On Tuesday, 11 September 2018 at 08:34:31 UTC, Chris wrote:
On Tuesday, 11 September 2018 at 07:23:53 UTC, Joakim wrote:
I agree with a lot of what you say here, but I'm not sure what
you mean by "first class support for mobile." What exactly do
you believe D needs to reach that level?
Basically the things you describe. I was thinking of a stable
and easy build system, e.g.
$ dub init android [iOS]
$ dub --arch=arm64
Yes, something like that should be done, but I won't be doing
much with dub till next year. If anyone else is interested in
doing it earlier, feel free.
And and of course check which language features work (or don't
work!) on ARM and write a documentation.
Cf. https://kotlinlang.org/docs/reference/native-overview.html
I don't see any language features listed for Kotlin there, but
ldc does have an AArch64 tracker issue, which lists what else
needs to be done:
https://github.com/ldc-developers/ldc/issues/2153
It might be a good idea to set up a funding target to get the
iOS port back up to speed again. I don't use Apple products so
it won't be me picking up that porting work, but maybe Dan
could be enticed to finish it as a paid project, since he did
most of the voluntary work so far. I'm purely speculating, no
idea if money changes the equation for him, just know that
he's been too busy to work on it for the last couple years.
That'd be part of the first class support. That a dedicated
team works on it. Volunteers are not enough. Once it's polished
it will still need loads of maintenance.
I don't think there's a "dedicated team" for any platform that D
runs on, so we don't have "first class support" for any platform
then.
D is largely a volunteer effort: if that's not enough, maybe D
isn't right for you. This isn't Kotlin or Swift, where one of the
largest companies in the world puts full-time devs on the
language and gives everything away for free because it suits
their agenda.
In Apple's case, that means Swift doesn't really support Android
and definitely doesn't support Android/AArch64, because putting
full-time devs on getting Swift working well with Android doesn't
suit their agenda of pushing iOS:
https://github.com/apple/swift/blob/master/docs/Android.md
https://blog.readdle.com/why-we-use-swift-for-android-db449feeacaf
However, since Swift is largely open source, there is a small
company that claims to have added Android/AArch64 support to the
Swift compiler:
https://www.scade.io
Kotlin is becoming more cross-platform now since google is more
cross-platform, but then you're depending on google continually
funding development on an OSS project, which they've backed out
of before:
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/07/googles-iron-grip-on-android-controlling-open-source-by-any-means-necessary/
I don't fault google for making those choices, as nobody has a
right to their OSS contributions, but it is something to consider
when using any platform, and even more so for an OSS project: who
is funding this and why? Will their model be sustainable?
There are no easy answers here: if you want a free-priced, OSS
toolchain, you're going to be marching to the beat of someone's
drum.
As for ongoing maintenance, Android/ARM was done years ago and
hasn't taken much in the way of maintenance to keep most of the
stdlib/dmd tests passing, so I don't think that's much of an
issue.
btw, it was a thread _you_ started that finally spurred me to
begin this Android port five years back, though I'd enquired
about and had been considering it earlier:
https://forum.dlang.org/thread/yhulkqvlwnxjklnog...@forum.dlang.org
On Tuesday, 11 September 2018 at 16:50:33 UTC, Dejan Lekic wrote:
On Monday, 10 September 2018 at 13:43:46 UTC, Joakim wrote:
LDC recently added a linux/AArch64 CI for both its main
branches and 64-bit ARM, ie AArch64, builds have been put out
for both linux and Android. It does not seem that many are
paying attention to this sea change that is going on with
computing though, so let me lay out some evidence. ...
I mostly agree with you, Joakim. I own a very nice (but now
old) ODROID U2 (check the ODROID XU4 or C2!) so ARM support is
important for me...
Also, check this:
https://www.hardkernel.com/main/products/prdt_info.php?g_code=G152875062626
HOWEVER, I think Iain is right - PPC64 and RISC-V are becoming
more and more popular nowadays and may become more popular than
ARM in the future but that future is unclear.
If and when they do, I'm sure D and other languages will be
ported to them, but right now they're most definitely not.
I know because I actually looked for a RISC-V VPS on which to
port ldc and found nothing. Conversely, I was able to rent out an
ARM Cubieboard2 remotely four years back when I was first getting
ldc going on ARM:
https://forum.dlang.org/post/steigfwkywotxsypp...@forum.dlang.org
I contacted one of the few companies putting out RISC-V dev
boards, Sifive, a couple weeks ago with the suggestion of making
available a paid RISC-V VPS, and one of their field engineers got
back to me last week with a note that they're looking into it.
I think their model of having an open ISA with proprietary
extensions will inevitably win out for hardware, just as a
similar model has basically won already for software, but that
doesn't mean that RISC-V will be the one to do it. Someone else
might execute that model better.
On Tuesday, 11 September 2018 at 21:37:17 UTC, Neia Neutuladh
wrote:
On Tuesday, 11 September 2018 at 07:23:53 UTC, Joakim wrote:
I agree with a lot of what you say here, but I'm not sure what
you mean by "first class support for mobile." What exactly do
you believe D needs to reach that level?
Natural-feeling bindings to platform libraries that are not
incredibly slow and that are well-maintained. What does it
matter that you can run a webserver from your phone if you
can't write a "hello world" GUI program, set an alarm, or
enqueue a download?
There are those who run the webserver as an app and reuse their
webapp as a mobile app, since mobile always comes with a webview
or browser. You can now do that with your vibe.d web app if you
choose, I'd say that matters.
I don't think any other platform D supports has the type of
"well-maintained" bindings you're asking for either, hasn't
stopped those that want to use D.
I've got a bit better than "hello world," though that's there
too, in the sample D apps in my android repo and the instructions
in the wiki:
https://github.com/joakim-noah/android/tree/master/samples
https://wiki.dlang.org/Build_D_for_Android
