words like "archaic": Mine's a:

- 1.7 GHz Celeron (was a 1.2GHz AMD K6-2 for a long time, but I bought this 
CPU/MB off someone for about $25, seems to be about the same performance 
though (makes sense, Celerons are notoriously low on cache, or at least were 
last I checked)).

- 1 GB RAM (Only reason I upgraded from 512MB was I had a job that needed 
MS's bloated .NET era SQL Sever client),

- Graphics card that's pixel shader v1 (was a pre-pixel-shader GeForceMX 2 
for a long time, only upgraded because I found this one for about $40 and 
wanted to play around with pixel shaders).

- The motherboard's USB is v1.x

- 21" CRT I got from a CompUSA store-closing for $25. (Funny thing is, this 
was made years ago and goes higher than HD resolution and has no native 
resolution, good contrast, no ghosting, no realistic risk of burn-in, and 
zero frames of "image processing" delay. Silly people and their 
hundreds/thousands-of-dollars LCD/Plasma/DLP HDTVs ;) ) I can't hang it on 
the wall, but what do I care? My desk's big enough.

So, yea, about on par with you two. (Although I do have damn near a TB of HD 
space and still crave more...yea, I'm a packrat.) The only thing about it 
that I feel is insufficient is the number of PCI ports (it's one of those 
reduced-size motherboards...in a non-reduced-size case), but I'm still 
getting by.

I do some occasional video processing/editing, 3D stuff (mainly to learn 
it), and gaming (but nothing like Gears of War or Halo or anything like 
that, besides I prefer to game on a living-room console). If I were to get 
really serious about any of those things, I would probably want a new 
system, but I don't do enough of them to really justify it.

I would kind of like the convenience of a laptop (mine's dead), but the only 
reason I'd be interested in the fancier CPUs on that is for the reduced 
heat/power consumption.

Speaking of laptops, if anyone hears about a company that makes quality 
laptops with an actual built-in trackball, let me know. I can't stand those 
awful touchpads or IBM's "nubs", and dragging around a real trackball in 
addition to power cord, etc, starts taking away from the whole "portability" 
thing.

One other funny anecdote about "newer/trendier is not always better": I've 
been recruited by a friend of my mom to replace/supplement her small 
business's wireless network with a wired one.

And now I'll stop rambling ;)
Dec 27 2008
next sibling parent reply John Reimer <terminal.node gmail.com> writes:
Hello Nick,


 "Walter Bright" <newshound1 digitalmars.com> wrote in message
 news:gj6mld$294o$1 digitalmars.com...
 

 John Reimer wrote:
 

 Incidentally, I'm still using my Compaq Presario X1000 laptop
 (Pentium M 1.4 GHz) which is probably close to 6 years old now.
 I've updated certain aspects of it and fixed it a couple of times.
 Amazingly it keeps running... and performs quite well for my needs.
 


 As my main machine, I use a P4 at 1.6 GHz, 512 Mb ram. I'm not sure
 how old it is, but when the power supply failed and I went to the
 nerd store to replace it, the guy said "I haven't seen one of these
 power supply configurations in years!" He sent me to the local pc
 recycler, where I got one out of a bin for $10.
 


 Now that I don't feel like I'd be laughed out of the discussion in a
 flurry of posts involving words like "archaic": Mine's a:
 



Ha! :)

I should confess something here.  Two or three years ago, I actually purchased 
components and built two AMD Athlon 64 systems for myself (sequentially... 
not both at once).  The last one was a dual core.  But I gave them away to 
family and settled on just using my old laptop.  

Both systems had fairly powerful graphics cards in them too.  They were good 
systems and were great for playing the latest flight simulators... but I 
decided I wanted to spend less time on games. :).   Right now the dual core 
system is put to very good use by my younger brother and sisters for video 
editing... one can never get too much power or memory for that task.  Also, 
nowadays, video-editing among non-professionals is quite common... so I think 
there may just be a whole lot more justification for buying into some of 
these powerful systems than you might realize.



 - 1.7 GHz Celeron (was a 1.2GHz AMD K6-2 for a long time, but I bought
 this CPU/MB off someone for about $25, seems to be about the same
 performance though (makes sense, Celerons are notoriously low on
 cache, or at least were last I checked)).
 



I've never heard of a 1.2 GHz K6-2.  Was that overclocked or something?  
I think most of those maxed out at 500 MHz.  I've used k6-3's and k6-2+'s 
before.  Excellent CPU's for the time.




 - 1 GB RAM (Only reason I upgraded from 512MB was I had a job that
 needed MS's bloated .NET era SQL Sever client),
 




I also have 1 GB.  This is actually a little limited for a system that needs 
to use a VM like VirutalBox, VMWare or Parallels.  I've made use of these 
tools for porting both win32 and linux software at the same time.  I now 
use coLinux, and while that works much better, I still could use more memory. 
 Also since I use VM's, I'm actually missing the hardware support for them 
that is now available in modern CPU's.




 - Graphics card that's pixel shader v1 (was a pre-pixel-shader
 GeForceMX 2 for a long time, only upgraded because I found this one
 for about $40 and wanted to play around with pixel shaders).
 



I'm looking forward to the time I can purchase another laptop.  I wouldn't 
mind getting a graphics chipset that supports some of these features so that 
I can experiment.  But admittedly, Graphics technology is among the fastest 
moving targets yet.  For now, I can do just fine with my laptop and its ATI 
Radeon 9000 64 MB chipset.




 - The motherboard's USB is v1.x



I can't stand USB v1.x  ... it's way to slow for hard drive operation.  The 
bandwidth just isn't sufficient anymore.

 

 - 21" CRT I got from a CompUSA store-closing for $25. (Funny thing is,
 this was made years ago and goes higher than HD resolution and has no
 native resolution, good contrast, no ghosting, no realistic risk of
 burn-in, and zero frames of "image processing" delay. Silly people and
 their hundreds/thousands-of-dollars LCD/Plasma/DLP HDTVs ;) ) I can't
 hang it on the wall, but what do I care? My desk's big enough.
 




LCD's are among the greatest advancement of today's technologies.   CRT's 
are horrible throwback to the day of triodes, pentodes, and lightbulbs... 
and other high-voltage Edison-derivatives.  I've considered them so for
probably 
over 10 years.  I was itching for the day that I could stop staring at an 
electron beam sprayed directly into my eyes.  I've never lamented the CRT's 
fall from grace.




 So, yea, about on par with you two. (Although I do have damn near a TB
 of HD space and still crave more...yea, I'm a packrat.) The only thing
 about it that I feel is insufficient is the number of PCI ports (it's
 one of those reduced-size motherboards...in a non-reduced-size case),
 but I'm still getting by.
 
 I do some occasional video processing/editing, 3D stuff (mainly to
 learn it), and gaming (but nothing like Gears of War or Halo or
 anything like that, besides I prefer to game on a living-room
 console). If I were to get really serious about any of those things, I
 would probably want a new system, but I don't do enough of them to
 really justify it.
 
 I would kind of like the convenience of a laptop (mine's dead), but
 the only reason I'd be interested in the fancier CPUs on that is for
 the reduced heat/power consumption.
 
 Speaking of laptops, if anyone hears about a company that makes
 quality laptops with an actual built-in trackball, let me know. I
 can't stand those awful touchpads or IBM's "nubs", and dragging around
 a real trackball in addition to power cord, etc, starts taking away
 from the whole "portability" thing.
 



I haven't seen or heard of trackballs in a laptop for a long time. :)

I know what your saying about the touchpads... I'm actually surprised they 
stuck.  I don't consider them to be the best invention to be adopted for 
laptops.  They do the job, but I think we should have stuck with "nubs". 
 "nubs" were hard to get familiar with,  but once you did... they were
extremely 
practical and space efficient... or so I felt anwyay.



 One other funny anecdote about "newer/trendier is not always better":
 I've been recruited by a friend of my mom to replace/supplement her
 small business's wireless network with a wired one.
 
 And now I'll stop rambling ;)
 



Wired is not necessarily backwards. :)  Despite the tangly lines, it's just 
easier to keep secure.

-JJR
Dec 27 2008
next sibling parent reply Walter Bright <newshound1 digitalmars.com> writes:
John Reimer wrote:

 Wired is not necessarily backwards. :)  Despite the tangly lines, it's 
 just easier to keep secure.


There are more reasons to like wireds. Plug the wire in, and it works, 
you're up on the LAN. With wireless, there's usually 3-5 minutes of 
fiddling to get connected. And if it won't connect, you have no idea 
why, so you go cold boot the machine, cold boot the wireless access 
point, hold the antenna up, etc. Phui.

Don't tell me this is fixed, either. I just got a brand new eee pc. Plug 
in the wire, boom, perfection. Use the built in wireless, and fiddle, 
faddle, cold boot, faddle, fiddle, cold boot, fiddle, faddle, ah, now 
it's working. This is in the *AS SHIPPED* configuration, not something I 
downloaded or installed.
Dec 27 2008
next sibling parent John Reimer <terminal.node gmail.com> writes:
Hello Walter,


 John Reimer wrote:
 

 Wired is not necessarily backwards. :)  Despite the tangly lines,
 it's just easier to keep secure.
 


 There are more reasons to like wireds. Plug the wire in, and it works,
 you're up on the LAN. With wireless, there's usually 3-5 minutes of
 fiddling to get connected. And if it won't connect, you have no idea
 why, so you go cold boot the machine, cold boot the wireless access
 point, hold the antenna up, etc. Phui.
 
 Don't tell me this is fixed, either. I just got a brand new eee pc.
 Plug in the wire, boom, perfection. Use the built in wireless, and
 fiddle, faddle, cold boot, faddle, fiddle, cold boot, fiddle, faddle,
 ah, now it's working. This is in the *AS SHIPPED* configuration, not
 something I downloaded or installed.
 



Yeah... there are more complexities with wireless, for sure.  That said, 
I haven't had that much trouble with wireless (not even on my eee pc).  It 
sometimes does require a fairly detailed knowledge of configuration, however, 
compared to wired.  When that's been the case, I have struggled with it.

-JJR
Dec 27 2008
prev sibling next sibling parent Sean Kelly <sean invisibleduck.org> writes:
Walter Bright wrote:

 John Reimer wrote:

 Wired is not necessarily backwards. :)  Despite the tangly lines, it's 
 just easier to keep secure.


 
 There are more reasons to like wireds. Plug the wire in, and it works, 
 you're up on the LAN. With wireless, there's usually 3-5 minutes of 
 fiddling to get connected. And if it won't connect, you have no idea 
 why, so you go cold boot the machine, cold boot the wireless access 
 point, hold the antenna up, etc. Phui.


Interference can be a huge problem as well.  Basically all in-home 
devices use the same spectrum, and it's not uncommon for cordless phones 
to knock a WiFi laptop offline, etc.  And then there's house 
construction.  My parents used to live in an older house with plaster 
walls, and plaster walls are laid on steel mesh to hold the plaster in 
place.  They may as well have been living in a giant Faraday cage as far 
as WiFi was concerned.  Wireless is a great option, but if I *can* run a 
wire easily from the router to wherever then it's definitely preferred.


Sean
Dec 28 2008
prev sibling parent reply Andrei Alexandrescu <SeeWebsiteForEmail erdani.org> writes:
Walter Bright wrote:

 John Reimer wrote:

 Wired is not necessarily backwards. :)  Despite the tangly lines, it's 
 just easier to keep secure.


 
 There are more reasons to like wireds. Plug the wire in, and it works, 
 you're up on the LAN. With wireless, there's usually 3-5 minutes of 
 fiddling to get connected. And if it won't connect, you have no idea 
 why, so you go cold boot the machine, cold boot the wireless access 
 point, hold the antenna up, etc. Phui.
 
 Don't tell me this is fixed, either. I just got a brand new eee pc. Plug 
 in the wire, boom, perfection. Use the built in wireless, and fiddle, 
 faddle, cold boot, faddle, fiddle, cold boot, fiddle, faddle, ah, now 
 it's working. This is in the *AS SHIPPED* configuration, not something I 
 downloaded or installed.



can get very, very unnerving. Particularly because of the 
chicken-and-egg thing: you install Linux and you want to get the wifi 
working, but you can't download the appropriate driver because you can't 
connect. Then the default network-manager is really crappy. My Linux 
experience improved considerably when I found a drop-in replacement 
called wicd (http://wicd.sf.net).

Andrei
Dec 28 2008
parent reply Walter Bright <newshound1 digitalmars.com> writes:
Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:


 can get very, very unnerving. Particularly because of the 
 chicken-and-egg thing: you install Linux and you want to get the wifi 
 working, but you can't download the appropriate driver because you can't 
 connect. Then the default network-manager is really crappy. My Linux 
 experience improved considerably when I found a drop-in replacement 
 called wicd (http://wicd.sf.net).



My router burned out this morning (nice smell of ozone), and when I went 
to the nerd store to get another, my eee pc was there on sale for $249, 
$100 less than I paid for it. The sign on it says "last one".
Dec 30 2008
parent reply Andrei Alexandrescu <SeeWebsiteForEmail erdani.org> writes:
Walter Bright wrote:

 Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:


 can get very, very unnerving. Particularly because of the 
 chicken-and-egg thing: you install Linux and you want to get the wifi 
 working, but you can't download the appropriate driver because you 
 can't connect. Then the default network-manager is really crappy. My 
 Linux experience improved considerably when I found a drop-in 
 replacement called wicd (http://wicd.sf.net).


 
 
 My router burned out this morning (nice smell of ozone), and when I went 
 to the nerd store to get another, my eee pc was there on sale for $249, 
 $100 less than I paid for it. The sign on it says "last one".


IMHO people noticed 10'' is the perfect keyboard access/portability 
combination, so 9'' fell sharply out of favor.

Andrei
Dec 30 2008
parent reply John Reimer <terminal.node gmail.com> writes:
Hello Andrei,


 Walter Bright wrote:
 

 Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
 


 It can get very, very unnerving. Particularly because of the
 chicken-and-egg thing: you install Linux and you want to get the
 wifi working, but you can't download the appropriate driver because
 you can't connect. Then the default network-manager is really
 crappy. My Linux experience improved considerably when I found a
 drop-in replacement called wicd (http://wicd.sf.net).
 


 My router burned out this morning (nice smell of ozone), and when I
 went to the nerd store to get another, my eee pc was there on sale
 for $249, $100 less than I paid for it. The sign on it says "last
 one".
 


 IMHO people noticed 10'' is the perfect keyboard access/portability
 combination, so 9'' fell sharply out of favor.
 
 Andrei
 



I'd say it was the small screen more than the keyboard (which they made larger 
in the next asus eee release).  But, I think the reason really is that ASUS 
lost out to all the other better options that flooded the market after their 
initial release.  It's true that most of these probably had a larger keyboard 
as well, though.  But they also had a larger screen, more memory, and much 
more hard drive space. :)

-JJR
Dec 30 2008
parent reply Walter Bright <newshound1 digitalmars.com> writes:
John Reimer wrote:

 I'd say it was the small screen more than the keyboard (which they made 
 larger in the next asus eee release).  But, I think the reason really is 
 that ASUS lost out to all the other better options that flooded the 
 market after their initial release.  It's true that most of these 
 probably had a larger keyboard as well, though.  But they also had a 
 larger screen, more memory, and much more hard drive space. :)


They'll get bigger and bigger, till someone revolutionizes the market 
again with a small one!
Dec 30 2008
parent John Reimer <terminal.node gmail.com> writes:
Hello Walter,


 John Reimer wrote:
 

 I'd say it was the small screen more than the keyboard (which they
 made larger in the next asus eee release).  But, I think the reason
 really is that ASUS lost out to all the other better options that
 flooded the market after their initial release.  It's true that most
 of these probably had a larger keyboard as well, though.  But they
 also had a larger screen, more memory, and much more hard drive
 space. :)
 


 They'll get bigger and bigger, till someone revolutionizes the market
 again with a small one!
 



lol!  :D
Dec 30 2008
prev sibling next sibling parent "Nick Sabalausky" <a a.a> writes:
"John Reimer" <terminal.node gmail.com> wrote in message 
news:28b70f8c105848cb368cfc3632e0 news.digitalmars.com...

 Hello Nick,


 "Walter Bright" <newshound1 digitalmars.com> wrote in message
 news:gj6mld$294o$1 digitalmars.com...


 John Reimer wrote:


 Incidentally, I'm still using my Compaq Presario X1000 laptop
 (Pentium M 1.4 GHz) which is probably close to 6 years old now.
 I've updated certain aspects of it and fixed it a couple of times.
 Amazingly it keeps running... and performs quite well for my needs.


 As my main machine, I use a P4 at 1.6 GHz, 512 Mb ram. I'm not sure
 how old it is, but when the power supply failed and I went to the
 nerd store to replace it, the guy said "I haven't seen one of these
 power supply configurations in years!" He sent me to the local pc
 recycler, where I got one out of a bin for $10.


 Now that I don't feel like I'd be laughed out of the discussion in a
 flurry of posts involving words like "archaic": Mine's a:



 Ha! :)

 I should confess something here.  Two or three years ago, I actually 
 purchased components and built two AMD Athlon 64 systems for myself 
 (sequentially... not both at once).  The last one was a dual core.  But I 
 gave them away to family and settled on just using my old laptop.
 Both systems had fairly powerful graphics cards in them too.  They were 
 good systems and were great for playing the latest flight simulators... 
 but I decided I wanted to spend less time on games. :).   Right now the 
 dual core system is put to very good use by my younger brother and sisters 
 for video editing... one can never get too much power or memory for that 
 task.  Also, nowadays, video-editing among non-professionals is quite 
 common... so I think there may just be a whole lot more justification for 
 buying into some of these powerful systems than you might realize.


Oh yea, absolutely. Like I said, if I were one of the people out there that 
did a lot of video editing, I would want an upgrade, but I just don't really 
do that much of it. But video editing is one of the reasons I switched from 
my old AMD cpu to the 1.7 GHz Celeron: Premiere Pro requires...I think it's 
SSE2 it needs...but whatever it was, my older AMD CPU just didn't have it. 
(I do have a few beefs with Premiere, but I've just never liked any of the 
consumer-level editing apps...In fact I rarely like consumer-level apps at 
all. They're like the Fisher Price of software, except adults use them.)


 - 1.7 GHz Celeron (was a 1.2GHz AMD K6-2 for a long time, but I bought
 this CPU/MB off someone for about $25, seems to be about the same
 performance though (makes sense, Celerons are notoriously low on
 cache, or at least were last I checked)).



 I've never heard of a 1.2 GHz K6-2.  Was that overclocked or something?  I 
 think most of those maxed out at 500 MHz.  I've used k6-3's and k6-2+'s 
 before.  Excellent CPU's for the time.


You're right, it wasn't a K6-2, I'm not sure why I was thinking that (I 
don't think I've ever even owned a K6-2). It was an Athlon Thunderbird.


 - The motherboard's USB is v1.x



 I can't stand USB v1.x  ... it's way to slow for hard drive operation. 
 The bandwidth just isn't sufficient anymore.


The only external HD I've been using is my portable media player, and I 
haven't had too much of a problem just setting up a batch copy and doing 
something else in the meantime. I do have a $20 USB 2.0 add-in card though. 
I don't remember if I actually have it plugged in at the moment though, this 
motherboard's pretty limited on expansion ports.


 One other funny anecdote about "newer/trendier is not always better":
 I've been recruited by a friend of my mom to replace/supplement her
 small business's wireless network with a wired one.

 And now I'll stop rambling ;)



 Wired is not necessarily backwards. :)


Exactly my point ;)  Average Joe Consumer sees all of this "Wireless! 
Wireless! Wireless!" hoopla and thinks it's "just simply better". Meanwhile, 
people like us are well aware that wireless is worse than wired in pretty 
much every area besides the convenience of not having a cord.
Dec 27 2008
prev sibling parent reply Chad J <gamerchad __spam.is.bad__gmail.com> writes:
John Reimer wrote:

 Hello Nick,
 


...

 

 One other funny anecdote about "newer/trendier is not always better":
 I've been recruited by a friend of my mom to replace/supplement her
 small business's wireless network with a wired one.

 And now I'll stop rambling ;)


 
 
 Wired is not necessarily backwards. :)  Despite the tangly lines, it's
 just easier to keep secure.
 
 -JJR
 
 


Yeah.  It's a tradeoff.  I use both wired and wireless.  They complement
each other nicely.  In an ideal setup both are available.

Whenever I run into someone who says something to the effect that
wireless is superior and makes wired connections unnecessary, I get a
little angry.  I hold it back of course, and realize that I should just
pity them their ignorance.  If I have time and it's appropriate, I'll
calmly explain why they are wrong ;)
Dec 28 2008
parent reply Andrei Alexandrescu <SeeWebsiteForEmail erdani.org> writes:
Chad J wrote:

 John Reimer wrote:

 Hello Nick,


 ...

 One other funny anecdote about "newer/trendier is not always better":
 I've been recruited by a friend of my mom to replace/supplement her
 small business's wireless network with a wired one.

 And now I'll stop rambling ;)


 Wired is not necessarily backwards. :)  Despite the tangly lines, it's
 just easier to keep secure.

 -JJR


 
 Yeah.  It's a tradeoff.  I use both wired and wireless.  They complement
 each other nicely.  In an ideal setup both are available.
 
 Whenever I run into someone who says something to the effect that
 wireless is superior and makes wired connections unnecessary, I get a
 little angry.  I hold it back of course, and realize that I should just
 pity them their ignorance.  If I have time and it's appropriate, I'll
 calmly explain why they are wrong ;)


Why are they wrong? (I'm no expert.)

Andrei
Dec 28 2008
parent reply "Nick Sabalausky" <a a.a> writes:
"Andrei Alexandrescu" <SeeWebsiteForEmail erdani.org> wrote in message 
news:gj9d1m$1boc$3 digitalmars.com...

 Chad J wrote:

 John Reimer wrote:

 Hello Nick,


 ...

 One other funny anecdote about "newer/trendier is not always better":
 I've been recruited by a friend of my mom to replace/supplement her
 small business's wireless network with a wired one.

 And now I'll stop rambling ;)


 Wired is not necessarily backwards. :)  Despite the tangly lines, it's
 just easier to keep secure.

 -JJR


 Yeah.  It's a tradeoff.  I use both wired and wireless.  They complement
 each other nicely.  In an ideal setup both are available.

 Whenever I run into someone who says something to the effect that
 wireless is superior and makes wired connections unnecessary, I get a
 little angry.  I hold it back of course, and realize that I should just
 pity them their ignorance.  If I have time and it's appropriate, I'll
 calmly explain why they are wrong ;)


 Why are they wrong? (I'm no expert.)


Wired connections are faster, more reliable, easier to configure and secure, 
often-times cheaper (even if you count the cost of cords, in many cases) and 
with the exception of certain modern laptops, easier to manually force a 
complete disconnect. The only drawback with wired is that you have to 
buy/run/connect a wire (which can be a legitimate concern in certain cases).
Dec 28 2008
parent reply Don <nospam nospam.com> writes:
Nick Sabalausky wrote:

 "Andrei Alexandrescu" <SeeWebsiteForEmail erdani.org> wrote in message 
 news:gj9d1m$1boc$3 digitalmars.com...

 Chad J wrote:

 John Reimer wrote:

 Hello Nick,


 ...

 One other funny anecdote about "newer/trendier is not always better":
 I've been recruited by a friend of my mom to replace/supplement her
 small business's wireless network with a wired one.

 And now I'll stop rambling ;)


 Wired is not necessarily backwards. :)  Despite the tangly lines, it's
 just easier to keep secure.

 -JJR


 Yeah.  It's a tradeoff.  I use both wired and wireless.  They complement
 each other nicely.  In an ideal setup both are available.

 Whenever I run into someone who says something to the effect that
 wireless is superior and makes wired connections unnecessary, I get a
 little angry.  I hold it back of course, and realize that I should just
 pity them their ignorance.  If I have time and it's appropriate, I'll
 calmly explain why they are wrong ;)


 Why are they wrong? (I'm no expert.)


 
 Wired connections are faster, more reliable, easier to configure and secure, 
 often-times cheaper (even if you count the cost of cords, in many cases) and 
 with the exception of certain modern laptops, easier to manually force a 
 complete disconnect. The only drawback with wired is that you have to 
 buy/run/connect a wire (which can be a legitimate concern in certain cases).


eg when your house contains crawling babies <g>
Dec 29 2008
parent Andrei Alexandrescu <SeeWebsiteForEmail erdani.org> writes:
Don wrote:

 Nick Sabalausky wrote:

 "Andrei Alexandrescu" <SeeWebsiteForEmail erdani.org> wrote in message 
 news:gj9d1m$1boc$3 digitalmars.com...

 Chad J wrote:

 John Reimer wrote:

 Hello Nick,


 ...

 One other funny anecdote about "newer/trendier is not always better":
 I've been recruited by a friend of my mom to replace/supplement her
 small business's wireless network with a wired one.

 And now I'll stop rambling ;)


 Wired is not necessarily backwards. :)  Despite the tangly lines, it's
 just easier to keep secure.

 -JJR


 Yeah.  It's a tradeoff.  I use both wired and wireless.  They 
 complement
 each other nicely.  In an ideal setup both are available.

 Whenever I run into someone who says something to the effect that
 wireless is superior and makes wired connections unnecessary, I get a
 little angry.  I hold it back of course, and realize that I should just
 pity them their ignorance.  If I have time and it's appropriate, I'll
 calmly explain why they are wrong ;)


 Why are they wrong? (I'm no expert.)


 Wired connections are faster, more reliable, easier to configure and 
 secure, often-times cheaper (even if you count the cost of cords, in 
 many cases) and with the exception of certain modern laptops, easier 
 to manually force a complete disconnect. The only drawback with wired 
 is that you have to buy/run/connect a wire (which can be a legitimate 
 concern in certain cases).


 eg when your house contains crawling babies <g>
 


That pretty much settled the issue for me :o).

I'd add that wired is not the speed bottleneck when connecting from home 
to the Internet. The DSL/cable connections go well below wireless' 54 
Mbps. That being said, whenever I want to transfer some large amounts of 
data across my home computers, I invariably give up wireless in 
frustration and end up rummaging through my drawer for a cable.


Andrei
Dec 29 2008
prev sibling parent reply Walter Bright <newshound1 digitalmars.com> writes:
Nick Sabalausky wrote:

 - Graphics card that's pixel shader v1 (was a pre-pixel-shader GeForceMX 2 
 for a long time, only upgraded because I found this one for about $40 and 
 wanted to play around with pixel shaders).


I don't have a graphics card because of heat/fan/noise.


 - The motherboard's USB is v1.x


So's mine, and that really sucks. I'm going to get a card with 2.0 on 
it. USB is a home run, kudos to the designers of it.


 - 21" CRT I got from a CompUSA store-closing for $25. (Funny thing is, this 
 was made years ago and goes higher than HD resolution and has no native 
 resolution, good contrast, no ghosting, no realistic risk of burn-in, and 
 zero frames of "image processing" delay. Silly people and their 
 hundreds/thousands-of-dollars LCD/Plasma/DLP HDTVs ;) ) I can't hang it on 
 the wall, but what do I care? My desk's big enough.


I'm not with you there. I hated that gigantic leaden monster on my desk, 
and was happy to upgrade it to a sleek lcd.


 
 So, yea, about on par with you two. (Although I do have damn near a TB of HD 
 space and still crave more...yea, I'm a packrat.) The only thing about it 
 that I feel is insufficient is the number of PCI ports (it's one of those 
 reduced-size motherboards...in a non-reduced-size case), but I'm still 
 getting by.
 
 I do some occasional video processing/editing, 3D stuff (mainly to learn 
 it), and gaming (but nothing like Gears of War or Halo or anything like 
 that, besides I prefer to game on a living-room console). If I were to get 
 really serious about any of those things, I would probably want a new 
 system, but I don't do enough of them to really justify it.


I tried video editing, it's a no-go on my system. Not even close.


 I would kind of like the convenience of a laptop (mine's dead), but the only 
 reason I'd be interested in the fancier CPUs on that is for the reduced 
 heat/power consumption.
 
 Speaking of laptops, if anyone hears about a company that makes quality 
 laptops with an actual built-in trackball, let me know. I can't stand those 
 awful touchpads or IBM's "nubs", and dragging around a real trackball in 
 addition to power cord, etc, starts taking away from the whole "portability" 
 thing.


I bought an eee pc, as in a laptop I'm interested in portability, not 
desktop replacement.


 One other funny anecdote about "newer/trendier is not always better": I've 
 been recruited by a friend of my mom to replace/supplement her small 
 business's wireless network with a wired one.


When my house was built, I wired up every room with 2 cat5's and 2 RG6 
coaxes (had to do it myself, as the electrician had no idea how to 
install it). I had no use for it at the time (10 years ago) but these 
days it's fantastic to have. I keep finding more and more uses for it, 
and just ordered another hub for all the new stuff. I plan on rewiring 
my distribution panel to make it look more professional rather than a 
plate of spaghetti <g>.
Dec 27 2008
next sibling parent reply John Reimer <terminal.node gmail.com> writes:
Hello Walter,


 Nick Sabalausky wrote:
 

 - Graphics card that's pixel shader v1 (was a pre-pixel-shader
 GeForceMX 2 for a long time, only upgraded because I found this one
 for about $40 and wanted to play around with pixel shaders).
 


 I don't have a graphics card because of heat/fan/noise.
 




I assume you must have an integrated chipset.




 - The motherboard's USB is v1.x
 


 So's mine, and that really sucks. I'm going to get a card with 2.0 on
 it. USB is a home run, kudos to the designers of it.
 



yep. :)

 


 I tried video editing, it's a no-go on my system. Not even close.
 




Yep, you need lots of ram and lots of power for video editing.  64-bit is 
already supported by some of the leading video editing packages (maybe most, 
not sure).




 I bought an eee pc, as in a laptop I'm interested in portability, not
 desktop replacement.
 



Heh, I did the same.  Unfortunately, I jumped on the bandwagon too early 
and got the one with the smaller screen and the 3 cell battery.   I can use 
it... but I am really disappointed that I don't have the larger screen version 
and longer battery life.

Also the competition for eee pc provided several better alternatives.  MSI 
had one really good product which my brother bought.   Alas, I can't justify 
another purchase, so I try to make do with my eee pc when I go on trips.

-JJR
Dec 27 2008
parent Walter Bright <newshound1 digitalmars.com> writes:
John Reimer wrote:

 Also the competition for eee pc provided several better alternatives.  
 MSI had one really good product which my brother bought.   Alas, I can't 
 justify another purchase, so I try to make do with my eee pc when I go 
 on trips.


I have the dinky screen, but it's fine. I also love it's ability to 
operate as a video skype-phone. Skype on the eee is a killer app, in my 
opinion.
Dec 27 2008
prev sibling parent reply Sean Kelly <sean invisibleduck.org> writes:
Walter Bright wrote:

 Nick Sabalausky wrote:

 - Graphics card that's pixel shader v1 (was a pre-pixel-shader 
 GeForceMX 2 for a long time, only upgraded because I found this one 
 for about $40 and wanted to play around with pixel shaders).


 
 I don't have a graphics card because of heat/fan/noise.


It's possible to get a GeForce 6800 with a passive cooler (heatsink) 
instead of a fan.  I bet you can get a newer one as well, though you may 
have to opt for the "mobile" version.  Either way, I've got an 8800 with 
a fan right now but it's really very quiet--it pays to read reviews that 
discuss noise levels of various brands.


Sean
Dec 28 2008
parent Andrei Alexandrescu <SeeWebsiteForEmail erdani.org> writes:
Sean Kelly wrote:

 Walter Bright wrote:

 Nick Sabalausky wrote:

 - Graphics card that's pixel shader v1 (was a pre-pixel-shader 
 GeForceMX 2 for a long time, only upgraded because I found this one 
 for about $40 and wanted to play around with pixel shaders).


 I don't have a graphics card because of heat/fan/noise.


 
 It's possible to get a GeForce 6800 with a passive cooler (heatsink) 
 instead of a fan.  I bet you can get a newer one as well, though you may 
 have to opt for the "mobile" version.  Either way, I've got an 8800 with 
 a fan right now but it's really very quiet--it pays to read reviews that 
 discuss noise levels of various brands.


My EVGA 7200GS/256MB has no active cooler either. Truth be told, it gets 
as hot as a cheerleader. I hasten to say that I wasn't really needing 
the video performance... but it was free after rebate :o).

Andrei
Dec 28 2008
prev sibling next sibling parent reply Andrei Alexandrescu <SeeWebsiteForEmail erdani.org> writes:
Nick Sabalausky wrote:

 Ah ha, there's that usual "if you go and buy a PC" catch. Which begs the 
 question, why would I? My existing system does everything I need it to do 
 perfectly fine. And since I'm not petty enough to allow anyone to shame me 
 into buying a new system just by calling my *current* system "legacy", that 
 leaves no real reason for me to buy a new one.


I agree that often there is little incentive to upgrade. In particular 
incentive can be negative when it comes to Vista vs. XP.

[snip]

 so supporting 64bit is just supporting the current technology. it's not 
 about fancy servers or anything like that, just supporting the current 
 standards. that's a minimun that should be expected from any compiler 
 implementation nowadays.
 b) even though for now there is a compatability mode in most OSes, why 
 would I want to limit the performance and abilities of my PC to old 
 technology which is being faded away?


 
 Even in 32-bit "legacy" mode, 64-bit systems are absurdly fast anyway.


Talk about adding insult to injury. This is a rather random statement to 
make. Really, browsing the Web, writing documents, or writing emails is 
all you want from a computer? I'd say, until computers are not at least 
potentially capable of doing most intellectual tasks that people do, 
we're not in the position to say that computers are fast enough. When 
seen from that perspective, computers are absurdly slow and scarce in 
resources. The human brain's capacity bypasses our largest systems by a 
few orders of magnitude, and if we want to claim doing anything close, 
we should at least have that capacity. But even way, way before that, 
any NLP or speech recognition system that does anything interesting 
needs days, weeks, or months to train on computer clusters, when it all 
should run in real time. Please understand that from that perspective 
the claim that computers are plenty fast and memory is plenty large is 
rather shortsighted.


Andrei
Dec 27 2008
parent reply "Nick Sabalausky" <a a.a> writes:
"Andrei Alexandrescu" <SeeWebsiteForEmail erdani.org> wrote in message 
news:gj6mds$28iv$1 digitalmars.com...

 Nick Sabalausky wrote:

 Ah ha, there's that usual "if you go and buy a PC" catch. Which begs the 
 question, why would I? My existing system does everything I need it to do 
 perfectly fine. And since I'm not petty enough to allow anyone to shame 
 me into buying a new system just by calling my *current* system "legacy", 
 that leaves no real reason for me to buy a new one.


 I agree that often there is little incentive to upgrade. In particular 
 incentive can be negative when it comes to Vista vs. XP.


I'm incredibly jealous of how Vista only highlights the filename (minus 
suffix) when you go to rename a file. I *really* want that. But yea, that 
alone isn't enough to balance out the reasons against upgrading.


 [snip]

 so supporting 64bit is just supporting the current technology. it's not 
 about fancy servers or anything like that, just supporting the current 
 standards. that's a minimun that should be expected from any compiler 
 implementation nowadays.
 b) even though for now there is a compatability mode in most OSes, why 
 would I want to limit the performance and abilities of my PC to old 
 technology which is being faded away?


 Even in 32-bit "legacy" mode, 64-bit systems are absurdly fast anyway.


 Talk about adding insult to injury. This is a rather random statement to 
 make. Really, browsing the Web, writing documents, or writing emails is 
 all you want from a computer? I'd say, until computers are not at least 
 potentially capable of doing most intellectual tasks that people do, we're 
 not in the position to say that computers are fast enough. When seen from 
 that perspective, computers are absurdly slow and scarce in resources. The 
 human brain's capacity bypasses our largest systems by a few orders of 
 magnitude, and if we want to claim doing anything close, we should at 
 least have that capacity. But even way, way before that, any NLP or speech 
 recognition system that does anything interesting needs days, weeks, or 
 months to train on computer clusters, when it all should run in real time. 
 Please understand that from that perspective the claim that computers are 
 plenty fast and memory is plenty large is rather shortsighted.


When a reasonably-priced computer comes around that can actually do those 
sorts of things, I may very well be finally enticed to upgrade. But like you 
said, as it stands right now, even the high-end stuff can't do it. So it's 
really a non-issue for now.
Dec 27 2008
next sibling parent reply Andrei Alexandrescu <SeeWebsiteForEmail erdani.org> writes:
Nick Sabalausky wrote:

 "Andrei Alexandrescu" <SeeWebsiteForEmail erdani.org> wrote in message 
 news:gj6mds$28iv$1 digitalmars.com...

 Nick Sabalausky wrote:

 Ah ha, there's that usual "if you go and buy a PC" catch. Which begs the 
 question, why would I? My existing system does everything I need it to do 
 perfectly fine. And since I'm not petty enough to allow anyone to shame 
 me into buying a new system just by calling my *current* system "legacy", 
 that leaves no real reason for me to buy a new one.


 I agree that often there is little incentive to upgrade. In particular 
 incentive can be negative when it comes to Vista vs. XP.


 
 I'm incredibly jealous of how Vista only highlights the filename (minus 
 suffix) when you go to rename a file. I *really* want that. But yea, that 
 alone isn't enough to balance out the reasons against upgrading.
 

 [snip]

 so supporting 64bit is just supporting the current technology. it's not 
 about fancy servers or anything like that, just supporting the current 
 standards. that's a minimun that should be expected from any compiler 
 implementation nowadays.
 b) even though for now there is a compatability mode in most OSes, why 
 would I want to limit the performance and abilities of my PC to old 
 technology which is being faded away?


 Even in 32-bit "legacy" mode, 64-bit systems are absurdly fast anyway.


 Talk about adding insult to injury. This is a rather random statement to 
 make. Really, browsing the Web, writing documents, or writing emails is 
 all you want from a computer? I'd say, until computers are not at least 
 potentially capable of doing most intellectual tasks that people do, we're 
 not in the position to say that computers are fast enough. When seen from 
 that perspective, computers are absurdly slow and scarce in resources. The 
 human brain's capacity bypasses our largest systems by a few orders of 
 magnitude, and if we want to claim doing anything close, we should at 
 least have that capacity. But even way, way before that, any NLP or speech 
 recognition system that does anything interesting needs days, weeks, or 
 months to train on computer clusters, when it all should run in real time. 
 Please understand that from that perspective the claim that computers are 
 plenty fast and memory is plenty large is rather shortsighted.


 
 When a reasonably-priced computer comes around that can actually do those 
 sorts of things, I may very well be finally enticed to upgrade. But like you 
 said, as it stands right now, even the high-end stuff can't do it. So it's 
 really a non-issue for now. 


I don't understand. This is like a reply to another thread. This anyone 
would agree with. I agree that for your current computing work and 
perceived needs you don't feel about upgrading your hardware. I mean, 
what's really there to disagree. But that has nothing to do with the 
generalizations aired before a la "64-bit systems are absurdly fast 
anyway" or that there's no need for 64-bit. To write software that 
tackles hard problems one really needs the fastest hardware one's budget 
can buy. I can't understand what you say except in the frame that you 
indiscriminately assume that everybody else has your wants and needs 
from a computer (and consequently is a snob for getting a relatively 
fast one). Really that's a rather... unsophisticated world view to go 
by. I'm even amazed I need to spell this out.


Andrei
Dec 27 2008
parent reply "Nick Sabalausky" <a a.a> writes:
"Andrei Alexandrescu" <SeeWebsiteForEmail erdani.org> wrote in message 
news:gj7591$2tec$1 digitalmars.com...

 Nick Sabalausky wrote:

 "Andrei Alexandrescu" <SeeWebsiteForEmail erdani.org> wrote in message 
 news:gj6mds$28iv$1 digitalmars.com...

 Nick Sabalausky wrote:

 Ah ha, there's that usual "if you go and buy a PC" catch. Which begs 
 the question, why would I? My existing system does everything I need it 
 to do perfectly fine. And since I'm not petty enough to allow anyone to 
 shame me into buying a new system just by calling my *current* system 
 "legacy", that leaves no real reason for me to buy a new one.


 I agree that often there is little incentive to upgrade. In particular 
 incentive can be negative when it comes to Vista vs. XP.


 I'm incredibly jealous of how Vista only highlights the filename (minus 
 suffix) when you go to rename a file. I *really* want that. But yea, that 
 alone isn't enough to balance out the reasons against upgrading.


 [snip]

 so supporting 64bit is just supporting the current technology. it's 
 not about fancy servers or anything like that, just supporting the 
 current standards. that's a minimun that should be expected from any 
 compiler implementation nowadays.
 b) even though for now there is a compatability mode in most OSes, why 
 would I want to limit the performance and abilities of my PC to old 
 technology which is being faded away?


 Even in 32-bit "legacy" mode, 64-bit systems are absurdly fast anyway.


 Talk about adding insult to injury. This is a rather random statement to 
 make. Really, browsing the Web, writing documents, or writing emails is 
 all you want from a computer? I'd say, until computers are not at least 
 potentially capable of doing most intellectual tasks that people do, 
 we're not in the position to say that computers are fast enough. When 
 seen from that perspective, computers are absurdly slow and scarce in 
 resources. The human brain's capacity bypasses our largest systems by a 
 few orders of magnitude, and if we want to claim doing anything close, 
 we should at least have that capacity. But even way, way before that, 
 any NLP or speech recognition system that does anything interesting 
 needs days, weeks, or months to train on computer clusters, when it all 
 should run in real time. Please understand that from that perspective 
 the claim that computers are plenty fast and memory is plenty large is 
 rather shortsighted.


 When a reasonably-priced computer comes around that can actually do those 
 sorts of things, I may very well be finally enticed to upgrade. But like 
 you said, as it stands right now, even the high-end stuff can't do it. So 
 it's really a non-issue for now.


 I don't understand. This is like a reply to another thread. This anyone 
 would agree with. I agree that for your current computing work and 
 perceived needs you don't feel about upgrading your hardware. I mean, 
 what's really there to disagree. But that has nothing to do with the 
 generalizations aired before a la "64-bit systems are absurdly fast 
 anyway" or that there's no need for 64-bit. To write software that tackles 
 hard problems one really needs the fastest hardware one's budget can buy. 
 I can't understand what you say except in the frame that you 
 indiscriminately assume that everybody else has your wants and needs from 
 a computer (and consequently is a snob for getting a relatively fast one). 
 Really that's a rather... unsophisticated world view to go by. I'm even 
 amazed I need to spell this out.


You didn't need to spell it out, you just needed to pay more attention to 
what I've said, as you appear to have misunderstood much of it.  I've flat 
out said a number of times by now that, yes, there are legitimate uses for 
64-bit. Heck even my original post regarding 64-bit indicated as much ("What 
are you writing, video editors and 3D modeling apps?"). What I *have* been 

there are too many people out there that only *think* they need it, and even 
worse, expect that everyone else should also be jumping head-first into 
64-bit just because it's there. (Note again, that in that previous sentence, 
I did *not* indicate that "no one" has a need for 64-bit).

Nowhere have I ever said that 64-bit is and forever will be useless for 
everyone. Please stop coloring my comments in that light.

(I do, however, stand by my comment that *right now* trying to maximize 
performance on 64-bit machines is usually a misspent effort. For instance, 
certain game developers, like Epic and Crytek, have been focusing their 
target systems and optimization efforts on high-end stuff. That's just 
stupid as it artificially shrinks their target market. They'd be better off 
putting their optimization effort on lower-ends so that they can *increase* 
their market instead. But, yes, obviously there are going to be fringe-case 
exceptions even with this, such as researchers writing custom DNA-processing 
code that's only ever going to run on their super-duper-cluster.)
Dec 27 2008
next sibling parent reply Andrei Alexandrescu <SeeWebsiteForEmail erdani.org> writes:
Nick Sabalausky wrote:

 "Andrei Alexandrescu" <SeeWebsiteForEmail erdani.org> wrote in message 
 news:gj7591$2tec$1 digitalmars.com...

 Nick Sabalausky wrote:

 "Andrei Alexandrescu" <SeeWebsiteForEmail erdani.org> wrote in message 
 news:gj6mds$28iv$1 digitalmars.com...

 Nick Sabalausky wrote:

 Ah ha, there's that usual "if you go and buy a PC" catch. Which begs 
 the question, why would I? My existing system does everything I need it 
 to do perfectly fine. And since I'm not petty enough to allow anyone to 
 shame me into buying a new system just by calling my *current* system 
 "legacy", that leaves no real reason for me to buy a new one.


 I agree that often there is little incentive to upgrade. In particular 
 incentive can be negative when it comes to Vista vs. XP.


 I'm incredibly jealous of how Vista only highlights the filename (minus 
 suffix) when you go to rename a file. I *really* want that. But yea, that 
 alone isn't enough to balance out the reasons against upgrading.


 [snip]

 so supporting 64bit is just supporting the current technology. it's 
 not about fancy servers or anything like that, just supporting the 
 current standards. that's a minimun that should be expected from any 
 compiler implementation nowadays.
 b) even though for now there is a compatability mode in most OSes, why 
 would I want to limit the performance and abilities of my PC to old 
 technology which is being faded away?


 Even in 32-bit "legacy" mode, 64-bit systems are absurdly fast anyway.


 Talk about adding insult to injury. This is a rather random statement to 
 make. Really, browsing the Web, writing documents, or writing emails is 
 all you want from a computer? I'd say, until computers are not at least 
 potentially capable of doing most intellectual tasks that people do, 
 we're not in the position to say that computers are fast enough. When 
 seen from that perspective, computers are absurdly slow and scarce in 
 resources. The human brain's capacity bypasses our largest systems by a 
 few orders of magnitude, and if we want to claim doing anything close, 
 we should at least have that capacity. But even way, way before that, 
 any NLP or speech recognition system that does anything interesting 
 needs days, weeks, or months to train on computer clusters, when it all 
 should run in real time. Please understand that from that perspective 
 the claim that computers are plenty fast and memory is plenty large is 
 rather shortsighted.


 When a reasonably-priced computer comes around that can actually do those 
 sorts of things, I may very well be finally enticed to upgrade. But like 
 you said, as it stands right now, even the high-end stuff can't do it. So 
 it's really a non-issue for now.


 I don't understand. This is like a reply to another thread. This anyone 
 would agree with. I agree that for your current computing work and 
 perceived needs you don't feel about upgrading your hardware. I mean, 
 what's really there to disagree. But that has nothing to do with the 
 generalizations aired before a la "64-bit systems are absurdly fast 
 anyway" or that there's no need for 64-bit. To write software that tackles 
 hard problems one really needs the fastest hardware one's budget can buy. 
 I can't understand what you say except in the frame that you 
 indiscriminately assume that everybody else has your wants and needs from 
 a computer (and consequently is a snob for getting a relatively fast one). 
 Really that's a rather... unsophisticated world view to go by. I'm even 
 amazed I need to spell this out.


 
 You didn't need to spell it out, you just needed to pay more attention to 
 what I've said, as you appear to have misunderstood much of it.  I've flat 
 out said a number of times by now that, yes, there are legitimate uses for 
 64-bit. Heck even my original post regarding 64-bit indicated as much ("What 
 are you writing, video editors and 3D modeling apps?"). What I *have* been 

 there are too many people out there that only *think* they need it, and even 
 worse, expect that everyone else should also be jumping head-first into 
 64-bit just because it's there. (Note again, that in that previous sentence, 
 I did *not* indicate that "no one" has a need for 64-bit).
 
 Nowhere have I ever said that 64-bit is and forever will be useless for 
 everyone. Please stop coloring my comments in that light.


As usual, we're in better agreement with your much more mellow 
follow-ups. It's hard to not misunderstand you (ahem) when there's no 
effort in qualifying the statements I've been commenting about. You have 
to admit that ``Even in 32-bit "legacy" mode, 64-bit systems are 
absurdly fast anyway'' is pretty much hard to misunderstand, no matter 
how much attention one pays. I mean, that's not going to be implicitly 
qualified with "for my needs". And particularly because it's followed by 
``I mean, what's the slowest 64-bit x86 out there? A chip that's still 
pretty damn fast, that's what.'' I guess if I paid attention I would've 
read the "...to me" appendage. I'd say you have no case, which happens 
to me rather often; what I do is to simply admit I exaggerated and move 
on, even though I know deep inside that with the qualifications that I 
meant and with the nuances that were lost, I was more right than wrong.

Well I'm not going to continue this asinine "but you said this"/"but I 
didn't mean that" exchange as it's a waste of your time and mine, to say 
nothing about that Christmas spirit.


Andrei
Dec 28 2008
parent Christopher Wright <dhasenan gmail.com> writes:
Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:

 Well I'm not going to continue this asinine "but you said this"/"but I 
 didn't mean that" exchange as it's a waste of your time and mine, to say 
 nothing about that Christmas spirit.


On Christmas day you can't get sore. Your fellow man you must adore. 
There's time to rob him all the more the other 364.
Dec 28 2008
prev sibling parent dsimcha <dsimcha yahoo.com> writes:
== Quote from Nick Sabalausky (a a.a)'s article
 But, yes, obviously there are going to be fringe-case

 exceptions even with this, such as researchers writing custom DNA-processing
 code that's only ever going to run on their super-duper-cluster.)


I'm one of these researchers, and it would make my life a heck of a lot easier
if
I could fit the entire human genome in my address space.  I don't do that much
sequence analysis, or lack of 64-bit would be a deal-breaker for D.  I mostly do
microarray analysis, which usually fits much better in 32-bit address space,
unless I start doing things like pairwise analysis among probes (some machine
learning techniques require this).  However, once in a while when my research
does
take a turn into genome sequence land, the 2-gig address space limit feels like
a
HUGE artificial limitation.

The alternative is to switch to nematode genomics, as their genome could have
fit
into my old Pentium II's RAM.
Dec 28 2008
prev sibling next sibling parent reply Brian <digitalmars brianguertin.com> writes:
 I'm incredibly jealous of how Vista only highlights the filename (minus
 suffix) when you go to rename a file. I *really* want that. 


So does thunar :)
Dec 28 2008
parent reply Andrei Alexandrescu <SeeWebsiteForEmail erdani.org> writes:
Brian wrote:

 I'm incredibly jealous of how Vista only highlights the filename (minus
 suffix) when you go to rename a file. I *really* want that. 


 
 So does thunar :)


Konqueror, too. But of course that would be too little a reason to make 
the switcharoo.

Andrei
Dec 28 2008
parent reply "Nick Sabalausky" <a a.a> writes:
"Andrei Alexandrescu" <SeeWebsiteForEmail erdani.org> wrote in message 
news:gj9cq1$1boc$1 digitalmars.com...

 Brian wrote:

 I'm incredibly jealous of how Vista only highlights the filename (minus
 suffix) when you go to rename a file. I *really* want that.


 So does thunar :)


 Konqueror, too. But of course that would be too little a reason to make 
 the switcharoo.


While the file rename thing is one of the nitpicky annoyances I have with 
the standard Windows file managers (though I never knew it annoyed me until 
Vista came along ;) ), I've have just as many nitpicky issues with OSX's 
Finder and all of the *n*x (Is that the politically-correct way to refer to 
Unix/Linux/BSD/etc? Some people can be real touchy about that) file managers 
I've tried. Not that I'm trying to single out any particular OS or file 
browser for ridicule, though.
Dec 28 2008
parent reply Christopher Wright <dhasenan gmail.com> writes:
Nick Sabalausky wrote:

 "Andrei Alexandrescu" <SeeWebsiteForEmail erdani.org> wrote in message 
 news:gj9cq1$1boc$1 digitalmars.com...

 Brian wrote:

 I'm incredibly jealous of how Vista only highlights the filename (minus
 suffix) when you go to rename a file. I *really* want that.


 So does thunar :)


 Konqueror, too. But of course that would be too little a reason to make 
 the switcharoo.


 
 While the file rename thing is one of the nitpicky annoyances I have with 
 the standard Windows file managers (though I never knew it annoyed me until 
 Vista came along ;) ), I've have just as many nitpicky issues with OSX's 
 Finder and all of the *n*x (Is that the politically-correct way to refer to 
 Unix/Linux/BSD/etc? Some people can be real touchy about that) file managers 
 I've tried. Not that I'm trying to single out any particular OS or file 
 browser for ridicule, though. 


Most people say *nix for Unix/Linux. BSD is Unix, so no need to specify 
that separately. You could single out Minix, though.

And I usually use bash as my file manager, but it isn't great for that. 
Decent, but not great.
Dec 28 2008
parent Andrei Alexandrescu <SeeWebsiteForEmail erdani.org> writes:
Christopher Wright wrote:

 Nick Sabalausky wrote:

 "Andrei Alexandrescu" <SeeWebsiteForEmail erdani.org> wrote in message 
 news:gj9cq1$1boc$1 digitalmars.com...

 Brian wrote:

 I'm incredibly jealous of how Vista only highlights the filename 
 (minus
 suffix) when you go to rename a file. I *really* want that.


 So does thunar :)


 Konqueror, too. But of course that would be too little a reason to 
 make the switcharoo.


 While the file rename thing is one of the nitpicky annoyances I have 
 with the standard Windows file managers (though I never knew it 
 annoyed me until Vista came along ;) ), I've have just as many 
 nitpicky issues with OSX's Finder and all of the *n*x (Is that the 
 politically-correct way to refer to Unix/Linux/BSD/etc? Some people 
 can be real touchy about that) file managers I've tried. Not that I'm 
 trying to single out any particular OS or file browser for ridicule, 
 though. 


 
 Most people say *nix for Unix/Linux. BSD is Unix, so no need to specify 
 that separately. You could single out Minix, though.
 
 And I usually use bash as my file manager, but it isn't great for that. 
 Decent, but not great.


Command line is definitely more powerful than any GUI shell (I use and 
would recommend zsh) - of course after you took the time to learn it. 
It's like using a language versus navigating canned forms.

Andrei
Dec 29 2008
prev sibling parent =?iso-8859-1?Q?Julio=20C=e9sar=20Carrascal=20Urquijo?= <jcarrascal gmail.com> writes:
Hello Nick,


 I'm incredibly jealous of how Vista only highlights the filename
 (minus suffix) when you go to rename a file. I *really* want that. But
 yea, that alone isn't enough to balance out the reasons against
 upgrading.


I can recommend ExplorerXP for this: http://www.explorerxp.com/

Try renaming multiple files, it's like search and replace.
Dec 28 2008
prev sibling parent reply Christopher Wright <dhasenan gmail.com> writes:
Nick Sabalausky wrote:

 "Yigal Chripun" <yigal100 gmail.com> wrote in message 
 news:gj6e3m$1ilv$1 digitalmars.com...

 two things:
 a) current hardware is 64bit (if you go and buy a PC),


 
 Ah ha, there's that usual "if you go and buy a PC" catch. Which begs the 
 question, why would I? My existing system does everything I need it to do 
 perfectly fine. And since I'm not petty enough to allow anyone to shame me 
 into buying a new system just by calling my *current* system "legacy", that 
 leaves no real reason for me to buy a new one.


I tried that. But these days, it's *really* hard to find AT hard drives 
to replace the ones that fail.
Dec 27 2008
parent reply John Reimer <terminal.node gmail.com> writes:
Hello Christopher,


 Nick Sabalausky wrote:
 

 "Yigal Chripun" <yigal100 gmail.com> wrote in message
 news:gj6e3m$1ilv$1 digitalmars.com...
 

 two things:
 a) current hardware is 64bit (if you go and buy a PC),


 Ah ha, there's that usual "if you go and buy a PC" catch. Which begs
 the question, why would I? My existing system does everything I need
 it to do perfectly fine. And since I'm not petty enough to allow
 anyone to shame me into buying a new system just by calling my
 *current* system "legacy", that leaves no real reason for me to buy a
 new one.
 


 I tried that. But these days, it's *really* hard to find AT hard
 drives to replace the ones that fail.
 



Hmm... you just reminded me of one of the big reasons I was motivated to 
upgrade my computers.  It wasn't always about an insatiable desire for bigger, 
better, faster.  I really disliked the whole "legacy" support engineered 
into the PC hardware -- it made things a horrible pain to fix and troubleshoot. 
 The PC hardware had to be consistantly designed for legacy 16-bit support 
because DOS/win95/win98 still had a strong hold on things.  Wishful thinking 
dictated that upgrading to the next thing would make things that much better 
and easier to fix/upgrade.  To some extent this may have been true.  USB 
saved us from endless dip switches and jumper changing (DMA/IRQ setup of 
COM/PARALLEL/Network ports were horrible -- remember the conflicts?) and 
improved the idea of hot-plugging. SATA drives eliminated setting drives 
to master/slave and figuring out which drive went where on PATA IDE channels. 
CMOS settings got better and more comprehensive.  Hardware got more integrated 
reducing the need for expansion cards.  

So, I'll have to admit that the so-called "craze" to move on from Legacy 
systems in not really as bad as it sounds.  Legacy systems were really quite 
horrid to use and  setup for many years.  So much of the advantage of modern 
system is reduced complexity in terms of upgrades and maintenance.  There 
were certainly advantages to be had the more removed one advanced from the 
legacy hardware.

I may have actually reached a point where my motivation to upgrade was
significantly 
dampened by the fact that PC's technology had finally progressed to a more 
acceptable usability/maintenance levels.  Improvements in technology seem 
to be less about usability now and more about power and performance.  Perhaps, 
we've just finally managed to shake all those legacy trappings that were 
hampering us for so long.

-JJR
Dec 27 2008
parent "Bill Baxter" <wbaxter gmail.com> writes:
On Sun, Dec 28, 2008 at 12:50 PM, John Reimer <terminal.node gmail.com> wrote:


 I may have actually reached a point where my motivation to upgrade was
 significantly dampened by the fact that PC's technology had finally
 progressed to a more acceptable usability/maintenance levels.  Improvements
 in technology seem to be less about usability now and more about power and
 performance.  Perhaps, we've just finally managed to shake all those legacy
 trappings that were hampering us for so long.


I think that's the real issue.  For the kinds of things 90% of users
need, current PCs are plenty fast.  Really faster than they need to
be. That's why computer hardware folks are sweating, particularly
processor makers.  The number of people who can benefit from their
latest and greatest is just not as large a percentage of folks as it
used to be.    I agree with Andrei that we haven't even come close to
the limit of the number of cycles we can use yet, but it seems we're
at a bit of a dip in terms of the number of useful new applications
possible with the number of cycles we have.  We have way more power
than we need for doing word processing, but still not enough to do
interesting AI.  That's assuming we even knew how to do some kind of
AI that would be useful to average users.

--bb
Dec 27 2008
prev sibling parent Derek Parnell <derek psych.ward> writes:
On Sat, 27 Dec 2008 17:57:39 -0500, Nick Sabalausky wrote:


 "Derek Parnell" <derek psych.ward> wrote in message 
 news:nkr1wyvyj3vv$.qr1gd1h779fx.dlg 40tude.net...

 On Sat, 27 Dec 2008 15:45:57 -0500, Nick Sabalausky wrote:


 ... judging by number of people here asking for
 64-bit, I find it highly unlikely that most of them have plans to work on
 such things either.


 My interest in 64-bit hardware support is based on the belief that before
 too long, buying a new 32-bit platform might be a difficult thing to do.
 Five years from now, I don't want to be forced into finding a good
 second-hand machine just so I can work with D.


 
 I don't want to be forced into buying a new 64-bit machine just because a 
 whole bunch of "gotta have the faciest stuff out there" people have deemed 
 32-bit insufficient for all computing needs. 


And neither do I, but the momentum is far too strong for me to affect, so I
assume that it won't be long before I will be forced to get a 64-bit
machine - even if I don't want to.


 Besides, can't 64-bit machines run 32-bit code?


Sure, the same way the 32-bit machines run 16-bit software, and that's not
giving anyone troubles ;-)

-- 
Derek Parnell
Melbourne, Australia
skype: derek.j.parnell
Dec 28 2008
prev sibling next sibling parent David Ferenczi <raggae ferenczi.net> writes:
I second this.

Nick Sabalausky wrote:


 "Nick Sabalausky" <a a.a> wrote in message
 news:gj1olu$1390$1 digitalmars.com...

 "Walter Bright" <newshound1 digitalmars.com> wrote in message
 news:gj0qht$2lc1$1 digitalmars.com...

 What platforms for dmd would you be most interested in using?

 .net
 jvm
 mac osx 32 bit intel
 mac osx 64 bit intel
 linux 64 bit
 windows 64 bit
 freebsd 32 bit
 netbsd 32 bit

 other?


 - ARM7/ARM9
 - Other misc microcontrollers, like Parallax's Propeller
 - Mac osx 32 bit intel
 - *maybe* bsd 32-bit, .net and jvm (and with .net and jvm I'd want to
 still be able to use tango and phobos, and not be forced to switch to the
 .net and jvm standard libs)


 
 To elaborate:
 
 1. A "systems language" that doesn't compile to any embedded
 microcontroller seems more than a little bit silly to me. (Sad as it is to
 say, I don't think GDC counts anymore.)
 
 2. I have absolutely zero interest in 64-bit. To the people annoyed at the
 limitations of the 32-bit address space: What in the world are you working
 on? Non-linear video editors and 3D modeling packages?
 
 I should also add near the top of my list, "the CPUs of all major game
 consoles". I think console game programmers are very much in need of a
 language that doesn't suck as horribly as C++, and D is the only one out
 there that doesn't contain fundamental deal-breakers for modern console
 game dev.
Dec 29 2008
prev sibling parent Daniel de Kok <me nowhere.nospam> writes:
On 2008-12-26 06:18:33 +0100, "Nick Sabalausky" <a a.a> said:

 2. I have absolutely zero interest in 64-bit. To the people annoyed at the
 limitations of the 32-bit address space: What in the world are you working
 on? Non-linear video editors and 3D modeling packages?


Natural language processing. E.g. most parsers and generators with a 
wide-coverage grammar will need a lot of memory, since ambiguity of 
sentences increases dramatically with sentence length.

Or to give a specific example: we have recently extended some 
techniques for error mining in parsing results. In natural language 
parsing, a possible parsing failure is the inability to find a parse 
that spans a whole sentence (as opposed to e.g. an incorrect parse). 
Error mining tries to find the most probable causes (words or phrases) 
for the such parsing failures. If iterative error mining methods are 
applied to parsing results of large corpera (or domain-specific corpera 
where a relatively large number of sentences fail to parse), it's easy 
to break the 4GB barrier.

-- Daniel
Dec 30 2008
prev sibling next sibling parent reply Chad J <gamerchad __spam.is.bad__gmail.com> writes:
Walter Bright wrote:

 What platforms for dmd would you be most interested in using?
 
 .net
 jvm
 mac osx 32 bit intel
 mac osx 64 bit intel
 linux 64 bit
 windows 64 bit
 freebsd 32 bit
 netbsd 32 bit
 
 other?


Mac OSX 32 and 64 intel
Windows 32 and 64
Linux 32 and 64
WinCE on ARM (yeah, I know it's not on the list, but it matters)
Linux on ARM (ditto)

Or, better yet:
Cross-platform C code.
Get me that and I have a lot less reason to even care about the others.
Dec 25 2008
next sibling parent Chad J <gamerchad __spam.is.bad__gmail.com> writes:
Chad J wrote:

 Walter Bright wrote:

 What platforms for dmd would you be most interested in using?

 .net
 jvm
 mac osx 32 bit intel
 mac osx 64 bit intel
 linux 64 bit
 windows 64 bit
 freebsd 32 bit
 netbsd 32 bit

 other?


 
 Mac OSX 32 and 64 intel
 Windows 32 and 64
 Linux 32 and 64
 WinCE on ARM (yeah, I know it's not on the list, but it matters)
 Linux on ARM (ditto)
 
 Or, better yet:
 Cross-platform C code.
 Get me that and I have a lot less reason to even care about the others.


P.S.
The C backend would allow DMD to target game consoles that don't even
have D compilers.

I don't think you, or anyone around, is likely to write D compilers for
every piece of hardware the console game industry feels like pumping
out.  At least not for some years.
Dec 25 2008
prev sibling next sibling parent reply Walter Bright <newshound1 digitalmars.com> writes:
Chad J wrote:

 Or, better yet:
 Cross-platform C code.
 Get me that and I have a lot less reason to even care about the others.


The problem with generating C code is: exception handling
Dec 25 2008
next sibling parent reply "Nick Sabalausky" <a a.a> writes:
"Walter Bright" <newshound1 digitalmars.com> wrote in message 
news:gj1psc$14q2$1 digitalmars.com...

 Chad J wrote:

 Or, better yet:
 Cross-platform C code.
 Get me that and I have a lot less reason to even care about the others.


 The problem with generating C code is: exception handling


Can't the normal exception handling boilerplating just be placed explicity 
in the functions? Or, I guess maybe that would require code that was 
specific to C-compiler/CPU combination?
Dec 25 2008
parent BCS <ao pathlink.com> writes:
Reply to Nick,


 "Walter Bright" <newshound1 digitalmars.com> wrote in message
 news:gj1psc$14q2$1 digitalmars.com...
 

 Chad J wrote:
 

 Or, better yet:
 Cross-platform C code.
 Get me that and I have a lot less reason to even care about the
 others.


 The problem with generating C code is: exception handling
 


 Can't the normal exception handling boilerplating just be placed
 explicity in the functions? Or, I guess maybe that would require code
 that was specific to C-compiler/CPU combination?
 


macros!!!
Dec 25 2008
prev sibling next sibling parent davidl <davidl 126.com> writes:
在 Fri, 26 Dec 2008 13:25:31 +0800，Walter Bright  
<newshound1 digitalmars.com> 写é“:


 Chad J wrote:

 Or, better yet:
 Cross-platform C code.
 Get me that and I have a lot less reason to even care about the others.


 The problem with generating C code is: exception handling


I think the solution is using wine macros or use reactos macros.

Reactos claims their SEH macro is better.
Dec 25 2008
prev sibling next sibling parent reply Chad J <gamerchad __spam.is.bad__gmail.com> writes:
Walter Bright wrote:

 Chad J wrote:

 Or, better yet:
 Cross-platform C code.
 Get me that and I have a lot less reason to even care about the others.


 
 The problem with generating C code is: exception handling


Perhaps you could emit C++ code that is nearly identical to C code.
This then gives you the exception handling.  For targets that don't have
a C++ compiler, generate C.  Exception handling will just have to be
broken on those.  In terms of everything on the list and game consoles,
this should work, no?

It might be a problem for the microcontrollers mentioned elsewhere in
this thread, since those may only have the C compilers available.  I can
live with this.  (They'll only be missing exception handling support...
I suspect there'll be bigger problems on these machines.)

Maybe there is a better way?

At any rate, please don't just give up on this!  GAME CONSOLES Walter!
GAME CONSOLES!
;)
Dec 25 2008
parent reply "Nick Sabalausky" <a a.a> writes:
"Chad J" <gamerchad __spam.is.bad__gmail.com> wrote in message 
news:gj1uou$1ctu$1 digitalmars.com...

 Walter Bright wrote:

 Chad J wrote:

 Or, better yet:
 Cross-platform C code.
 Get me that and I have a lot less reason to even care about the others.


 The problem with generating C code is: exception handling


 At any rate, please don't just give up on this!  GAME CONSOLES Walter!
 GAME CONSOLES!
 ;)


Yea, I've always seen videogames as one of the biggest and best applictions 
for D, and the main one that originally got me excited for it. But without 
the ability to use it on game-consoles/embedded-cpus/microcontrollers, it'll 
never be worthwhile for most developers. They'd be forced into just one 
platform, the PC (In this case, I'm including Mac as a "Personal Computer").
Dec 26 2008
next sibling parent reply Weed <resume755 mail.ru> writes:
Nick Sabalausky ÐÉÛÅÔ:

 "Chad J" <gamerchad __spam.is.bad__gmail.com> wrote in message 
 news:gj1uou$1ctu$1 digitalmars.com...

 Walter Bright wrote:

 Chad J wrote:

 Or, better yet:
 Cross-platform C code.
 Get me that and I have a lot less reason to even care about the others.


 The problem with generating C code is: exception handling


 At any rate, please don't just give up on this!  GAME CONSOLES Walter!
 GAME CONSOLES!
 ;)


 
 Yea, I've always seen videogames as one of the biggest and best applictions 
 for D, and the main one that originally got me excited for it. But without 
 the ability to use it on game-consoles/embedded-cpus/microcontrollers, it'll 
 never be worthwhile for most developers. They'd be forced into just one 
 platform, the PC (In this case, I'm including Mac as a "Personal Computer"). 
 
 


It seems to me it is necessary to reconsider it:

Support for 16 bit computers. No consideration is given in D for mixed
near/far pointers and all the machinations necessary to generate good 16
bit code. The D language design assumes at least a 32 bit flat memory
space. D will fit smoothly into 64 bit architectures.
(http://www.digitalmars.com/d/2.0/overview.html)
Dec 26 2008
parent reply Jason House <jason.james.house gmail.com> writes:
Weed Wrote:


 The D language design assumes at least a 32 bit flat memory
 space. D will fit smoothly into 64 bit architectures.
 (http://www.digitalmars.com/d/2.0/overview.html)



How well D will work on 64 bit systems of the future depends a lot on if
they'll remain optimized for 32 bit operations or not.
Dec 26 2008
parent reply Weed <resume755 mail.ru> writes:
Jason House ÐÉÛÅÔ:

 Weed Wrote:
 

 The D language design assumes at least a 32 bit flat memory
 space. D will fit smoothly into 64 bit architectures.
 (http://www.digitalmars.com/d/2.0/overview.html)


 
 
 How well D will work on 64 bit systems of the future depends a lot on if
they'll remain optimized for 32 bit operations or not.
 


I am still worried about 16bit :)

would like to D has been a universal language
Dec 26 2008
parent reply dsimcha <dsimcha yahoo.com> writes:
== Quote from Weed (resume755 mail.ru)'s article

 I am still worried about 16bit :)
 would like to D has been a universal language


Pardon my ignorance, but who still uses 16-bit?  I thought even most embedded
systems in this day and age are at least 32-bit.
Dec 26 2008
next sibling parent "Nick Sabalausky" <a a.a> writes:
"dsimcha" <dsimcha yahoo.com> wrote in message 
news:gj34uf$9f4$1 digitalmars.com...

 == Quote from Weed (resume755 mail.ru)'s article

 I am still worried about 16bit :)
 would like to D has been a universal language


 Pardon my ignorance, but who still uses 16-bit?  I thought even most 
 embedded
 systems in this day and age are at least 32-bit.


Retro homebrew game dev.
Dec 26 2008
prev sibling parent reply "Adam D. Ruppe" <destructionator gmail.com> writes:
On Fri, Dec 26, 2008 at 05:40:31PM +0000, dsimcha wrote:

 Pardon my ignorance, but who still uses 16-bit?  I thought even most embedded
 systems in this day and age are at least 32-bit.


I sometimes still work on old point of sale systems that run MS-DOS.

-- 
Adam D. Ruppe
http://arsdnet.net
Dec 26 2008
next sibling parent dsimcha <dsimcha yahoo.com> writes:
== Quote from Adam D. Ruppe (destructionator gmail.com)'s article

 On Fri, Dec 26, 2008 at 05:40:31PM +0000, dsimcha wrote:

 Pardon my ignorance, but who still uses 16-bit?  I thought even most embedded
 systems in this day and age are at least 32-bit.


 I sometimes still work on old point of sale systems that run MS-DOS.


Yes, but D is explicitly *not* supposed to be for legacy systems.  Of course, I
wouldn't mind 16-bit support if it only affects things at an implementation
level,
but I absolutely don't want the language to accumulate a bunch of spec-level
artifacts from this.
Dec 26 2008
prev sibling parent Walter Bright <newshound1 digitalmars.com> writes:
Adam D. Ruppe wrote:

 On Fri, Dec 26, 2008 at 05:40:31PM +0000, dsimcha wrote:

 Pardon my ignorance, but who still uses 16-bit?  I thought even most embedded
 systems in this day and age are at least 32-bit.


 
 I sometimes still work on old point of sale systems that run MS-DOS.


C is the best language for DOS. Just as C is no good for 8 bit 
programming, C++ and D are just not suited to 16 bit programming.
Dec 26 2008
prev sibling parent reply Michael P. <baseball.mjp gmail.com> writes:
Nick Sabalausky Wrote:


 "Chad J" <gamerchad __spam.is.bad__gmail.com> wrote in message 
 news:gj1uou$1ctu$1 digitalmars.com...

 Walter Bright wrote:

 Chad J wrote:

 Or, better yet:
 Cross-platform C code.
 Get me that and I have a lot less reason to even care about the others.


 The problem with generating C code is: exception handling


 At any rate, please don't just give up on this!  GAME CONSOLES Walter!
 GAME CONSOLES!
 ;)


 
 Yea, I've always seen videogames as one of the biggest and best applictions 
 for D, and the main one that originally got me excited for it. But without 
 the ability to use it on game-consoles/embedded-cpus/microcontrollers, it'll 
 never be worthwhile for most developers. They'd be forced into just one 
 platform, the PC (In this case, I'm including Mac as a "Personal Computer"). 
 
 


http://forums.qj.net/showthread.php?t=142864&highlight=programming+language
Dec 26 2008
parent reply "Nick Sabalausky" <a a.a> writes:
"Michael P." <baseball.mjp gmail.com> wrote in message 
news:gj39a7$gb0$1 digitalmars.com...

 Nick Sabalausky Wrote:


 "Chad J" <gamerchad __spam.is.bad__gmail.com> wrote in message
 news:gj1uou$1ctu$1 digitalmars.com...

 Walter Bright wrote:

 Chad J wrote:

 Or, better yet:
 Cross-platform C code.
 Get me that and I have a lot less reason to even care about the 
 others.


 The problem with generating C code is: exception handling


 At any rate, please don't just give up on this!  GAME CONSOLES Walter!
 GAME CONSOLES!
 ;)


 Yea, I've always seen videogames as one of the biggest and best 
 applictions
 for D, and the main one that originally got me excited for it. But 
 without
 the ability to use it on game-consoles/embedded-cpus/microcontrollers, 
 it'll
 never be worthwhile for most developers. They'd be forced into just one
 platform, the PC (In this case, I'm including Mac as a "Personal 
 Computer").


 http://forums.qj.net/showthread.php?t=142864&highlight=programming+language


GDC seems to be dying. Not that GCC is all that great to begin with.
Dec 26 2008
parent Michael P. <baseball.mjp gmail.com> writes:
Nick Sabalausky Wrote:


 "Michael P." <baseball.mjp gmail.com> wrote in message 
 news:gj39a7$gb0$1 digitalmars.com...

 Nick Sabalausky Wrote:


 "Chad J" <gamerchad __spam.is.bad__gmail.com> wrote in message
 news:gj1uou$1ctu$1 digitalmars.com...

 Walter Bright wrote:

 Chad J wrote:

 Or, better yet:
 Cross-platform C code.
 Get me that and I have a lot less reason to even care about the 
 others.


 The problem with generating C code is: exception handling


 At any rate, please don't just give up on this!  GAME CONSOLES Walter!
 GAME CONSOLES!
 ;)


 Yea, I've always seen videogames as one of the biggest and best 
 applictions
 for D, and the main one that originally got me excited for it. But 
 without
 the ability to use it on game-consoles/embedded-cpus/microcontrollers, 
 it'll
 never be worthwhile for most developers. They'd be forced into just one
 platform, the PC (In this case, I'm including Mac as a "Personal 
 Computer").


 http://forums.qj.net/showthread.php?t=142864&highlight=programming+language


 
 GDC seems to be dying. Not that GCC is all that great to begin with. 
 
 


Yeah, I've noticed.
If GDC was still actively updated, this would be great.
Dec 26 2008
prev sibling parent =?ISO-8859-1?Q?=22J=E9r=F4me_M=2E_Berger=22?= <jeberger free.fr> writes:
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Walter Bright wrote:

 Chad J wrote:

 Or, better yet:
 Cross-platform C code.
 Get me that and I have a lot less reason to even care about the others.


 
 The problem with generating C code is: exception handling


	Can't you do it with setjmp and longjmp? AFAIK, that's one of the
ways g++ does it on windows for example.

		Jerome
- --
mailto:jeberger free.fr
http://jeberger.free.fr
Jabber: jeberger jabber.fr
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Dec 26 2008
prev sibling next sibling parent "Nick Sabalausky" <a a.a> writes:
"Chad J" <gamerchad __spam.is.bad__gmail.com> wrote in message 
news:gj1p0l$13pv$1 digitalmars.com...

 Walter Bright wrote:

 What platforms for dmd would you be most interested in using?


 Or, better yet:
 Cross-platform C code.
 Get me that and I have a lot less reason to even care about the others.


Yes. This. Perfectly stated. Anyone that puts out a CPU makes a C compiler 
for it, sometimes C++, but rarely any other non-proprietary language, and 
(unfortunately) especially not D.
Dec 25 2008
prev sibling parent Weed <resume755 mail.ru> writes:
Chad J ÐÉÛÅÔ:

 Walter Bright wrote:

 What platforms for dmd would you be most interested in using?

 .net
 jvm
 mac osx 32 bit intel
 mac osx 64 bit intel
 linux 64 bit
 windows 64 bit
 freebsd 32 bit
 netbsd 32 bit

 other?


 
 Mac OSX 32 and 64 intel
 Windows 32 and 64
 Linux 32 and 64
 WinCE on ARM (yeah, I know it's not on the list, but it matters)
 Linux on ARM (ditto)
 
 Or, better yet:
 Cross-platform C code.
 Get me that and I have a lot less reason to even care about the others.


And it seems to me, probably this will help to write programs on D for
GPU (for CUDA-like engines)
Dec 28 2008
prev sibling next sibling parent Bedros Hanounik <2bedros NOSPAMgmail.com> writes:
Linux 64bit
OS X  64bit
JVM

in that order.

Walter Bright Wrote:


 What platforms for dmd would you be most interested in using?
 
 .net
 jvm
 mac osx 32 bit intel
 mac osx 64 bit intel
 linux 64 bit
 windows 64 bit
 freebsd 32 bit
 netbsd 32 bit
 
 other?
Dec 25 2008
prev sibling next sibling parent reply "Eric Suen" <eric.suen.tech gmail.com> writes:
Why not just LLVM? let LLVM do the rest?


 What platforms for dmd would you be most interested in using?

 .net
 jvm
 mac osx 32 bit intel
 mac osx 64 bit intel
 linux 64 bit
 windows 64 bit
 freebsd 32 bit
 netbsd 32 bit

 other?
Dec 25 2008
parent John Reimer <terminal.node gmail.com> writes:
Hello Eric,


 Why not just LLVM? let LLVM do the rest?
 

 What platforms for dmd would you be most interested in using?
 
 .net
 jvm
 mac osx 32 bit intel
 mac osx 64 bit intel
 linux 64 bit
 windows 64 bit
 freebsd 32 bit
 netbsd 32 bit
 other?
 





Good question.  

I suppose if the question had been asked like "What platforms for /D/ would 
you most be interested in using?" then we'd know that ldc could act as the 
implementation answer to that question... 

But since he said /dmd/, I'm not quite sure what this means.  I guess it 
should be just taken to be a poll, and not a statement of intent.

As long as dmd remains the reference compiler, then there will be interest 
in seeing the reference working on other "high priority" platforms.  Seems 
like a lot of work to me when ldc could be developed to meet such goals. 
 Then again, maybe ldc does factor into that picture, and we just don't know 
it yet.

-JJR
Dec 26 2008
prev sibling next sibling parent reply Victor Tyurin <eaglux gmail.com> writes:
LLVM!!!
Only LLVM!!!
Nothing more!!
It will be cross-platform out of the box!!!

Walter Bright пишет:

 What platforms for dmd would you be most interested in using?
 
 .net
 jvm
 mac osx 32 bit intel
 mac osx 64 bit intel
 linux 64 bit
 windows 64 bit
 freebsd 32 bit
 netbsd 32 bit
 
 other?
Dec 26 2008
parent Don <nospam nospam.com> writes:
Victor Tyurin wrote:

 LLVM!!!
 Only LLVM!!!
 Nothing more!!
 It will be cross-platform out of the box!!!


But it doesn't even do win32 yet!


 
 Walter Bright пишет:

 What platforms for dmd would you be most interested in using?

 .net
 jvm
 mac osx 32 bit intel
 mac osx 64 bit intel
 linux 64 bit
 windows 64 bit
 freebsd 32 bit
 netbsd 32 bit

 other?
Dec 26 2008
prev sibling next sibling parent Victor Tyurin <eaglux gmail.com> writes:
Yo, Walter, do you want to beat GCC or LLVM?
Why don't you want to work on those front-ends?


 What platforms for dmd would you be most interested in using?
 
 .net
 jvm
 mac osx 32 bit intel
 mac osx 64 bit intel
 linux 64 bit
 windows 64 bit
 freebsd 32 bit
 netbsd 32 bit
 
 other?
Dec 26 2008
prev sibling next sibling parent digited <digited yandex.ru.removethis> writes:
Walter Bright Wrote:


 What platforms for dmd would you be most interested in using?
 
 .net
 jvm
 mac osx 32 bit intel
 mac osx 64 bit intel
 linux 64 bit
 windows 64 bit
 freebsd 32 bit
 netbsd 32 bit
 
 other?


No doubt, linux 64 bit.
Dec 26 2008
prev sibling next sibling parent mastrost <titi.mastro free.fr> writes:
Walter Bright Wrote:


 What platforms for dmd would you be most interested in using?
 
 .net
 jvm
 mac osx 32 bit intel
 mac osx 64 bit intel
 linux 64 bit
 windows 64 bit
 freebsd 32 bit
 netbsd 32 bit
 
 other?


linux 64 bit
Dec 26 2008
prev sibling next sibling parent KennyTM~ <kennytm gmail.com> writes:
Walter Bright wrote:

 What platforms for dmd would you be most interested in using?
 
 .net
 jvm
 mac osx 32 bit intel
 mac osx 64 bit intel
 linux 64 bit
 windows 64 bit
 freebsd 32 bit
 netbsd 32 bit
 
 other?


Mac OS X x86.
ARMv7, (UNIX-based).
Linux x64.
JVM.

Probably a D-to-C++/Python translator?
Dec 26 2008
prev sibling next sibling parent Marianne Gagnon <auria.mg gmail.com> writes:
mac osx 32 bit intel
mac osx 64 bit intel
linux 64 bit
windows 64 bit
Dec 26 2008
prev sibling next sibling parent "Andrea[Cif]Agosti" <cifvts gmail.com> writes:
Content-Disposition: inline
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

On Thu, 25 Dec 2008 12:30:52 -0800
Walter Bright <newshound1 digitalmars.com> wrote:


 -- snip --


Linux 64 bit

--=20
Andrea[Cif]Agosti <cifvts gmail.com>
Jabber ID: cifvts jaim.at
Dec 26 2008
prev sibling next sibling parent Robert Fraser <fraserofthenight gmail.com> writes:
Walter Bright Wrote:


 What platforms for dmd would you be most interested in using?
 
 .net
 jvm
 mac osx 32 bit intel
 mac osx 64 bit intel
 linux 64 bit
 windows 64 bit
 freebsd 32 bit
 netbsd 32 bit
 
 other?


Win64
Dec 26 2008
prev sibling next sibling parent reply Tim Keating <mrtact gmail.com> writes:
Yigal Chripun Wrote:


 personally I don't see a point in JVM/.NET - One of the best things 
 about D is that you get the ease of use of Ruby/python/etc with the 
 benefits of native compiling like in c/c++. Why throw that away and make 



Supporting .net would give you access to the most modern and probably
best-currently-supported Windows API. It would, if you counted Mono, add a very
nice cross-platform UI framework. Finally, depending on what version was
supported, it might enable you to write Silverlight apps in D, permitting
flash-like apps that run cross-functionally in a web browser.

TK
Dec 26 2008
next sibling parent reply Yigal Chripun <yigal100 gmail.com> writes:
Tim Keating wrote:

 Yigal Chripun Wrote:


 personally I don't see a point in JVM/.NET - One of the best
 things about D is that you get the ease of use of Ruby/python/etc
 with the benefits of native compiling like in c/c++. Why throw that



 Supporting .net would give you access to the most modern and probably
 best-currently-supported Windows API. It would, if you counted Mono,
 add a very nice cross-platform UI framework. Finally, depending on
 what version was supported, it might enable you to write Silverlight
 apps in D, permitting flash-like apps that run cross-functionally in
 a web browser.

 TK


You missed my point entirely. One of the major benefits of using D is 
that you get the convinience of Ruby/Python and the speed of a natively 
compiled language. using D on .net removes this very important benefit.

any other .net language (visual C++) with the support of MS and all the 
tools already available for it.
the most important benefit of D is the fact that it's natively compiled. 

that's my opinion.
Dec 26 2008
parent BCS <ao pathlink.com> writes:
Reply to Yigal,


 One of the major benefits of using D is
 that you get the convinience of Ruby/Python and the speed of a
 natively compiled language. using D on .net removes this very important
 benefit. All the things you mentioned above can be acomplished already

 and all the tools already available for it. the most important benefit of D
 is the fact that it's natively compiled. remove that and you'll get a 

 at least that's my opinion.


On advantage of D for .NET would be that is would allow for using existing 
code to be hooked into .NET apps. I don't think that writing new apps in 
D for .NET would be wise but bringing existing apps into .net would be good.

OTOH there might be a niche for D as an unsafe .NET language.
Dec 26 2008
prev sibling next sibling parent reply John Reimer <terminal.node gmail.com> writes:
Hello Tim,


 Yigal Chripun Wrote:
 

 personally I don't see a point in JVM/.NET - One of the best things
 about D is that you get the ease of use of Ruby/python/etc with the
 benefits of native compiling like in c/c++. Why throw that away and

 


 Supporting .net would give you access to the most modern and probably
 best-currently-supported Windows API. It would, if you counted Mono,
 add a very nice cross-platform UI framework. Finally, depending on
 what version was supported, it might enable you to write Silverlight
 apps in D, permitting flash-like apps that run cross-functionally in a
 web browser.
 
 TK
 



Agreed.

Concerning .NET and D technology, I say go for it... especially if someone 
has the initiative to keep such a port going (afterall, such initiative is 
really the most important virtue for any hope of success).  For myself, I'm 
kind of learning not to "restrain" D with my personal biases.  Sometimes 
we just can't predict what kind of benefits might be in store for the language, 
the platform, or other people; such expiditionary moves might not be successful 
in themselves, but they could be the critical factor that brings D to the 
limelight in some future endeavor.

D may be successful in areas we don't necessarily predict or prefer, and 
.NET is just one of several interesting possibilities to explore.  Therefore, 
I don't think we should get too tunnel-visioned about "D is better because 
it's a compiled language".  It may be important to keep the vision a little 
more open to other technologies (like VM's and such) especially as
optimizations 
improve in these areas.  Otherwise, D will be at risk of loosing it's general 
purpose nature... and being permanently fixated as a niche language.  Porting 
to .NET, therefore, becomes a clever way of "proving" D's viability on other 
technology platfroms.


comfortable programming environment such that it would be a welcome alternative 
even in the .NET world.  Microsoft may even come to see the benefits, since 
D might attract an even more diverse audience to the platform, people who 
would have otherwise avoided it.  You never know. ;)

That'd probably be all it would take for me to start experimenting with .NET 
and Mono.

-JJR
Dec 26 2008
parent reply Don <nospam nospam.com> writes:
John Reimer wrote:

 Hello Tim,
 

 Yigal Chripun Wrote:


 personally I don't see a point in JVM/.NET - One of the best things
 about D is that you get the ease of use of Ruby/python/etc with the
 benefits of native compiling like in c/c++. Why throw that away and



 Supporting .net would give you access to the most modern and probably
 best-currently-supported Windows API. It would, if you counted Mono,
 add a very nice cross-platform UI framework. Finally, depending on
 what version was supported, it might enable you to write Silverlight
 apps in D, permitting flash-like apps that run cross-functionally in a
 web browser.

 TK


 
 
 Agreed.
 
 D may be successful in areas we don't necessarily predict or prefer, and 
 .NET is just one of several interesting possibilities to explore.  
 Therefore, I don't think we should get too tunnel-visioned about "D is 
 better because it's a compiled language".


I agree. I don't see the point of VM's, but D should be better because 
it's a better language. Not because of how the compiler is implemented.
Dec 27 2008
parent reply Walter Bright <newshound1 digitalmars.com> writes:
Don wrote:

 John Reimer wrote:

 Agreed.

 D may be successful in areas we don't necessarily predict or prefer, 
 and .NET is just one of several interesting possibilities to explore.  
 Therefore, I don't think we should get too tunnel-visioned about "D is 
 better because it's a compiled language".


 
 I agree. I don't see the point of VM's, but D should be better because 
 it's a better language. Not because of how the compiler is implemented.


Not only do I agree as well <g>, but I want to emphasize John's point 
that we can't predict what opportunities will come from D being on .NET. 
I've run into a lot of programmers lately who, if a language isn't on 
.NET, will not look at it. .NET has a huge and growing market presence. 
There are a lot, and I mean a lot, of .NET developers, and to ignore 
them is shortsighted.

I can almost guarantee that people will find surprisingly cool uses to 
put D.NET to. Look at all the things Don has done with string mixins 
that never occurred to me!

Aside from that, the more platforms D is on, the more 'real' the 
language will be, and the more confident developers will be in risking 
using it.
Dec 27 2008
parent reply "Nick Sabalausky" <a a.a> writes:
"Walter Bright" <newshound1 digitalmars.com> wrote in message 
news:gj519n$1ckg$1 digitalmars.com...

 I've run into a lot of programmers lately who, if a language isn't on 
 .NET, will not look at it.


This right here is absolute proof of how appallingly pathetic the average 
quality of programmers is, and just how firmly up their asses their heads 
are planted. As much of a need as we have for better languages, I'm 
convinced that need is completely dwarfed by the need for better 
programmers.

And frankly, I'm not so sure that such clearly incompetent fools should be 
encouraged in such tenancies. I say, if someone is so bone-headed as to 
refuse to look at a language for such a stupid reason, they *should* be 
forced to stick with increasingly subpar languages. They's the only thing 
that will lead to their demise. We need to save our field from these fucking 
morons, not encourage them.

(And no, I'm not complaining about .NET itself, or .NET languages.)
Dec 27 2008
parent reply John Reimer <terminal.node gmail.com> writes:
Hello Nick,


 "Walter Bright" <newshound1 digitalmars.com> wrote in message
 news:gj519n$1ckg$1 digitalmars.com...
 

 I've run into a lot of programmers lately who, if a language isn't on
 .NET, will not look at it.
 


 This right here is absolute proof of how appallingly pathetic the
 average quality of programmers is, and just how firmly up their asses
 their heads are planted. As much of a need as we have for better
 languages, I'm convinced that need is completely dwarfed by the need
 for better programmers.
 
 And frankly, I'm not so sure that such clearly incompetent fools
 should be encouraged in such tenancies. I say, if someone is so
 bone-headed as to refuse to look at a language for such a stupid
 reason, they *should* be forced to stick with increasingly subpar
 languages. They's the only thing that will lead to their demise. We
 need to save our field from these f****** morons, not encourage them.
 
 (And no, I'm not complaining about .NET itself, or .NET languages.)
 



Hey, Nick, you just snubbed a whole bunch of people and severed all hope 
of demonstrating D's usefulness to anyone. ;)  I'm guessing a lot of us here 
have acted the "morons" in various similar ways when we make a weak attempt 
at argument when things are pushed at us.


Putting it bluntly, that's also the exact attitude that will distance people 
from the language.  Show disdain for them, and you are guaranteed to alienate 
people no matter how strong your argument is.  That, and such disdain is 
usually not warranted because it is reactive to a shallow response and fails 
to recognize the deeper social issues hinted by such a response.


Incidentally, labelling them "incompetant fools" isn't a very strong argument 
anyway, but you know that. ;D



 I say, if someone is so
 bone-headed as to refuse to look at a language for such a stupid
 reason, they *should* be forced to stick with increasingly subpar
 languages.



You probably realize this, but it's rarely so simple as that.  Sometimes 
people make weak silly arguments in response to people pushing things on 
them.  Their reasons for holding onto a technology rather than exploring 
other possibilities may be more related to survival and livelihood than sound 
reason (well, then again, survival and livelihood may be very good "reason" 
:-) ).  Their argument for rejection may be just a weak form of saying "go 
away... life is hard... don't bother me with this stuff."  Even so, there 
is a sort of logic contained in their response:  make D viable on the platform 
they know brings in the money, and you may just get their attention.  


There are a whole lot of people that aren't risk-takers for very good reason; 
the D community just seems to have attracted the more maverick adventurous 
personalities: we probably look like a bunch of extreme sports fanatics from 
their perspective  :).  Just because others give lame responses to why they 
won't explore a new language, doesn't mean they are all losers.  I expect 
that others might consider us to be morons for wasting so much time on D.

-JJR
Dec 27 2008
next sibling parent reply Walter Bright <newshound1 digitalmars.com> writes:
John Reimer wrote:

 Putting it bluntly, that's also the exact attitude that will distance 
 people from the language.  Show disdain for them, and you are guaranteed 
 to alienate people no matter how strong your argument is.  That, and 
 such disdain is usually not warranted because it is reactive to a 
 shallow response and fails to recognize the deeper social issues hinted 
 by such a response.


Back in the early DOS days, there was a lot of disdain for the platform. 
"Real" programmers used unix workstations, not toy 16 bit PCs. It turned 
out, though, that most of the fortunes were made programming for DOS, 
and eventually those programs and programmers migrated to 32 bits and 
brought the industry with it. DOS was the "gateway" programming platform.
Dec 27 2008
next sibling parent John Reimer <terminal.node gmail.com> writes:
Hello Walter,


 John Reimer wrote:
 

 Putting it bluntly, that's also the exact attitude that will distance
 people from the language.  Show disdain for them, and you are
 guaranteed to alienate people no matter how strong your argument is.
 That, and such disdain is usually not warranted because it is
 reactive to a shallow response and fails to recognize the deeper
 social issues hinted by such a response.
 


 Back in the early DOS days, there was a lot of disdain for the
 platform. "Real" programmers used unix workstations, not toy 16 bit
 PCs. It turned out, though, that most of the fortunes were made
 programming for DOS, and eventually those programs and programmers
 migrated to 32 bits and brought the industry with it. DOS was the
 "gateway" programming platform.
 



Good point.  I remember the DOS days well.  Interestingly, though, "Unix" 
didn't really lose out in the long run.  A few years later, the movement 
returned in the form of Linux.  And then those "Real" programmers apparently 
had a chance to express their disdain again. :-)

All I know is that, as a teenager, I used to chafe over the limitations of 
16-bit DOS when my computer was clearly 32-bit capable, and I was greatly 
urked at the strength of the industry that kept it so.  That is what caused 
me to track down one of the first Slackware linux releases (pre 1.0).  I 
just couldn't stand wasting my computer's potential. :-)

As it so happened, each path experienced success in completely different 
ways and different times, while other paths were lost forever.  But, in line 
with the reasoning not to disdain different opportunities for D, adopting 
technologies in different paths also makes sense in the interest of
"diversifying 
to reduce risk."  It works for computer languages too. :)

-JJR
Dec 27 2008
prev sibling next sibling parent reply Andrei Alexandrescu <SeeWebsiteForEmail erdani.org> writes:
Walter Bright wrote:

 John Reimer wrote:

 Putting it bluntly, that's also the exact attitude that will distance 
 people from the language.  Show disdain for them, and you are 
 guaranteed to alienate people no matter how strong your argument is.  
 That, and such disdain is usually not warranted because it is reactive 
 to a shallow response and fails to recognize the deeper social issues 
 hinted by such a response.


 
 Back in the early DOS days, there was a lot of disdain for the platform. 
 "Real" programmers used unix workstations, not toy 16 bit PCs. It turned 
 out, though, that most of the fortunes were made programming for DOS, 
 and eventually those programs and programmers migrated to 32 bits and 
 brought the industry with it. DOS was the "gateway" programming platform.


Yah but due to other factors than its technical qualities. Leaving those 
out of the story puts things in an odd light.

Andrei
Dec 27 2008
next sibling parent reply John Reimer <terminal.node gmail.com> writes:
Hello Andrei,


 Walter Bright wrote:
 

 John Reimer wrote:
 

 Putting it bluntly, that's also the exact attitude that will
 distance people from the language.  Show disdain for them, and you
 are guaranteed to alienate people no matter how strong your argument
 is.  That, and such disdain is usually not warranted because it is
 reactive to a shallow response and fails to recognize the deeper
 social issues hinted by such a response.
 


 Back in the early DOS days, there was a lot of disdain for the
 platform. "Real" programmers used unix workstations, not toy 16 bit
 PCs. It turned out, though, that most of the fortunes were made
 programming for DOS, and eventually those programs and programmers
 migrated to 32 bits and brought the industry with it. DOS was the
 "gateway" programming platform.
 


 Yah but due to other factors than its technical qualities. Leaving
 those out of the story puts things in an odd light.
 
 Andrei
 



He he... that's one reason the polarization effect remains so intact.  Our 
point of view tends to hold a lot of sway on our interpretation of events. 
:)  I understood what Walter was getting at, though.... just that the disdain 
really didn't accomplish anything.


If I allowed myself, I could easily be caught up in discussing why the
popularity 
of DOS was one of the greatest handicaps of the era... but such an opinion 
is bound to clash with those those that made their living from it (Hi, Walter 
:D ) Granted, my point of view, would have been from the perspective of the 
consumer... and one who, as a teenager, had no investment in it commercially. 
 However, the motivation behind Linux development and use was probably hugely 
influenced by the industries' rigid hold on DOS 16-bit.... so we probably 
have DOS (and win 3.1, win 95/98) to thank for Linux's growing popularity.


It seems that influencing an industry to steer it in any one direction is 
usually impossible except by the corporations most involved.  This is one 
area where Linux (and opensource in general) has been so effective because 
it forced the industry giants to maneuver away from their intended path. 
 I don't think Linux would be what it was without the effects of the commercial 
side of things... nor would commercial OSes be what they are without open 
source being a competitive element.  So I've come to appreciate the influence 
of both, even though I don't particularly care for some of the elements of 
either.


I don't support the idea of D on .NET because I think it's the best thing 
around... I do so because I think it has a place in the grand scheme of things, 
something that D might do well to be part of. :)


-JJR
Dec 27 2008
parent reply Andrei Alexandrescu <SeeWebsiteForEmail erdani.org> writes:
John Reimer wrote:

 Hello Andrei,
 

 Walter Bright wrote:


 John Reimer wrote:


 Putting it bluntly, that's also the exact attitude that will
 distance people from the language.  Show disdain for them, and you
 are guaranteed to alienate people no matter how strong your argument
 is.  That, and such disdain is usually not warranted because it is
 reactive to a shallow response and fails to recognize the deeper
 social issues hinted by such a response.


 Back in the early DOS days, there was a lot of disdain for the
 platform. "Real" programmers used unix workstations, not toy 16 bit
 PCs. It turned out, though, that most of the fortunes were made
 programming for DOS, and eventually those programs and programmers
 migrated to 32 bits and brought the industry with it. DOS was the
 "gateway" programming platform.


 Yah but due to other factors than its technical qualities. Leaving
 those out of the story puts things in an odd light.

 Andrei


 
 
 He he... that's one reason the polarization effect remains so intact.  
 Our point of view tends to hold a lot of sway on our interpretation of 
 events. :)  I understood what Walter was getting at, though.... just 
 that the disdain really didn't accomplish anything.
 
 
 If I allowed myself, I could easily be caught up in discussing why the 
 popularity of DOS was one of the greatest handicaps of the era... but 
 such an opinion is bound to clash with those those that made their 
 living from it (Hi, Walter :D ) Granted, my point of view, would have 
 been from the perspective of the consumer... and one who, as a teenager, 
 had no investment in it commercially. However, the motivation behind 
 Linux development and use was probably hugely influenced by the 
 industries' rigid hold on DOS 16-bit.... so we probably have DOS (and 
 win 3.1, win 95/98) to thank for Linux's growing popularity.


Such scenarios are very hard to play even in hindsight because of the 
effect of all butterflies involved. It's easy to imagine that if DOS's 
original inventor inspired himself from Unix more than CP/M we'd all be 
better off today. Even things as simple as path separators and newline 
separators would have changed a lot of things. Technically, clearly DOS 
was a sort of a distraction, a detour for the overall progress of the 
field, as were so were many other events. It would be a mistake to 
forget that fact in a purely technical discussion. But in a higher-level 
discussion it would also be a mistake to ignore that of all Universes 
possible, things played out the way they did and no amount of wishful or 
bitter analysis will change that.


Andrei
Dec 27 2008
parent John Reimer` <terminal.node gmail.com> writes:
Very true.  That's why I try to refrain from gut reactions like my view that
"DOS
was one of the greatest handicaps of the era" :).  It's very easy to look back
and
critique decisions made by others... a little too easy; it is a little to easy
to
do when one isn't in the hotseat of decision-making.  There are certain things,
though, that will inevitably annoy the consumer (some of us more than others,
I'm
sure), especially those that get a little too idealistic sometimes. :)

While "no amount of bitter analysis will change" the way things played out in
the
past, I believe that thoroughly analyzing (minus the "bitter") the history can
certainly help one prepare for the future, or else we are indeed doomed to
repeat
mistakes.  Naturally, the situations are rarely the same, but many times there
are
enough similarities for one to draw careful conclusions about cause/effect. That
is why D is here, no less. And even, then the challenge still remains. :)

I'm not sure I answered you according to what you were meaning to express, but
hopefully I was close.

All the best,

-JJR
Dec 27 2008
prev sibling parent reply Walter Bright <newshound1 digitalmars.com> writes:
Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:

 Walter Bright wrote:

 Back in the early DOS days, there was a lot of disdain for the 
 platform. "Real" programmers used unix workstations, not toy 16 bit 
 PCs. It turned out, though, that most of the fortunes were made 
 programming for DOS, and eventually those programs and programmers 
 migrated to 32 bits and brought the industry with it. DOS was the 
 "gateway" programming platform.


 
 Yah but due to other factors than its technical qualities. Leaving those 
 out of the story puts things in an odd light.


It looks primitive these days, of course, but at the time it hit the 
sweet spot of max technology for minimal price. The performance/cost was 
the best available.
Dec 27 2008
parent Andrei Alexandrescu <SeeWebsiteForEmail erdani.org> writes:
Walter Bright wrote:

 Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:

 Walter Bright wrote:

 Back in the early DOS days, there was a lot of disdain for the 
 platform. "Real" programmers used unix workstations, not toy 16 bit 
 PCs. It turned out, though, that most of the fortunes were made 
 programming for DOS, and eventually those programs and programmers 
 migrated to 32 bits and brought the industry with it. DOS was the 
 "gateway" programming platform.


 Yah but due to other factors than its technical qualities. Leaving 
 those out of the story puts things in an odd light.


 
 It looks primitive these days, of course, but at the time it hit the 
 sweet spot of max technology for minimal price. The performance/cost was 
 the best available.


I'd add time to market, brilliant marketing, and sheer luck to the mix.

Andrei
Dec 27 2008
prev sibling parent reply Derek Parnell <derek psych.ward> writes:
On Sat, 27 Dec 2008 10:57:40 -0800, Walter Bright wrote:


 Back in the early DOS days, there was a lot of disdain for the platform. 
 "Real" programmers used unix workstations, not toy 16 bit PCs. It turned 
 out, though, that most of the fortunes were made programming for DOS, 
 and eventually those programs and programmers migrated to 32 bits and 
 brought the industry with it. DOS was the "gateway" programming platform.


In my world, the "real" programmers were working on IBM mainframes and the
like. The new-fangled "mini"-computers (Olivetti, Xerox, Sun) were starting
to make their way in to commercial operations and these were seen as
under-achieving toys by the "real" programmers. 

I was just about to recommend the IBM Model-23 mini-computer/word-processor
to my bosses when news of the IBM PC broke. I was given a preview and
demonstration of the new PC when I visited the IBM offices about 3-months
before the official release by the very enthusiastic, and aptly named,
"Entry Systems Division". 

The price/performance of the PC eradicated the mini-computer market
overnight. Sure it had technical limitations but the release of computing
to the masses swamped those limitations. One now no longer needed "real"
programmers to get some actual work done and it was damn cheap by
comparison. 

The Unix/PC divide was yet to happen. The 16-bit PC enabled non-specialist
people whereas Unix was seen, if acknowledged at all, as the domain of
arcane geeks. Unix was not practical and PC-DOS was; Unix was academic and
PC-DOS was business - end of story.

Times have changed, of course.

-- 
Derek Parnell
Melbourne, Australia
skype: derek.j.parnell
Dec 27 2008
next sibling parent reply Walter Bright <newshound1 digitalmars.com> writes:
The DEC systems have clearly been forgotten <g>. But at the time of the 
PC intro, DEC was king of the minicomputer business, and the buzz was 
"wait till you see DEC's response to the PC!" DEC had the LSI-11 
machine, superior to the 8086 in nearly every way. All they had to do 
was repackage it.

DEC finally had a big unveiling of their response, the Rainbow PC. My 
DEC fanboy friends were incredulous at how bad it was. DEC didn't get 
it, and they missed the boat, scrood the pooch, borked it up, snatched 
defeat from the jaws of victory, you name it. (The problem was DEC 
crippled it in order to prevent it from encroaching on their 
minicomputer business, a business they failed to recognize was obsolete.)

I had an H-11 at the time (a hobby version of the LSI-11). It kicked 
ass. DEC could have owned the PC business, but they threw it away with 
both hands, and eventually sank without a trace. I gave away my H-11 for 
$25.
Dec 27 2008
parent reply Derek Parnell <derek psych.ward> writes:
On Sat, 27 Dec 2008 18:12:27 -0800, Walter Bright wrote:


 The DEC systems have clearly been forgotten <g>. 


Yes! How could I have forgotten all those years I spent programming VAX
machines! Fine operating system, fine hardware, lousy DEC business savvy.

-- 
Derek Parnell
Melbourne, Australia
skype: derek.j.parnell
Dec 28 2008
parent John Reimer <terminal.node gmail.com> writes:
Hello Derek,


 On Sat, 27 Dec 2008 18:12:27 -0800, Walter Bright wrote:
 

 The DEC systems have clearly been forgotten <g>.
 


 Yes! How could I have forgotten all those years I spent programming
 VAX machines! Fine operating system, fine hardware, lousy DEC business
 savvy.
 



Surprisingly, I had two semesters worth of introduction to a DEC VAX machine 
in college. On it I learned some FORTRAN programming.  Don't ask me where 
I did that...and why the college was still teaching FORTRAN-77 in the 90's. 
:)

-JJR
Dec 28 2008
prev sibling parent John Reimer <terminal.node gmail.com> writes:
Hello Derek,


 On Sat, 27 Dec 2008 10:57:40 -0800, Walter Bright wrote:
 

 Back in the early DOS days, there was a lot of disdain for the
 platform. "Real" programmers used unix workstations, not toy 16 bit
 PCs. It turned out, though, that most of the fortunes were made
 programming for DOS, and eventually those programs and programmers
 migrated to 32 bits and brought the industry with it. DOS was the
 "gateway" programming platform.
 


 In my world, the "real" programmers were working on IBM mainframes and
 the like. The new-fangled "mini"-computers (Olivetti, Xerox, Sun) were
 starting to make their way in to commercial operations and these were
 seen as under-achieving toys by the "real" programmers.
 
 I was just about to recommend the IBM Model-23
 mini-computer/word-processor to my bosses when news of the IBM PC
 broke. I was given a preview and demonstration of the new PC when I
 visited the IBM offices about 3-months before the official release by
 the very enthusiastic, and aptly named, "Entry Systems Division".
 
 The price/performance of the PC eradicated the mini-computer market
 overnight. Sure it had technical limitations but the release of
 computing to the masses swamped those limitations. One now no longer
 needed "real" programmers to get some actual work done and it was damn
 cheap by comparison.
 
 The Unix/PC divide was yet to happen. The 16-bit PC enabled
 non-specialist people whereas Unix was seen, if acknowledged at all,
 as the domain of arcane geeks. Unix was not practical and PC-DOS was;
 Unix was academic and PC-DOS was business - end of story.
 
 Times have changed, of course.
 



Yes... that's a good historical description about the significance of the 
early years of 16-bit PC.  I think that's what Walter was describing too... 
one of the problems of offering different viewpoints is that sometimes two 
people are describing there experience within different periods of computer 
history.


Anyway, there is significance in the fact that the general aura started to 
change in the late 80's and 90's... I guess those of us who had not been 
involved in the early years of the PC missed the point about how accessible 
PC's had become (we took it for granted).  Although, some of us (young
hobbiests 
in contrast to business developers) were being introduced to the Atari ST, 
Apple II, Amiga, and Commodore 64 instead.  When we finally jumped onto the 
PC platform as our first big upgrade from the geeky computers, we realized 
that -- contrary to what we were used to from computers like the C64 and 
Amiga -- the PC was not being pushed to the limits.  It's potential was being 
wasted!  I think that was our general impression, and this was a great evil 
for people that were used to getting all the machine could give them.  And 
as the years went on, we were still stuck in 16 bit while 32-bit systems 
had been around for years: 386,486, Pentium, etc. 


It's funny how easily we get spoiled by technology such that we forget how 
things once were.  Later generations continue act in similar ignorance.  
This is one reason I think it's so important study history.

-JJR
Dec 27 2008
prev sibling parent reply "Nick Sabalausky" <a a.a> writes:
"John Reimer" <terminal.node gmail.com> wrote in message 
news:28b70f8c104198cb3624a1d43670 news.digitalmars.com...

 Hello Nick,


 "Walter Bright" <newshound1 digitalmars.com> wrote in message
 news:gj519n$1ckg$1 digitalmars.com...


 I've run into a lot of programmers lately who, if a language isn't on
 .NET, will not look at it.


 This right here is absolute proof of how appallingly pathetic the
 average quality of programmers is, and just how firmly up their asses
 their heads are planted. As much of a need as we have for better
 languages, I'm convinced that need is completely dwarfed by the need
 for better programmers.

 And frankly, I'm not so sure that such clearly incompetent fools
 should be encouraged in such tenancies. I say, if someone is so
 bone-headed as to refuse to look at a language for such a stupid
 reason, they *should* be forced to stick with increasingly subpar
 languages. They's the only thing that will lead to their demise. We
 need to save our field from these f****** morons, not encourage them.

 (And no, I'm not complaining about .NET itself, or .NET languages.)



 Hey, Nick, you just snubbed a whole bunch of people and severed all hope 
 of demonstrating D's usefulness to anyone. ;)  I'm guessing a lot of us 
 here have acted the "morons" in various similar ways when we make a weak 
 attempt at argument when things are pushed at us.


 Putting it bluntly, that's also the exact attitude that will distance 
 people from the language.  Show disdain for them, and you are guaranteed 
 to alienate people no matter how strong your argument is.  That, and such 
 disdain is usually not warranted because it is reactive to a shallow 
 response and fails to recognize the deeper social issues hinted by such a 
 response.


 Incidentally, labelling them "incompetant fools" isn't a very strong 
 argument anyway, but you know that. ;D



 I say, if someone is so
 bone-headed as to refuse to look at a language for such a stupid
 reason, they *should* be forced to stick with increasingly subpar
 languages.



 You probably realize this, but it's rarely so simple as that.  Sometimes 
 people make weak silly arguments in response to people pushing things on 
 them.  Their reasons for holding onto a technology rather than exploring 
 other possibilities may be more related to survival and livelihood than 
 sound reason (well, then again, survival and livelihood may be very good 
 "reason" :-) ).  Their argument for rejection may be just a weak form of 
 saying "go away... life is hard... don't bother me with this stuff."  Even 
 so, there is a sort of logic contained in their response:  make D viable 
 on the platform they know brings in the money, and you may just get their 
 attention.

 There are a whole lot of people that aren't risk-takers for very good 
 reason; the D community just seems to have attracted the more maverick 
 adventurous personalities: we probably look like a bunch of extreme sports 
 fanatics from their perspective  :).  Just because others give lame 
 responses to why they won't explore a new language, doesn't mean they are 
 all losers.  I expect that others might consider us to be morons for 
 wasting so much time on D.


 I was a bit unclear. Walter's observation just triggered a certain nerve. 
I'll attempt to clarify:

I've personally come across a lot of truly terrible "programmers". Refusing 
to touch a language because it isn't .NET, or because it *is* .NET and thus 
related to MS, or because it isn't Java (and no I don't mean JVM), etc. is 
just one of many classes of fallacies I've seen over and over and over among 
these people. No, that in and of itself doesn't make them "incompetant 
fools" (go figure, the one time I decide to skip the spell check ;)), and 
there may very well be a few people who actually do have a rare good reason 
to stick with .NET. But, such "fanboyism" is often fairly indicative of a 
"fool".

And yes, I really do think it would be best for everyone, developers, 
consumers, and even the fools themselves, if these people were weeded out of 
the field. Thus, the idea of bowing to a fallacy merely because it's a 
popular one truly disgusts me. It should be classified as a "reason not to", 
not a "reason to". (But overall, I would count adding .NET as a target for D 
as a "good thing" (although not a personal priority) because one of the "pie 
in the sky" things I've been dreaming to see in the programming world 
(besides overall better programmers) is a complete divorce of language and 
platform.)
Dec 27 2008
parent John Reimer <terminal.node gmail.com> writes:
Hello Nick,


 "John Reimer" <terminal.node gmail.com> wrote in message
 news:28b70f8c104198cb3624a1d43670 news.digitalmars.com...
 

 Hello Nick,
 

 "Walter Bright" <newshound1 digitalmars.com> wrote in message
 news:gj519n$1ckg$1 digitalmars.com...
 

 I've run into a lot of programmers lately who, if a language isn't
 on .NET, will not look at it.
 


 This right here is absolute proof of how appallingly pathetic the
 average quality of programmers is, and just how firmly up their
 asses their heads are planted. As much of a need as we have for
 better languages, I'm convinced that need is completely dwarfed by
 the need for better programmers.
 
 And frankly, I'm not so sure that such clearly incompetent fools
 should be encouraged in such tenancies. I say, if someone is so
 bone-headed as to refuse to look at a language for such a stupid
 reason, they *should* be forced to stick with increasingly subpar
 languages. They's the only thing that will lead to their demise. We
 need to save our field from these f****** morons, not encourage
 them.
 
 (And no, I'm not complaining about .NET itself, or .NET languages.)
 


 Hey, Nick, you just snubbed a whole bunch of people and severed all
 hope of demonstrating D's usefulness to anyone. ;)  I'm guessing a
 lot of us here have acted the "morons" in various similar ways when
 we make a weak attempt at argument when things are pushed at us.
 
 Putting it bluntly, that's also the exact attitude that will distance
 people from the language.  Show disdain for them, and you are
 guaranteed to alienate people no matter how strong your argument is.
 That, and such disdain is usually not warranted because it is
 reactive to a shallow response and fails to recognize the deeper
 social issues hinted by such a response.
 
 Incidentally, labelling them "incompetant fools" isn't a very strong
 argument anyway, but you know that. ;D
 

 I say, if someone is so
 bone-headed as to refuse to look at a language for such a stupid
 reason, they *should* be forced to stick with increasingly subpar
 languages.


 You probably realize this, but it's rarely so simple as that.
 Sometimes people make weak silly arguments in response to people
 pushing things on them.  Their reasons for holding onto a technology
 rather than exploring other possibilities may be more related to
 survival and livelihood than sound reason (well, then again, survival
 and livelihood may be very good "reason" :-) ).  Their argument for
 rejection may be just a weak form of saying "go away... life is
 hard... don't bother me with this stuff."  Even so, there is a sort
 of logic contained in their response:  make D viable on the platform
 they know brings in the money, and you may just get their attention.
 
 There are a whole lot of people that aren't risk-takers for very good
 reason; the D community just seems to have attracted the more
 maverick adventurous personalities: we probably look like a bunch of
 extreme sports fanatics from their perspective  :).  Just because
 others give lame responses to why they won't explore a new language,
 doesn't mean they are all losers.  I expect that others might
 consider us to be morons for wasting so much time on D.
 


 I was a bit unclear. Walter's observation just triggered a certain
 nerve. I'll attempt to clarify:
 
 I've personally come across a lot of truly terrible "programmers".
 Refusing to touch a language because it isn't .NET, or because it *is*
 .NET and thus related to MS, or because it isn't Java (and no I don't
 mean JVM), etc. is just one of many classes of fallacies I've seen
 over and over and over among these people. No, that in and of itself
 doesn't make them "incompetant fools" (go figure, the one time I
 decide to skip the spell check ;)), and there may very well be a few
 people who actually do have a rare good reason to stick with .NET.
 But, such "fanboyism" is often fairly indicative of a "fool".
 
 And yes, I really do think it would be best for everyone, developers,
 consumers, and even the fools themselves, if these people were weeded
 out of the field. Thus, the idea of bowing to a fallacy merely because
 it's a popular one truly disgusts me. It should be classified as a
 "reason not to", not a "reason to". (But overall, I would count adding
 .NET as a target for D as a "good thing" (although not a personal
 priority) because one of the "pie in the sky" things I've been
 dreaming to see in the programming world (besides overall better
 programmers) is a complete divorce of language and platform.)
 



Fair enough.  And it may be that you get to see some trully nauseating stuff 
that I'm not in contact with, in which case I have no argument. :)

Thanks for clarifying.

-JJR
Dec 27 2008
prev sibling parent Christopher Wright <dhasenan gmail.com> writes:
Tim Keating wrote:

 Supporting .net would give you access to the most modern and probably
best-currently-supported Windows API. It would, if you counted Mono, add a very
nice cross-platform UI framework. Finally, depending on what version was
supported, it might enable you to write Silverlight apps in D, permitting
flash-like apps that run cross-functionally in a web browser.
Dec 27 2008
prev sibling next sibling parent Johan Granberg <lijat.meREM OVEgmail.com> writes:
Walter Bright wrote:


 What platforms for dmd would you be most interested in using?
 
 .net
 jvm
 mac osx 32 bit intel
 mac osx 64 bit intel
 linux 64 bit
 windows 64 bit
 freebsd 32 bit
 netbsd 32 bit
 
 other?


linux 64 bit
Dec 26 2008
prev sibling next sibling parent Ellery Newcomer <ellery-newcomer utulsa.edu> writes:
Walter Bright wrote:

 What platforms for dmd would you be most interested in using?
 
 .net
 jvm
 mac osx 32 bit intel
 mac osx 64 bit intel
 linux 64 bit
 windows 64 bit
 freebsd 32 bit
 netbsd 32 bit
 
 other?


Was going to say linux 64 bit until someone mentioned game consoles...
Dec 26 2008
prev sibling next sibling parent Alan Knowles <alan akbkhome.com> writes:
freebsd 32 bit - This is the target platform for our live servers as the 
networking guy is a freebsd fanatic (drives me up the wall) - dmd should 
be a relatively easy port?


Walter Bright wrote:

 What platforms for dmd would you be most interested in using?
 
 .net
 jvm
 mac osx 32 bit intel
 mac osx 64 bit intel
 linux 64 bit
 windows 64 bit
 freebsd 32 bit
 netbsd 32 bit
 
 other?
Dec 26 2008
prev sibling next sibling parent Max Samukha <samukha voliacable.com.removethis> writes:
On Thu, 25 Dec 2008 12:30:52 -0800, Walter Bright
<newshound1 digitalmars.com> wrote:


What platforms for dmd would you be most interested in using?

.net
jvm
mac osx 32 bit intel
mac osx 64 bit intel
linux 64 bit
windows 64 bit
freebsd 32 bit
netbsd 32 bit

other?


Windows 64
Linux 64
Dec 27 2008
prev sibling next sibling parent Frits van Bommel <fvbommel REMwOVExCAPSs.nl> writes:
Walter Bright wrote:

 What platforms for dmd would you be most interested in using?


Linux 64 bit.
Dec 27 2008
prev sibling next sibling parent reply Michel Fortin <michel.fortin michelf.com> writes:
On 2008-12-25 15:30:52 -0500, Walter Bright <newshound1 digitalmars.com> said:


 What platforms for dmd would you be most interested in using?
 
 .net
 jvm
 mac osx 32 bit intel
 mac osx 64 bit intel
 linux 64 bit
 windows 64 bit
 freebsd 32 bit
 netbsd 32 bit
 
 other?


I'm on a PowerPC Mac right now so none of this is going to be very 
useful to me.

That said, I'd be very happy if I could bundle a good D compiler with 
my D plugin for Xcode, even if it's Intel-only. Currently, the only 
option is GDC which isn't very appealing in its current state. GDC has 
one advantage though: it's super easy to build universal binaries 
(PowerPC + Intel architecture in one executable). Having an Intel-only 
compiler is a disadvantage when developing Mac apps. A consolation is 
that this will fade over time as PowerPC Macs will get replaced by new 
ones.

So in my order of preference:

Mac OS X 32 bit PowerPC
Mac OS X 32 bit Intel
Mac OS X 64 bit Intel
Mac OS X 64 bit PowerPC

(Not that I expect to see DMD generate PowerPC code in a near future.)

-- 
Michel Fortin
michel.fortin michelf.com
http://michelf.com/
Dec 27 2008
next sibling parent reply "Nick Sabalausky" <a a.a> writes:
"Michel Fortin" <michel.fortin michelf.com> wrote in message 
news:gj595s$2bad$1 digitalmars.com...

 On 2008-12-25 15:30:52 -0500, Walter Bright <newshound1 digitalmars.com> 
 said:


 What platforms for dmd would you be most interested in using?

 .net
 jvm
 mac osx 32 bit intel
 mac osx 64 bit intel
 linux 64 bit
 windows 64 bit
 freebsd 32 bit
 netbsd 32 bit

 other?


 I'm on a PowerPC Mac right now so none of this is going to be very useful 
 to me.

 That said, I'd be very happy if I could bundle a good D compiler with my D 
 plugin for Xcode, even if it's Intel-only. Currently, the only option is 
 GDC which isn't very appealing in its current state. GDC has one advantage 
 though: it's super easy to build universal binaries (PowerPC + Intel 
 architecture in one executable). Having an Intel-only compiler is a 
 disadvantage when developing Mac apps. A consolation is that this will 
 fade over time as PowerPC Macs will get replaced by new ones.

 So in my order of preference:

 Mac OS X 32 bit PowerPC
 Mac OS X 32 bit Intel
 Mac OS X 64 bit Intel
 Mac OS X 64 bit PowerPC

 (Not that I expect to see DMD generate PowerPC code in a near future.)


Ordinarily, I would agree with the need for PowerPC Mac support. But when 
one spends time in the Apple world, they really need to accept the fact that 
their systems will become abandoned at break-neck speed. That's just the way 
the Apple world works these days, and that will continue to be standard 
procedure for at least as long as Jobs in in charge.
Dec 27 2008
next sibling parent Don <nospam nospam.com> writes:
Nick Sabalausky wrote:

 "Michel Fortin" <michel.fortin michelf.com> wrote in message 
 news:gj595s$2bad$1 digitalmars.com...

 On 2008-12-25 15:30:52 -0500, Walter Bright <newshound1 digitalmars.com> 
 said:


 What platforms for dmd would you be most interested in using?

 .net
 jvm
 mac osx 32 bit intel
 mac osx 64 bit intel
 linux 64 bit
 windows 64 bit
 freebsd 32 bit
 netbsd 32 bit

 other?


 I'm on a PowerPC Mac right now so none of this is going to be very useful 
 to me.

 That said, I'd be very happy if I could bundle a good D compiler with my D 
 plugin for Xcode, even if it's Intel-only. Currently, the only option is 
 GDC which isn't very appealing in its current state. GDC has one advantage 
 though: it's super easy to build universal binaries (PowerPC + Intel 
 architecture in one executable). Having an Intel-only compiler is a 
 disadvantage when developing Mac apps. A consolation is that this will 
 fade over time as PowerPC Macs will get replaced by new ones.

 So in my order of preference:

 Mac OS X 32 bit PowerPC
 Mac OS X 32 bit Intel
 Mac OS X 64 bit Intel
 Mac OS X 64 bit PowerPC

 (Not that I expect to see DMD generate PowerPC code in a near future.)


 
 Ordinarily, I would agree with the need for PowerPC Mac support. But when 
 one spends time in the Apple world, they really need to accept the fact that 
 their systems will become abandoned at break-neck speed. That's just the way 
 the Apple world works these days, and that will continue to be standard 
 procedure for at least as long as Jobs in in charge.


There's nothing new. It was standard procedure when I programmed Macs in 
1993-94. Apple has never given a damn about backwards compatibility.
Dec 27 2008
prev sibling parent Michel Fortin <michel.fortin michelf.com> writes:
On 2008-12-27 09:02:57 -0500, "Nick Sabalausky" <a a.a> said:


 Ordinarily, I would agree with the need for PowerPC Mac support. But when
 one spends time in the Apple world, they really need to accept the fact that
 their systems will become abandoned at break-neck speed. That's just the way
 the Apple world works these days, and that will continue to be standard
 procedure for at least as long as Jobs in in charge.


Apple doesn't care much about backward compatibility for most of its 
own apps, but still provide means for developers to work with older 
versions of the Mac OS. Using Xcode 2.0, you can develop applications 
targeted at Mac OS X 10.3 (Panther, a PowerPC-only OS), even on an 
Intel Mac. And using Xcode 1.5, which was updated to work properly on 
Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, you can support as far as Mac OS X 10.2 (Jaguar).

I don't expect Apple to remove PowerPC support from its devlopment 
tools until a few more years. After all, Apple relies on these 
development tools to support their own apps that need to work on older 
OSs, like iTunes which still works on Panther.

It's true that most Apple apps and many third-party ones are only 
compatible with the two or three latest major operating system 
versions, but consider this: three major operating system versions 
would take us to Mac OS X 10.8 (10.6, Snow Leopard, being the first 
removing support for PowerPC), which can't really happen before 2012 or 
2013. In the meanwhile, being able to compile apps only for Intel 
processors will be a disadventage for application developers choosing 
to work in D.

That said, I concede that it'd be a little silly to do a big investment 
in a PowerPC D compiler for Mac OS X. But it's sad that I won't be able 
to use an eventual DMD for Mac OS X unless I buy a new computer.

-- 
Michel Fortin
michel.fortin michelf.com
http://michelf.com/
Dec 28 2008
prev sibling next sibling parent Jacob Carlborg <doobnet gmail.com> writes:
Michel Fortin wrote:

 On 2008-12-25 15:30:52 -0500, Walter Bright <newshound1 digitalmars.com> 
 said:
 

 What platforms for dmd would you be most interested in using?

 .net
 jvm
 mac osx 32 bit intel
 mac osx 64 bit intel
 linux 64 bit
 windows 64 bit
 freebsd 32 bit
 netbsd 32 bit

 other?


 
 I'm on a PowerPC Mac right now so none of this is going to be very 
 useful to me.
 
 That said, I'd be very happy if I could bundle a good D compiler with my 
 D plugin for Xcode, even if it's Intel-only. Currently, the only option 
 is GDC which isn't very appealing in its current state. GDC has one 
 advantage though: it's super easy to build universal binaries (PowerPC + 
 Intel architecture in one executable). Having an Intel-only compiler is 
 a disadvantage when developing Mac apps. A consolation is that this will 
 fade over time as PowerPC Macs will get replaced by new ones.
 
 So in my order of preference:
 
 Mac OS X 32 bit PowerPC
 Mac OS X 32 bit Intel
 Mac OS X 64 bit Intel
 Mac OS X 64 bit PowerPC
 
 (Not that I expect to see DMD generate PowerPC code in a near future.)
 


It would be really nice to be able to build 4-way universal binaries 
(that is, x86 and ppc, 32 and 64bit) with dmd for mac os x, but that 
feels like it's not going to happen in the nearest future.
Dec 27 2008
prev sibling parent reply Walter Bright <newshound1 digitalmars.com> writes:
Michel Fortin wrote:

 (Not that I expect to see DMD generate PowerPC code in a near future.)


There was a ppc code generator at one time, but it got lost.
Dec 27 2008
parent reply Michel Fortin <michel.fortin michelf.com> writes:
On 2008-12-27 15:45:58 -0500, Walter Bright <newshound1 digitalmars.com> said:


 Michel Fortin wrote:

 (Not that I expect to see DMD generate PowerPC code in a near future.)


 
 There was a ppc code generator at one time, but it got lost.


What do you mean, lost?

Any chance of it being resurected? Even if it generates suboptimal 
code, it'd be great to have something that works.

-- 
Michel Fortin
michel.fortin michelf.com
http://michelf.com/
Dec 28 2008
parent Walter Bright <newshound1 digitalmars.com> writes:
Michel Fortin wrote:

 On 2008-12-27 15:45:58 -0500, Walter Bright <newshound1 digitalmars.com> 
 said:
 

 Michel Fortin wrote:

 (Not that I expect to see DMD generate PowerPC code in a near future.)


 There was a ppc code generator at one time, but it got lost.


 
 What do you mean, lost?


The source code was lost. (I didn't write it.)



 Any chance of it being resurected? Even if it generates suboptimal code, 
 it'd be great to have something that works.
Dec 28 2008
prev sibling next sibling parent Jacob Carlborg <doobnet gmail.com> writes:
Walter Bright wrote:

 What platforms for dmd would you be most interested in using?
 
 .net
 jvm
 mac osx 32 bit intel
 mac osx 64 bit intel
 linux 64 bit
 windows 64 bit
 freebsd 32 bit
 netbsd 32 bit
 
 other?


The obvious answer to me is of course all the platforms.

If I have to choose one, then it is mac os x. Then the question is if 
the should be 32bit or 64bit. If you think about it the answer should be 
64bit because all mac computers now days are 64bit and the next mac os x 
version, Snow Leopard, is even more optimized than the current, Leopard, 
this picture illustrates this: 
http://images.appleinsider.com/road-to-sl-080826-6.gif

But then on the other hand almost all libraries and applications are 
built for 32bit.
Dec 27 2008
prev sibling next sibling parent "Dominik" <dominik REMOVETHISvga.hr> writes:
"Walter Bright" <newshound1 digitalmars.com> wrote in message 
news:gj0qht$2lc1$1 digitalmars.com...

 What platforms for dmd would you be most interested in using?

 .net
 jvm
 mac osx 32 bit intel
 mac osx 64 bit intel
 linux 64 bit
 windows 64 bit
 freebsd 32 bit
 netbsd 32 bit

 other?


in order of preference
1. win 32 and 64bit
2. OSX 32 and 64bit
3. Linux 32 and 64bit
Dec 27 2008
prev sibling next sibling parent reply Yigal Chripun <yigal100 gmail.com> writes:
John Reimer Wrote:


 Hello Tim,
 

 Yigal Chripun Wrote:
 

 personally I don't see a point in JVM/.NET - One of the best things
 about D is that you get the ease of use of Ruby/python/etc with the
 benefits of native compiling like in c/c++. Why throw that away and

 


 Supporting .net would give you access to the most modern and probably
 best-currently-supported Windows API. It would, if you counted Mono,
 add a very nice cross-platform UI framework. Finally, depending on
 what version was supported, it might enable you to write Silverlight
 apps in D, permitting flash-like apps that run cross-functionally in a
 web browser.
 
 TK
 


 
 
 Agreed.
 
 Concerning .NET and D technology, I say go for it... especially if someone 
 has the initiative to keep such a port going (afterall, such initiative is 
 really the most important virtue for any hope of success).  For myself, I'm 
 kind of learning not to "restrain" D with my personal biases.  Sometimes 
 we just can't predict what kind of benefits might be in store for the
language, 
 the platform, or other people; such expiditionary moves might not be
successful 
 in themselves, but they could be the critical factor that brings D to the 
 limelight in some future endeavor.
 
 D may be successful in areas we don't necessarily predict or prefer, and 
 .NET is just one of several interesting possibilities to explore.  Therefore, 
 I don't think we should get too tunnel-visioned about "D is better because 
 it's a compiled language".  It may be important to keep the vision a little 
 more open to other technologies (like VM's and such) especially as
optimizations 
 improve in these areas.  Otherwise, D will be at risk of loosing it's general 
 purpose nature... and being permanently fixated as a niche language.  Porting 
 to .NET, therefore, becomes a clever way of "proving" D's viability on other 
 technology platfroms.
 

 comfortable programming environment such that it would be a welcome
alternative 
 even in the .NET world.  Microsoft may even come to see the benefits, since 
 D might attract an even more diverse audience to the platform, people who 
 would have otherwise avoided it.  You never know. ;)
 
 That'd probably be all it would take for me to start experimenting with .NET 
 and Mono.
 
 -JJR
 
 
 


You make a valid point. Attracting new developers to D by supporting more
platforms is a worthy long-term goal for the D language.

however, I have a 64 bit PC and since Walter is only one person with limited
time, I'd personally want that Walter spend his time in the short term on

.net for now and as I said before it's close enough to a D.net.
On the native compiled front I really wouldn't want to go back to C++ after
using D.  
so answering Walter's original question:
for me .net port is VERY low priority compared to 64 bit support which is  a
HIGH priority.
Dec 27 2008
parent reply John Reimer <terminal.node gmail.com> writes:
Hello Yigal,


 John Reimer Wrote:
 

 Hello Tim,
 

 Yigal Chripun Wrote:
 

 personally I don't see a point in JVM/.NET - One of the best things
 about D is that you get the ease of use of Ruby/python/etc with the
 benefits of native compiling like in c/c++. Why throw that away and

 


 Supporting .net would give you access to the most modern and
 probably best-currently-supported Windows API. It would, if you
 counted Mono, add a very nice cross-platform UI framework. Finally,
 depending on what version was supported, it might enable you to
 write Silverlight apps in D, permitting flash-like apps that run
 cross-functionally in a web browser.
 
 TK
 


 Agreed.
 
 Concerning .NET and D technology, I say go for it... especially if
 someone has the initiative to keep such a port going (afterall, such
 initiative is really the most important virtue for any hope of
 success).  For myself, I'm kind of learning not to "restrain" D with
 my personal biases.  Sometimes we just can't predict what kind of
 benefits might be in store for the language, the platform, or other
 people; such expiditionary moves might not be successful in
 themselves, but they could be the critical factor that brings D to
 the limelight in some future endeavor.
 
 D may be successful in areas we don't necessarily predict or prefer,
 and .NET is just one of several interesting possibilities to explore.
 Therefore, I don't think we should get too tunnel-visioned about "D
 is better because it's a compiled language".  It may be important to
 keep the vision a little more open to other technologies (like VM's
 and such) especially as optimizations improve in these areas.
 Otherwise, D will be at risk of loosing it's general purpose
 nature... and being permanently fixated as a niche language.  Porting
 to .NET, therefore, becomes a clever way of "proving" D's viability
 on other technology platfroms.
 

 competitive and comfortable programming environment such that it
 would be a welcome alternative even in the .NET world.  Microsoft may
 even come to see the benefits, since D might attract an even more
 diverse audience to the platform, people who would have otherwise
 avoided it.  You never know. ;)
 
 That'd probably be all it would take for me to start experimenting
 with .NET and Mono.
 
 -JJR
 


 You make a valid point. Attracting new developers to D by supporting
 more platforms is a worthy long-term goal for the D language.
 
 however, I have a 64 bit PC and since Walter is only one person with
 limited time, I'd personally want that Walter spend his time in the
 short term on adding support for 64 bit, not working on a .net port. I

 enough to a D.net.
 
 On the native compiled front I really wouldn't want to go back to C++
 after using D.
 
 so answering Walter's original question:
 
 for me .net port is VERY low priority compared to 64 bit support which
 is  a HIGH priority.
 



Yep, I understand your point as valid also when it comes to prioritizing 
which platform most needs to be worked on.  That's why the completion of 
.NET support would probably have to be done by another... which may be the 
case already.

-JJR
Dec 27 2008
next sibling parent reply Walter Bright <newshound1 digitalmars.com> writes:
John Reimer wrote:

 Yep, I understand your point as valid also when it comes to prioritizing 
 which platform most needs to be worked on.  That's why the completion of 
 .NET support would probably have to be done by another... which may be 
 the case already.


Cristi (of zerobugs fame) is doing the D.NET compiler.
Dec 27 2008
parent John Reimer <terminal.node gmail.com> writes:
Hello Walter,


 John Reimer wrote:
 

 Yep, I understand your point as valid also when it comes to
 prioritizing which platform most needs to be worked on.  That's why
 the completion of .NET support would probably have to be done by
 another... which may be the case already.
 


 Cristi (of zerobugs fame) is doing the D.NET compiler.
 



Yep, I knew he was working on it.  I just wasn't willing to presume the extent 
of responsibility 
he was willing to take for the task.

-JJR
Dec 27 2008
prev sibling parent reply Yigal Chripun <yigal100 gmail.com> writes:
John Reimer wrote:

 Hello Yigal,


 John Reimer Wrote:


 Hello Tim,


 Yigal Chripun Wrote:


 personally I don't see a point in JVM/.NET - One of the best things
 about D is that you get the ease of use of Ruby/python/etc with the
 benefits of native compiling like in c/c++. Why throw that away and



 Supporting .net would give you access to the most modern and
 probably best-currently-supported Windows API. It would, if you
 counted Mono, add a very nice cross-platform UI framework. Finally,
 depending on what version was supported, it might enable you to
 write Silverlight apps in D, permitting flash-like apps that run
 cross-functionally in a web browser.

 TK


 Agreed.

 Concerning .NET and D technology, I say go for it... especially if
 someone has the initiative to keep such a port going (afterall, such
 initiative is really the most important virtue for any hope of
 success). For myself, I'm kind of learning not to "restrain" D with
 my personal biases. Sometimes we just can't predict what kind of
 benefits might be in store for the language, the platform, or other
 people; such expiditionary moves might not be successful in
 themselves, but they could be the critical factor that brings D to
 the limelight in some future endeavor.

 D may be successful in areas we don't necessarily predict or prefer,
 and .NET is just one of several interesting possibilities to explore.
 Therefore, I don't think we should get too tunnel-visioned about "D
 is better because it's a compiled language". It may be important to
 keep the vision a little more open to other technologies (like VM's
 and such) especially as optimizations improve in these areas.
 Otherwise, D will be at risk of loosing it's general purpose
 nature... and being permanently fixated as a niche language. Porting
 to .NET, therefore, becomes a clever way of "proving" D's viability
 on other technology platfroms.


 competitive and comfortable programming environment such that it
 would be a welcome alternative even in the .NET world. Microsoft may
 even come to see the benefits, since D might attract an even more
 diverse audience to the platform, people who would have otherwise
 avoided it. You never know. ;)

 That'd probably be all it would take for me to start experimenting
 with .NET and Mono.

 -JJR


 You make a valid point. Attracting new developers to D by supporting
 more platforms is a worthy long-term goal for the D language.

 however, I have a 64 bit PC and since Walter is only one person with
 limited time, I'd personally want that Walter spend his time in the
 short term on adding support for 64 bit, not working on a .net port. I

 enough to a D.net.

 On the native compiled front I really wouldn't want to go back to C++
 after using D.

 so answering Walter's original question:

 for me .net port is VERY low priority compared to 64 bit support which
 is a HIGH priority.



 Yep, I understand your point as valid also when it comes to prioritizing
 which platform most needs to be worked on. That's why the completion of
 .NET support would probably have to be done by another... which may be
 the case already.

 -JJR


also, while I agree with having a D.net to get more exposure for D and 
attracting new developers, I personally wouldn't use it and I doubt any 
other existing D developers would use it. There's also another concern 
about such a port - the libraries. The phobos/Tango split hurt D enough 
and adding the .net libs (or the JVM ones) to the mix will make this 
issue even worse.
Dec 27 2008
parent reply John Reimer <terminal.node gmail.com> writes:
Hello Yigal,


 John Reimer wrote:
 

 Hello Yigal,
 

 John Reimer Wrote:
 

 Hello Tim,
 

 Yigal Chripun Wrote:
 

 personally I don't see a point in JVM/.NET - One of the best
 things about D is that you get the ease of use of Ruby/python/etc
 with the benefits of native compiling like in c/c++. Why throw

 


 Supporting .net would give you access to the most modern and
 probably best-currently-supported Windows API. It would, if you
 counted Mono, add a very nice cross-platform UI framework.
 Finally, depending on what version was supported, it might enable
 you to write Silverlight apps in D, permitting flash-like apps
 that run cross-functionally in a web browser.
 
 TK
 


 Agreed.
 
 Concerning .NET and D technology, I say go for it... especially if
 someone has the initiative to keep such a port going (afterall,
 such initiative is really the most important virtue for any hope of
 success). For myself, I'm kind of learning not to "restrain" D with
 my personal biases. Sometimes we just can't predict what kind of
 benefits might be in store for the language, the platform, or other
 people; such expiditionary moves might not be successful in
 themselves, but they could be the critical factor that brings D to
 the limelight in some future endeavor.
 
 D may be successful in areas we don't necessarily predict or
 prefer, and .NET is just one of several interesting possibilities
 to explore. Therefore, I don't think we should get too
 tunnel-visioned about "D is better because it's a compiled
 language". It may be important to keep the vision a little more
 open to other technologies (like VM's and such) especially as
 optimizations improve in these areas. Otherwise, D will be at risk
 of loosing it's general purpose nature... and being permanently
 fixated as a niche language. Porting to .NET, therefore, becomes a
 clever way of "proving" D's viability on other technology
 platfroms.
 

 competitive and comfortable programming environment such that it
 would be a welcome alternative even in the .NET world. Microsoft
 may even come to see the benefits, since D might attract an even
 more diverse audience to the platform, people who would have
 otherwise avoided it. You never know. ;)
 
 That'd probably be all it would take for me to start experimenting
 with .NET and Mono.
 
 -JJR
 


 You make a valid point. Attracting new developers to D by supporting
 more platforms is a worthy long-term goal for the D language.
 
 however, I have a 64 bit PC and since Walter is only one person with
 limited time, I'd personally want that Walter spend his time in the
 short term on adding support for 64 bit, not working on a .net port.

 enough to a D.net.
 
 On the native compiled front I really wouldn't want to go back to
 C++ after using D.
 
 so answering Walter's original question:
 
 for me .net port is VERY low priority compared to 64 bit support
 which is a HIGH priority.
 


 Yep, I understand your point as valid also when it comes to
 prioritizing which platform most needs to be worked on. That's why
 the completion of .NET support would probably have to be done by
 another... which may be the case already.
 
 -JJR
 


 also, while I agree with having a D.net to get more exposure for D and
 attracting new developers, I personally wouldn't use it and I doubt
 any other existing D developers would use it. There's also another
 concern about such a port - the libraries. The phobos/Tango split hurt
 D enough and adding the .net libs (or the JVM ones) to the mix will
 make this issue even worse.
 



Two things I question in your post:

(1) The assumption that existing D developers won't use it.

(2) The assumption that the D port will only use .net libs.

I don't think we have enough information yet on either point.  Perhaps you 
know more than I do. :)

-JJR
Dec 27 2008
next sibling parent "Nick Sabalausky" <a a.a> writes:
"John Reimer" <terminal.node gmail.com> wrote in message 
news:28b70f8c104808cb3654b402e6d0 news.digitalmars.com...

 Hello Yigal,


 John Reimer wrote:


 Hello Yigal,


 John Reimer Wrote:


 Hello Tim,


 Yigal Chripun Wrote:


 personally I don't see a point in JVM/.NET - One of the best
 things about D is that you get the ease of use of Ruby/python/etc
 with the benefits of native compiling like in c/c++. Why throw



 Supporting .net would give you access to the most modern and
 probably best-currently-supported Windows API. It would, if you
 counted Mono, add a very nice cross-platform UI framework.
 Finally, depending on what version was supported, it might enable
 you to write Silverlight apps in D, permitting flash-like apps
 that run cross-functionally in a web browser.

 TK


 Agreed.

 Concerning .NET and D technology, I say go for it... especially if
 someone has the initiative to keep such a port going (afterall,
 such initiative is really the most important virtue for any hope of
 success). For myself, I'm kind of learning not to "restrain" D with
 my personal biases. Sometimes we just can't predict what kind of
 benefits might be in store for the language, the platform, or other
 people; such expiditionary moves might not be successful in
 themselves, but they could be the critical factor that brings D to
 the limelight in some future endeavor.

 D may be successful in areas we don't necessarily predict or
 prefer, and .NET is just one of several interesting possibilities
 to explore. Therefore, I don't think we should get too
 tunnel-visioned about "D is better because it's a compiled
 language". It may be important to keep the vision a little more
 open to other technologies (like VM's and such) especially as
 optimizations improve in these areas. Otherwise, D will be at risk
 of loosing it's general purpose nature... and being permanently
 fixated as a niche language. Porting to .NET, therefore, becomes a
 clever way of "proving" D's viability on other technology
 platfroms.


 competitive and comfortable programming environment such that it
 would be a welcome alternative even in the .NET world. Microsoft
 may even come to see the benefits, since D might attract an even
 more diverse audience to the platform, people who would have
 otherwise avoided it. You never know. ;)

 That'd probably be all it would take for me to start experimenting
 with .NET and Mono.

 -JJR


 You make a valid point. Attracting new developers to D by supporting
 more platforms is a worthy long-term goal for the D language.

 however, I have a 64 bit PC and since Walter is only one person with
 limited time, I'd personally want that Walter spend his time in the
 short term on adding support for 64 bit, not working on a .net port.

 enough to a D.net.

 On the native compiled front I really wouldn't want to go back to
 C++ after using D.

 so answering Walter's original question:

 for me .net port is VERY low priority compared to 64 bit support
 which is a HIGH priority.


 Yep, I understand your point as valid also when it comes to
 prioritizing which platform most needs to be worked on. That's why
 the completion of .NET support would probably have to be done by
 another... which may be the case already.

 -JJR


 also, while I agree with having a D.net to get more exposure for D and
 attracting new developers, I personally wouldn't use it and I doubt
 any other existing D developers would use it. There's also another
 concern about such a port - the libraries. The phobos/Tango split hurt
 D enough and adding the .net libs (or the JVM ones) to the mix will
 make this issue even worse.



 Two things I question in your post:

 (1) The assumption that existing D developers won't use it.


I'm going to lump .NET and JVM (and the Flash VM) together here and say that 
there are some things (particularly on the internet) that unfortunately, due 
to existing software infrastructure (ex, browser), can't realistically be 
done with natively-compiled code. Whenever I'm unlucky enough to find myself 
in one of these situations, I'd much rather use D than any of the languages 
usually associated with such platforms. And even with .NET in particular, 

things I would like to see added to D), the templates and metaprogramming 

niceities that D lacks.


 (2) The assumption that the D port will only use .net libs.


I'd view this as more of a concern that the D port would use the .NET libs, 
rather than an assumption. If a D.NET ended up needing to use the .NET libs 
in place of phobos and tango, or if the .NET platform necessitated certain 
changes in the phobos/tango APIs, then that would indeed be a problem that 
would take away much (though not all) of the usefulness of a D.NET.


 I don't think we have enough information yet on either point.  Perhaps you 
 know more than I do. :)

 -JJR
Dec 27 2008
prev sibling parent BCS <ao pathlink.com> writes:
Reply to John,



 (2) The assumption that the D port will only use .net libs.
 


Thinking about it more (and in the context of the above) their might be some 
interesting results of D.NET. 

Could a D based .NET assembly transparently call into both .NET managed libs 
and unmanaged CRT style libs? 
How does the safed stuff map to the managed environment model?
Could D provide a clean language for mixing native code (totally normal D),
Dec 27 2008
prev sibling next sibling parent "Jim Hewes" <jimhewes gmail.com> writes:
.NET

But *only* if D had a way to fully support RAII. Otherwise, I'd just as soon 



might have an advantage if it could do this better.

I should add that maybe my vote shouldn't count as much because I don't 
regularly use D at the moment although I like the language and I follow the 

being 85% of the time at work. For our core product, we need to support 
Windows 32 and 64-bit, Linux, Mac, WinCE (x86 and ARM). And we need to 
export a C API. The only choice really is C++. I have to be honest, using D 
there would be a hard sell.:-( But for our peripheral projects, like utility 
apps and stuff, almost anything could be used. It's then a matter of getting 
fellow coworkers to agree to use a different language, which they usually 
would rather not do unfortunately.

If implementing D on .NET does nothing but increase its visibility as a 
legitimate language choice, then maybe it's a good thing.

Jim
Dec 27 2008
prev sibling next sibling parent =?ISO-8859-1?Q?S=F6nke_Ludwig?= writes:
Order of preference:
   Mac 32bit
   * 64bit
   .net
   --- below only theoretically interesting
   freebsd
   netbsd
   jvm


For my personal project I'm currently fine with only 32-bit x86 support. 
  Mac support would definitely be the most important step here, 
especially since many people I know which would like to use D are on 
Macs and are discouraged by the bad support for that platform. Also it 
will be an important platform for the time when the project goes public.

At work I would like to eventually start introducing D when D2 has 
settled a bit (the planned threading model will be very interesting 
there). In that environment all of Win/32/64 and Mac/32/64 would have to 
be supported. 64-bit support can be very useful there, as virtual 
address space is a major optimization target (image processing and 
database operations). In addition, 64-bit support is required by 
marketing needs alone (people with their shiny new Vista-64 PC asking 
why the software does not use their hardware properly). Currently we 
also still have to support PPC. I'm not sure how long that requirement 
holds, probably depends on Apple's own deprecation policy.

.NET support would be very welcome if it could act as a transparent 
bridge between D and .NET (same would go for D and Cocoa) - This would 
be the part where Managed C++ (or Objective-C++) is currently used. If 
.net should be supported before OS X, this could also be used as a nice 
platform replacement.
Dec 28 2008
prev sibling next sibling parent BCS <ao pathlink.com> writes:
Reply to Walter,


 What platforms for dmd would you be most interested in using?
 
 .net
 jvm
 mac osx 32 bit intel
 mac osx 64 bit intel
 linux 64 bit
 windows 64 bit
 freebsd 32 bit
 netbsd 32 bit
 other?
 


whatever you decide to support, can it be fully open source?
Dec 28 2008
prev sibling next sibling parent Benji Smith <dlanguage benjismith.net> writes:
Walter Bright wrote:

 What platforms for dmd would you be most interested in using?
 
 .net
 jvm
 mac osx 32 bit intel
 mac osx 64 bit intel
 linux 64 bit
 windows 64 bit
 freebsd 32 bit
 netbsd 32 bit
 
 other?


My choice, BY FAR, would be Mac OSX 32 bit.

When I started my current D project, six months ago or so, it looked 
like GDC mac support was on a steady, healthy incline, and that choosing 
D as a development platform would yield full mac compatibility in the 
very near future.

Supporting the mac platform is absolutely essential for my product, so 
without a viable D compiler, I'll have to rewrite a bunch of code in C, 
which would make me very sad.

The 64-bit win/lin/mac platforms would also be nice to have. But as long 
as every 64-bit OS provides legacy support for 32-bit apps, I consider a 
64-bit D compiler pretty low priority, for the type of work I'm 
currently doing.

The bsd platform is completely off my radar screen, and given Walter's 
limited resources, I'd be disappointed to see these given much attention.

.NET and the JVM would be compelling for the marketing of D, making the 
language seem more mainstream and widely accessible. But I personally 
wouldn't find much use in them. The primary benefit of D, for me, is 
escaping from the confines of the VMs and being able to do system-level 
stuff.

I frequently develop for both the CLR and the JVM, but when I do so, I 

ever elect to write D for a VM platform.

--benji

PS -- Game console platforms would be very very cool as well. For me, 
I'd be interested in the cell processor, for the PS3. HOWEVER, since the 
native PS3 SDK is proprietary (with a $10,000 licensing fee), and since 
linux on the PS3 uses artificially crippled hardware, my interest in 
developing anything on the PS3 is little more than casual curiosity.
Dec 28 2008
prev sibling next sibling parent =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Anders_F_Bj=F6rklund?= <afb algonet.se> writes:
Walter Bright wrote:


 What platforms for dmd would you be most interested in using?
 
 .net
 jvm
 mac osx 32 bit intel
 mac osx 64 bit intel
 linux 64 bit
 windows 64 bit
 freebsd 32 bit
 netbsd 32 bit
 
 other?


Mac OS X 32-bit Intel

Support for 64-bit and Vector would be "nice" across the board.
But DMD2 support for Mac OS X 10.4-10.6 would be my preference.

--anders
Dec 30 2008
prev sibling next sibling parent reply Daniel de Kok <me nowhere.nospam> writes:
On 2008-12-25 21:30:52 +0100, Walter Bright <newshound1 digitalmars.com> said:


 What platforms for dmd would you be most interested in using?


In order of decreasing precedence:

Mac OS X 64-bit Intel
Linux x86_64
Mac OS X 32-bit Intel

I wouldn't use the other platforms much (if at all).

Take care,
Daniel
Dec 30 2008
parent reply K.Wilson <k.wilson nospam.nowhere.com> writes:
Daniel de Kok Wrote:


 On 2008-12-25 21:30:52 +0100, Walter Bright <newshound1 digitalmars.com> said:
 

 What platforms for dmd would you be most interested in using?


 
 In order of decreasing precedence:
 
 Mac OS X 64-bit Intel
 Linux x86_64
 Mac OS X 32-bit Intel
 
 I wouldn't use the other platforms much (if at all).
 
 Take care,
 Daniel
 


Just my two bits here.  I would like to see Linux x86_64 support, above all
else. I am the guy that added x64 support to ldc, solely because I have nothing
but 64bit machines here ;)

This doesn't mean that I use the 64 bit address space and all those registers,
and that I max out the system every day (as another part of this thread seems
to indicate is a requirement????)...it just means that dmd wouldn't work on my
machines and gdc didn't support/compile some code I was using. I needed a
working compiler on x64 Linux and poking inside gdc is not my favorite
activity, so I updated ldc.

Thanks,
K.Wilson

P.S. I also have access to a PPC Mac, so I guess that would be second on my
list...I think Mac support in general would be nice.
Jan 04 2009
parent reply "Nick Sabalausky" <a a.a> writes:
"K.Wilson" <k.wilson nospam.nowhere.com> wrote in message 
news:gjrprj$la5$1 digitalmars.com...

 Daniel de Kok Wrote:


 On 2008-12-25 21:30:52 +0100, Walter Bright <newshound1 digitalmars.com> 
 said:


 What platforms for dmd would you be most interested in using?


 In order of decreasing precedence:

 Mac OS X 64-bit Intel
 Linux x86_64
 Mac OS X 32-bit Intel

 I wouldn't use the other platforms much (if at all).

 Take care,
 Daniel


 Just my two bits here.  I would like to see Linux x86_64 support, above 
 all else. I am the guy that added x64 support to ldc, solely because I 
 have nothing but 64bit machines here ;)

 This doesn't mean that I use the 64 bit address space and all those 
 registers, and that I max out the system every day (as another part of 
 this thread seems to indicate is a requirement????)...it just means that 
 dmd wouldn't work on my machines and gdc didn't support/compile some code 
 I was using. I needed a working compiler on x64 Linux and poking inside 
 gdc is not my favorite activity, so I updated ldc.


I guess there was confusion about DMD support for a particular host platform 
vs a particular target platform. If DMD does't even run or work correctly on 
64-bit machines, even in 32-bit mode, (I don't know, as I don't use them) 
then yes, that indeed is a very major problem.


 Thanks,
 K.Wilson

 P.S. I also have access to a PPC Mac, so I guess that would be second on 
 my list...I think Mac support in general would be nice.
Jan 05 2009
parent reply Walter Bright <newshound1 digitalmars.com> writes:
Nick Sabalausky wrote:

 I guess there was confusion about DMD support for a particular host platform 
 vs a particular target platform. If DMD does't even run or work correctly on 
 64-bit machines, even in 32-bit mode, (I don't know, as I don't use them) 
 then yes, that indeed is a very major problem.


I use 32 bit DMD on my Ubuntu 64 box, and it works fine.
Jan 07 2009
next sibling parent K.Wilson <k.wilson nospam.nowhere.com> writes:
Walter Bright Wrote:


 Nick Sabalausky wrote:

 I guess there was confusion about DMD support for a particular host platform 
 vs a particular target platform. If DMD does't even run or work correctly on 
 64-bit machines, even in 32-bit mode, (I don't know, as I don't use them) 
 then yes, that indeed is a very major problem.


 
 I use 32 bit DMD on my Ubuntu 64 box, and it works fine.


Strange, I have tried dmd on my Ubuntu 64 box and it doesn't work because of
64bit lib incompatibilities...I guess I have something messed up on that
machine for 32bit libs?!?

I have since tried dmd on a Ubuntu 64 virtual machine and it does work, so my
bad on that count.

Thanks,
K.Wilson
Jan 08 2009
prev sibling parent K.Wilson <k.wilson nospam.nowhere.com> writes:
Walter Bright Wrote:


 Nick Sabalausky wrote:

 I guess there was confusion about DMD support for a particular host platform 
 vs a particular target platform. If DMD does't even run or work correctly on 
 64-bit machines, even in 32-bit mode, (I don't know, as I don't use them) 
 then yes, that indeed is a very major problem.


 
 I use 32 bit DMD on my Ubuntu 64 box, and it works fine.


Strange, I have tried dmd on my Ubuntu 64 box and it doesn't work because of
64bit lib incompatibilities...I guess I have something messed up on that
machine for 32bit libs?!?

I have since tried dmd on a Ubuntu 64 virtual machine and it does work, so my
bad on that count.

Thanks,
K.Wilson
Jan 08 2009
prev sibling next sibling parent reply Tim Keating <mrtact gmail.com> writes:
Christopher Wright Wrote:


 Tim Keating wrote:

 Supporting .net would give you access to the most modern and probably
best-currently-supported Windows API. It would, if you counted Mono, add a very
nice cross-platform UI framework. Finally, depending on what version was
supported, it might enable you to write Silverlight apps in D, permitting
flash-like apps that run cross-functionally in a web browser.


 



I think you forgot a smiley :-)

But on the off-chance you're serious... I meant WinForms (or, as of .Net 3,
WPF, which -- on pain of getting lynched in this newsgroup -- is the most
powerful and flexible UI framework I've ever seen).
Dec 30 2008
next sibling parent reply John Reimer <terminal.node gmail.com> writes:
Hello Tim,


 Christopher Wright Wrote:
 

 Tim Keating wrote:
 

 Supporting .net would give you access to the most modern and
 probably best-currently-supported Windows API. It would, if you
 counted Mono, add a very nice cross-platform UI framework. Finally,
 depending on what version was supported, it might enable you to
 write Silverlight apps in D, permitting flash-like apps that run
 cross-functionally in a web browser.
 



 


 I think you forgot a smiley :-)
 
 But on the off-chance you're serious... I meant WinForms (or, as of
 .Net 3, WPF, which -- on pain of getting lynched in this newsgroup --
 is the most powerful and flexible UI framework I've ever seen).
 



He he.... Thankfully, it takes much more than that to get lynched in this 
newsgroup (sometimes).  Even so, you're sure to have a least a few people 
come to your rescue before the deed could be done.   There's enough diversity 
in here to guarantee that, even if it's not always popular to applaud MS 
technologies. ;)

Anyway, for those of us who are unfamiliar with WinForms, the question would 
be whether or not WinForms works on Mono.  A quick google seems to indicate 
that WinForms is, at least, partially implemented on Mono.

-JJR
Dec 30 2008
parent Lutger <lutger.blijdestijn gmail.com> writes:
John Reimer wrote:
...

 Anyway, for those of us who are unfamiliar with WinForms, the question
 would
 be whether or not WinForms works on Mono.  A quick google seems to
 indicate that WinForms is, at least, partially implemented on Mono.
 
 -JJR


WinForms is supported, also Novell and the Gnome project support mono so there
is a good chance it will get a good implementation. For WPF there aren't any
plans to implement on mono however.
Dec 31 2008
prev sibling next sibling parent Yigal Chripun <yigal100 gmail.com> writes:
Tim Keating wrote:

 Christopher Wright Wrote:


 Tim Keating wrote:

 Supporting .net would give you access to the most modern and
 probably best-currently-supported Windows API. It would, if you
 counted Mono, add a very nice cross-platform UI framework.
 Finally, depending on what version was supported, it might enable
 you to write Silverlight apps in D, permitting flash-like apps
 that run cross-functionally in a web browser.





 I think you forgot a smiley :-)

 But on the off-chance you're serious... I meant WinForms (or, as of
 .Net 3, WPF, which -- on pain of getting lynched in this newsgroup --
 is the most powerful and flexible UI framework I've ever seen).


You must be kidding right?
WPF is flexible and allows 3D effects and such, I'll grant you that. 
However, my laptop almost exploded of the stress of just showing a 
freaking window with it, and it's a relativly new laptop.
it'a redicolus that what a pentium 2 running Linux and compiz can do 
requires a 64-_core_ super computer with MS tech.
I'm not sure even my new month old icore7 pc can handle the requirements 
of that particular API.

I'll wait till WPF version 40 SP100 before I'll try it again...
Dec 30 2008
prev sibling parent Christopher Wright <dhasenan gmail.com> writes:
Tim Keating wrote:

 Christopher Wright Wrote:
 

 Tim Keating wrote:

 Supporting .net would give you access to the most modern and probably
best-currently-supported Windows API. It would, if you counted Mono, add a very
nice cross-platform UI framework. Finally, depending on what version was
supported, it might enable you to write Silverlight apps in D, permitting
flash-like apps that run cross-functionally in a web browser.





 
 I think you forgot a smiley :-)
 
 But on the off-chance you're serious... I meant WinForms (or, as of .Net 3,
WPF, which -- on pain of getting lynched in this newsgroup -- is the most
powerful and flexible UI framework I've ever seen).


Mono has a usable WinForms implementation. I noticed some issues using 


for .NET applications that might run on Mono.
Dec 31 2008
prev sibling next sibling parent Olli Aalto <oaalto gmail.com> writes:
Walter Bright wrote:

 What platforms for dmd would you be most interested in using?
 
 .net
 jvm
 mac osx 32 bit intel
 mac osx 64 bit intel
 linux 64 bit
 windows 64 bit
 freebsd 32 bit
 netbsd 32 bit
 
 other?


Mac mac mac mac mac. Did I say mac already?

some time in the future:
64bit win/lin
jvm
Dec 31 2008
prev sibling next sibling parent David L. Davis <SpottedTiger yahoo.com> writes:
Walter Bright Wrote:


 What platforms for dmd would you be most interested in using?
 
 .net
 jvm
 mac osx 32 bit intel
 mac osx 64 bit intel
 linux 64 bit
 windows 64 bit
 freebsd 32 bit
 netbsd 32 bit
 
 other?


I'm most interested in .net and Windows 64-bit platforms, would love to see D
support them (and of course refined support for multi-cpus).
Dec 31 2008
prev sibling next sibling parent bstill <bstill gmail.com> writes:
Windows-ARM cross compiler...please.

Windows Mobile device (smart phone) market is more and more bigger.

Graham St Jack Wrote:


 On Thu, 25 Dec 2008 15:56:29 -0800, Sean Kelly wrote:
 

 Walter Bright wrote:

 What platforms for dmd would you be most interested in using?


 
 In order of preference:
 
 mac osx 32 bit intel
 linux 64 bit
 mac osx 64 bit intel


 
 Ditto
Jan 07 2009
prev sibling next sibling parent Rohan <rohan land.ru> writes:
Syllable - would be nice to see native port of DMD
Jan 11 2009
prev sibling parent reply suresh <sureshkrshukla gmail.com> writes:
Hi Walter,

I am embedded systems programmer. I crave to use D when I have to use C/C++.

I would like to see dmd support cross-compilation for ARM(9) family.

In my ideal world (dream :) ) 'gdc' would have been the main line for
development
and getting it to run on all the above mentioned platforms would be easy.
AFAIK back-end support for gcc already supports - native x86 32 bit , .Net IL,
bytecode etc.

What I remember from computer language benchmarks performance of gdc was very
close to dmd.
[http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/debian/benchmark.php?test=all&lang=all]

This is one very critical move which can make D mainstream language very soon.

Anyway, you understand these details much better than me.
Feb 27 2009
next sibling parent reply bearophile <bearophileHUGS lycos.com> writes:
suresh:

 In my ideal world (dream :) ) 'gdc' would have been the main line for
development
 and getting it to run on all the above mentioned platforms would be easy.


Also take a look at LDC:
http://www.dsource.org/projects/ldc
The backend doesn't support exceptions on Windows (the Linux64 and D2 versions,
and the lack of support of Phobos will eventually be fixed by LDC developers, I
presume).

Bye,
bearophile
Feb 27 2009
parent reply Jarrett Billingsley <jarrett.billingsley gmail.com> writes:
On Fri, Feb 27, 2009 at 4:19 AM, bearophile <bearophileHUGS lycos.com> wrote:

 suresh:

 In my ideal world (dream :) ) 'gdc' would have been the main line for
development
 and getting it to run on all the above mentioned platforms would be easy.


 Also take a look at LDC:
 http://www.dsource.org/projects/ldc
 The backend doesn't support exceptions on Windows (the Linux64 and D2
versions, and the lack of support of Phobos will eventually be fixed by LDC
developers, I presume).


I thought I heard that LDC works on 64-bit Linux.  And geez, give them
a break about D2 - it's still in alpha :P
Feb 27 2009
parent Christopher Wright <dhasenan gmail.com> writes:
Jarrett Billingsley wrote:

 On Fri, Feb 27, 2009 at 4:19 AM, bearophile <bearophileHUGS lycos.com> wrote:

 suresh:

 In my ideal world (dream :) ) 'gdc' would have been the main line for
development
 and getting it to run on all the above mentioned platforms would be easy.


 Also take a look at LDC:
 http://www.dsource.org/projects/ldc
 The backend doesn't support exceptions on Windows (the Linux64 and D2
versions, and the lack of support of Phobos will eventually be fixed by LDC
developers, I presume).


 
 I thought I heard that LDC works on 64-bit Linux.  And geez, give them
 a break about D2 - it's still in alpha :P


I used it for some time on 64-bit linux. I stopped maybe a month ago. 
LDC is very close to meeting the quality of DMD. By the end of the year, 
most likely, I will be using it rather than DMD as a matter of course.
Feb 27 2009
prev sibling parent Jarrett Billingsley <jarrett.billingsley gmail.com> writes:
On Fri, Feb 27, 2009 at 4:01 AM, suresh <sureshkrshukla gmail.com> wrote:

 Hi Walter,

 I am embedded systems programmer. I crave to use D when I have to use C/C++.

 I would like to see dmd support cross-compilation for ARM(9) family.


Downs has gotten GDC to work on ARM at least to an extent.  He was
using it to make some stuff for the Nintendo DS.  I wonder how
stable/complete it is.
Feb 27 2009