Hello!

My name is Cristi, I'm a final year Computer Science student and I've recently heard about SAoC, which I'm very excited about.

I'm specifically interested in the DPP project, which is enabling direct C/C++ header inclusion in D files. Now, as far as I understand, there are several issues with DPP (not working with some Linux headers, probably due to specific GCC flags) which need to be solved, and I would be really grateful if people from the D community could give me some advice regarding this.

What do you think about this SAoC project overall? Do you have any suggestions about it?
What do you think is a good starting point for dealing with this project?
What technologies should I familiarize myself with? (llvm, gcc, other linux internals etc.)
Is DPP a big deal for the D community? Have you tried using it? What problems have you encountered while using it? What are some current limitations of DPP that bother you?

Thank you,
Cristi

On Tuesday, 13 August 2019 at 21:01:46 UTC, Cristian Becerescu wrote:
> Hello!
>
> My name is Cristi, I'm a final year Computer Science student and I've recently heard about SAoC, which I'm very excited about.
>
> I'm specifically interested in the DPP project, which is enabling direct C/C++ header inclusion in D files. Now, as far as I understand, there are several issues with DPP (not working with some Linux headers, probably due to specific GCC flags) which need to be solved, and I would be really grateful if people from the D community could give me some advice regarding this.
>
> What do you think about this SAoC project overall? Do you have any suggestions about it?
> What do you think is a good starting point for dealing with this project?
> What technologies should I familiarize myself with? (llvm, gcc, other linux internals etc.)
> Is DPP a big deal for the D community? Have you tried using it? What problems have you encountered while using it? What are some current limitations of DPP that bother you?
>
> Thank you,
> Cristi

Hello Cristi,

I am not an expert in this area, but direct usage of c/c++ header files sounds like a killer feature for D. From a technical point I cannot say wheter this is feasible but it would be really great to have this feature.

Kind regards
Andre

On Wednesday, 14 August 2019 at 14:42:04 UTC, Andre Pany wrote:
> [snip]
>
> Hello Cristi,
>
> I am not an expert in this area, but direct usage of c/c++ header files sounds like a killer feature for D. From a technical point I cannot say wheter this is feasible but it would be really great to have this feature.
>
> Kind regards
> Andre

It works for a lot of things, but judging by the Issues backlog on github it probably has some work to do before it gets to 1.0.0.

Atila Neves obviously was the key developer and probably the best person for the OP get in touch with.

One thing that might be interesting wrt to dpp, beyond fixing issues (which is also very valuable), might be to make a list of C libraries that already have D bindings and check what dpp works on. Your job is already partly done because the binding it available. At a minimum, you can verify what dpp works on - that D users have found valuable enough to already submit bindings - and what it doesn't work on, helping to pinpoint additional issues.