What's the current state of D on iOS and Android? I know someone has been working on connecting D up to Objective-C somehow, and either GDC or LDC has at least partial support for Arm (but with some caveats, right?).

Has anyone actually made anything in D on iOS and/or Android? It is feasable yet? (On just one, or on both?) If not, what's needed?

Am 28.01.2012 11:08, schrieb Nick Sabalausky:
> What's the current state of D on iOS and Android? I know someone has been
> working on connecting D up to Objective-C somehow, and either GDC or LDC has
> at least partial support for Arm (but with some caveats, right?).
>
> Has anyone actually made anything in D on iOS and/or Android? It is feasable
> yet? (On just one, or on both?) If not, what's needed?
>
>

Be able to generate ARM code?

I remeber seeing some post about hacking the NDK toolchain to support GDC, but not sure how good it is.

On 01/28/2012 05:08 AM, Nick Sabalausky wrote:
> What's the current state of D on iOS and Android? I know someone has been
> working on connecting D up to Objective-C somehow, and either GDC or LDC has
> at least partial support for Arm (but with some caveats, right?).
>
> Has anyone actually made anything in D on iOS and/or Android? It is feasable
> yet? (On just one, or on both?) If not, what's needed?
>
>

The state of D on Android ...
http://interaxiom.blogspot.com/2011/08/android-d-stuff.html
... seems to be unmaintained?

I want this.  And if there's any way D android apps could run without rooting the phone, then I /really/ want this.

On 28 January 2012 14:58, Chad J <chadjoan@__spam.is.bad__gmail.com> wrote:

> On 01/28/2012 05:08 AM, Nick Sabalausky wrote:
>
>> What's the current state of D on iOS and Android? I know someone has been
>> working on connecting D up to Objective-C somehow, and either GDC or LDC
>> has
>> at least partial support for Arm (but with some caveats, right?).
>>
>> Has anyone actually made anything in D on iOS and/or Android? It is
>> feasable
>> yet? (On just one, or on both?) If not, what's needed?
>>
>>
>>
> The state of D on Android ...
> http://interaxiom.blogspot.**com/2011/08/android-d-stuff.**html<http://interaxiom.blogspot.com/2011/08/android-d-stuff.html>
> ... seems to be unmaintained?
>
> I want this.  And if there's any way D android apps could run without rooting the phone, then I /really/ want this.
>

I've been thinking there really should be a nice central repository for
information relating to D cross compilers, associated patches and build
process/scripts...
Perhaps an official section on d-p-l? I'd *really* love to see simple
buildscripts for linux users, and pre-built mingw toolchains for Windows.
This would really stimulate cross platform usage of D I think; relaxing the
requirement that an interested user understands, and is capable of building
the toolchain themselves.
Particularly Android; I think D could make a strong and immediate splash
for Android devs looking to avoid the Java front end/UI system.

On 28 January 2012 14:58, Chad J <chadjoan@__spam.is.bad__gmail.com> wrote:

> On 01/28/2012 05:08 AM, Nick Sabalausky wrote:
>
>> What's the current state of D on iOS and Android? I know someone has been
>> working on connecting D up to Objective-C somehow, and either GDC or LDC
>> has
>> at least partial support for Arm (but with some caveats, right?).
>>
>> Has anyone actually made anything in D on iOS and/or Android? It is
>> feasable
>> yet? (On just one, or on both?) If not, what's needed?
>>
>>
>>
> The state of D on Android ...
> http://interaxiom.blogspot.**com/2011/08/android-d-stuff.**html<http://interaxiom.blogspot.com/2011/08/android-d-stuff.html>
> ... seems to be unmaintained?
>
> I want this.  And if there's any way D android apps could run without rooting the phone, then I /really/ want this.
>

Since Android 2.3 it has been possible to run fully native apps, and a GDC
for android will work just as well as any C compiler, although some work
will have to be done to produce bindings for the NDK libraries.
What I'm most excited about is being able to use D to wrap the NDK
libraries to create an android experience that's very similar to the
Android Java API's, but with native code throughout.

"Manu" <turkeyman@gmail.com> wrote in message news:mailman.100.1327756764.25230.digitalmars-d@puremagic.com...
>
> I've been thinking there really should be a nice central repository for
> information relating to D cross compilers, associated patches and build
> process/scripts...
> Perhaps an official section on d-p-l? I'd *really* love to see simple
> buildscripts for linux users, and pre-built mingw toolchains for Windows.
> This would really stimulate cross platform usage of D I think; relaxing
> the
> requirement that an interested user understands, and is capable of
> building
> the toolchain themselves.

That would be nice. Writing non-desktop/web software should be considered extremely important for any systems langauge. (Desktop and web developers already have five billion languages to choose from.)

Manu wrote:
> I've been thinking there really should be a nice central repository for
> information relating to D cross compilers, associated patches and build
> process/scripts...
> Perhaps an official section on d-p-l? I'd *really* love to see simple
> buildscripts for linux users, and pre-built mingw toolchains for Windows.
> This would really stimulate cross platform usage of D I think; relaxing the
> requirement that an interested user understands, and is capable of building
> the toolchain themselves.
> Particularly Android; I think D could make a strong and immediate splash
> for Android devs looking to avoid the Java front end/UI system.

+1 to this. Can't agree more.

On 2012-01-28 10:08:36 +0000, "Nick Sabalausky" <a@a.a> said:

> What's the current state of D on iOS and Android? I know someone has been
> working on connecting D up to Objective-C somehow, and either GDC or LDC has
> at least partial support for Arm (but with some caveats, right?).
> 
> Has anyone actually made anything in D on iOS and/or Android? It is feasable
> yet? (On just one, or on both?) If not, what's needed?

You're thinking about D/Objective-C I think.
<http://michelf.com/projects/d-objc/>

But DMD has no ARM support, and currently my additions only generate binaries working for the legacy Objective-C runtime -- because DMD was 32-bit at the time and 32-bit Mac OS X uses the legacy runtime -- so you have four problems still to solve:

- iOS uses the modern Objective-C runtime, which is not supported by my work.
- D/Objective-C is starting to get old, and somewhat out of sync from the main DMD tree.
- DMD generates only code for x86, you'd need to port my changes to GDC which is not trivial since many things are done in the glue layer. But then perhaps GCC already has all the necessary code to build Objective-C object files.
- Bindings, you'll need to generate them somehow.

I don't have much time for this right now, but if you want to continue my work I can give you some more directions.


-- 
Michel Fortin
michel.fortin@michelf.com
http://michelf.com/

On 28 January 2012 16:35, Michel Fortin <michel.fortin@michelf.com> wrote:

> On 2012-01-28 10:08:36 +0000, "Nick Sabalausky" <a@a.a> said:
>
>  What's the current state of D on iOS and Android? I know someone has been
>> working on connecting D up to Objective-C somehow, and either GDC or LDC
>> has
>> at least partial support for Arm (but with some caveats, right?).
>>
>> Has anyone actually made anything in D on iOS and/or Android? It is
>> feasable
>> yet? (On just one, or on both?) If not, what's needed?
>>
>
> You're thinking about D/Objective-C I think. <http://michelf.com/projects/**d-objc/<http://michelf.com/projects/d-objc/>
> >
>
> But DMD has no ARM support, and currently my additions only generate binaries working for the legacy Objective-C runtime -- because DMD was 32-bit at the time and 32-bit Mac OS X uses the legacy runtime -- so you have four problems still to solve:
>
> - iOS uses the modern Objective-C runtime, which is not supported by my
> work.
> - D/Objective-C is starting to get old, and somewhat out of sync from the
> main DMD tree.
> - DMD generates only code for x86, you'd need to port my changes to GDC
> which is not trivial since many things are done in the glue layer. But then
> perhaps GCC already has all the necessary code to build Objective-C object
> files.
> - Bindings, you'll need to generate them somehow.
>
> I don't have much time for this right now, but if you want to continue my work I can give you some more directions.


There's one problem with using D to write iOS software though, Apple strictly require that any apps submitted MUST use their XCode toolchain. I think D is much more interested for Android at this stage, since it's open, has a good native layer/libs, and is a VERY compelling language to replace the Java layer in most Android apps.

On 2012-01-28 14:34, Manu wrote:
> On 28 January 2012 14:58, Chad J <chadjoan@__spam.is.bad__gmail.com
> <http://spam.is.bad__gmail.com>> wrote:
>
>     On 01/28/2012 05:08 AM, Nick Sabalausky wrote:
>
>         What's the current state of D on iOS and Android? I know someone
>         has been
>         working on connecting D up to Objective-C somehow, and either
>         GDC or LDC has
>         at least partial support for Arm (but with some caveats, right?).
>
>         Has anyone actually made anything in D on iOS and/or Android? It
>         is feasable
>         yet? (On just one, or on both?) If not, what's needed?
>
>
>
>     The state of D on Android ...
>     http://interaxiom.blogspot.__com/2011/08/android-d-stuff.__html
>     <http://interaxiom.blogspot.com/2011/08/android-d-stuff.html>
>     ... seems to be unmaintained?
>
>     I want this.  And if there's any way D android apps could run
>     without rooting the phone, then I /really/ want this.
>
>
> Since Android 2.3 it has been possible to run fully native apps, and a
> GDC for android will work just as well as any C compiler, although some
> work will have to be done to produce bindings for the NDK libraries.
> What I'm most excited about is being able to use D to wrap the NDK
> libraries to create an android experience that's very similar to the
> Android Java API's, but with native code throughout.

The ARM support needs to be added to the runtime.

-- 
/Jacob Carlborg