• Dennis Cote (15/15) Jul 20 2019 I'm just curious if there is a good reason why LDC is built with
• Nicholas Wilson (5/20) Jul 20 2019 Probably because that corresponds to the minimum version that the
• Johan Engelen (5/20) Jul 21 2019 This depends on where you get the compiler from. The official

Dennis Cote <private secret.com> writes:

I'm just curious if there is a good reason why LDC is built with 
an old version of LDC? LDC reports the following using the 
--version option

  Jul 20 13:23:42 on ttys000
Denniss-iMac:~ dennis$ ldc2 --version
LDC - the LLVM D compiler (1.16.0):
   based on DMD v2.086.1 and LLVM 8.0.0
   built with LDC - the LLVM D compiler (1.12.0)
   Default target: x86_64-apple-darwin18.6.0
   Host CPU: skylake
   http://dlang.org - http://wiki.dlang.org/LDC

Why is version 1.16.0 built using version 1.12.0? Could the build 
tools not bootstrap the compiler using 1.12.0, and then recompile 
the source for version 1.16.0 using the version 1.16.0 compiler 
built using the older compiler?

Nicholas Wilson <iamthewilsonator hotmail.com> writes:

On Saturday, 20 July 2019 at 19:34:35 UTC, Dennis Cote wrote:
 I'm just curious if there is a good reason why LDC is built 
 with an old version of LDC? LDC reports the following using the 
 --version option

  Jul 20 13:23:42 on ttys000
 Denniss-iMac:~ dennis$ ldc2 --version
 LDC - the LLVM D compiler (1.16.0):
   based on DMD v2.086.1 and LLVM 8.0.0
   built with LDC - the LLVM D compiler (1.12.0)
   Default target: x86_64-apple-darwin18.6.0
   Host CPU: skylake
   http://dlang.org - http://wiki.dlang.org/LDC

 Why is version 1.16.0 built using version 1.12.0? Could the 
 build tools not bootstrap the compiler using 1.12.0, and then 
 recompile the source for version 1.16.0 using the version 
 1.16.0 compiler built using the older compiler?

Probably because that corresponds to the minimum version that the 
frontend requires to build itself (which I think is 2.079). It 
definitely could be built with itself, theres nothing stopping 
that from happening.

Johan Engelen <j j.nl> writes:

On Saturday, 20 July 2019 at 19:34:35 UTC, Dennis Cote wrote:
 I'm just curious if there is a good reason why LDC is built 
 with an old version of LDC? LDC reports the following using the 
 --version option

  Jul 20 13:23:42 on ttys000
 Denniss-iMac:~ dennis$ ldc2 --version
 LDC - the LLVM D compiler (1.16.0):
   based on DMD v2.086.1 and LLVM 8.0.0
   built with LDC - the LLVM D compiler (1.12.0)
   Default target: x86_64-apple-darwin18.6.0
   Host CPU: skylake
   http://dlang.org - http://wiki.dlang.org/LDC

 Why is version 1.16.0 built using version 1.12.0? Could the 
 build tools not bootstrap the compiler using 1.12.0, and then 
 recompile the source for version 1.16.0 using the version 
 1.16.0 compiler built using the older compiler?

This depends on where you get the compiler from. The official 
release packages feature LDC compiled with itself (exactly as 
what you are suggesting).

-Johan