Porting D to the Mac

ddj.com

24 points·babo··5 comments

D now includes Mac OSX version! http://www.digitalmars.com/d/1.0/changelog.html http://ftp.digitalmars.com/dmd.1.040.zip

http://www.digitalmars.com/d/2.0/changelog.html http://ftp.digitalmars.com/dmd.2.025.zip

Expect bugs. Thread local storage isn't working on OSX, neither are sockets and memory mapped files (for unknown reasons).

for unknown reasons

Well in the case of thread local, it's probably because OSX doesn't support the __thread modifier - you need to use pthread_getspecific/etc.

that's nice, but not enough.

i seriously considered adopting D as my primary language a couple of years ago. the fact that it is primarily a windows thing was the main reason i didn't. a sort-of-working mac release years later isn't enough to make me reconsider.

In the end what counts is the result. Nobody cares what language you used if your software is great. Similarly, nobody cares about your language or the software, if it is a piece of crap.

Every time there is a post about D on Slashdot, Reddit, etc., there are people saying that D is such a wonderful language that they have migrated/are busy migrating all their projects to it. My answer to them: where is the result? Name at least one useful piece of software written in D?

On the other hand, the amount of software using a language and the decision to use a language is mutually reinforcing, and both are only loosely correlated with the quality of the language.

Ten years ago, there were almost no successful projects using Lua, but now there are many, and the language has barely changed at all -- likewise for Erlang. D is newer than either of these and occupies a niche in which other languages are deeply entrenched. I'd give it more time before writing it off.

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