The first version of LDC (http://www.dsource.org/projects/ldc), the LLVM based compiler for version one of the D programming language has been released for x86-32 Linux. Get it here: http://www.incasoftware.de/~kamm/ldc/ldc-0.9.tbz2

We had already announced this release during the Tango conference in September (we hope the video of our presentation will be out soon), but - as was to be expected - it took a bit longer than planned.

LDC ships with a precompiled Tango rev 4237 and passes all except two of Tango's unittests (io.digest.Md2 and text.locale.Posix fail). DStress results also look favorable. The chances are good that your code will work with it too!

There are several known issues, the most severe being:
 * LDC does not compile DWT successfully for unknown reasons
 * an LLVM 2.4 bug sometimes leads to linker errors when unreachable code is
   optimized away
 * LDC doesn’t fully follow the D calling convention (but it's close!)
 * we inherit every DMD-frontend related bug in the D bug tracker
 * … there are more in our tracker

If you encounter a bug, please check our bug tracker and create a new ticket if the issue isn’t listed yet. Maybe you are feeling adventurous and want to try fixing it yourself; in that case take a look at our getting started guide.

LDC could support other platforms. Furthest along so far are
 * x86-64 Linux: needs people to start fixing smaller bugs, exception bug
   (LLVM issue)
 * x86-32 Mac: small runtime issues, needs tests
 * x86-32 Windows: exceptions not supported (LLVM issue)

but support for these platforms won’t improve on its own! Several friendly
people have offered their help - we need more of those!

For those with big CTFE memory needs, we have an experimental version of LDC
available
http://www.incasoftware.de/~kamm/ldc/ldc-0.9-gc.tbz2
which has the compile-time garbage collector enabled. In the future, we're
going to experiment with a forward reference hack, but right now it still
introduces too many regressions.

Feedback and questions are appreciated and should go to the mailing list:
ldc-dev@googlegroups.com. Alternatively, we're often seen in #ldc on
FreeNode.

Tomas Lindquist Olsen, Christian Kamm

On Fri, 09 Jan 2009 00:21:15 +0100, Christian Kamm wrote:

> The first version of LDC (http://www.dsource.org/projects/ldc), the LLVM based compiler for version one of the D programming language has been released for x86-32 Linux. Get it here: http://www.incasoftware.de/~kamm/ldc/ldc-0.9.tbz2
> 
> We had already announced this release during the Tango conference in September (we hope the video of our presentation will be out soon), but - as was to be expected - it took a bit longer than planned.
> 
> LDC ships with a precompiled Tango rev 4237 and passes all except two of Tango's unittests (io.digest.Md2 and text.locale.Posix fail). DStress results also look favorable. The chances are good that your code will work with it too!
> 
> There are several known issues, the most severe being:
>  * LDC does not compile DWT successfully for unknown reasons * an LLVM
>  2.4 bug sometimes leads to linker errors when unreachable code is
>    optimized away
>  * LDC doesn’t fully follow the D calling convention (but it's close!) *
>  we inherit every DMD-frontend related bug in the D bug tracker * …
>  there are more in our tracker
> 
> If you encounter a bug, please check our bug tracker and create a new ticket if the issue isn’t listed yet. Maybe you are feeling adventurous and want to try fixing it yourself; in that case take a look at our getting started guide.
> 
> LDC could support other platforms. Furthest along so far are
>  * x86-64 Linux: needs people to start fixing smaller bugs, exception
>  bug
>    (LLVM issue)
>  * x86-32 Mac: small runtime issues, needs tests * x86-32 Windows:
>  exceptions not supported (LLVM issue)
> 
> but support for these platforms won’t improve on its own! Several
> friendly people have offered their help - we need more of those!
> 
> For those with big CTFE memory needs, we have an experimental version of
> LDC available
> http://www.incasoftware.de/~kamm/ldc/ldc-0.9-gc.tbz2 which has the
> compile-time garbage collector enabled. In the future, we're going to
> experiment with a forward reference hack, but right now it still
> introduces too many regressions.
> 
> Feedback and questions are appreciated and should go to the mailing
> list: ldc-dev@googlegroups.com. Alternatively, we're often seen in #ldc
> on FreeNode.
> 
> Tomas Lindquist Olsen, Christian Kamm

Great work!
A big leap for the D community!

Christian Kamm wrote:
> The first version of LDC (http://www.dsource.org/projects/ldc), the LLVM
> based compiler for version one of the D programming language has been
> released for x86-32 Linux. Get it here:
> http://www.incasoftware.de/~kamm/ldc/ldc-0.9.tbz2

This is great news, congratulations to the LDC team!

Can I ask if a powerpc and ARM version will be available soon?

== Quote from Christian Kamm (kamm-incasoftware@removethis.de)'s article
> The first version of LDC (http://www.dsource.org/projects/ldc), the LLVM
> based compiler for version one of the D programming language has been
> released for x86-32 Linux. Get it here:
> http://www.incasoftware.de/~kamm/ldc/ldc-0.9.tbz2
> We had already announced this release during the Tango conference in
> September (we hope the video of our presentation will be out soon), but -
> as was to be expected - it took a bit longer than planned.
> LDC ships with a precompiled Tango rev 4237 and passes all except two of
> Tango's unittests (io.digest.Md2 and text.locale.Posix fail). DStress
> results also look favorable. The chances are good that your code will work
> with it too!
> There are several known issues, the most severe being:
>  * LDC does not compile DWT successfully for unknown reasons
>  * an LLVM 2.4 bug sometimes leads to linker errors when unreachable code is
>    optimized away
>  * LDC doesn’t fully follow the D calling convention (but it's close!)
>  * we inherit every DMD-frontend related bug in the D bug tracker
>  * … there are more in our tracker
> If you encounter a bug, please check our bug tracker and create a new ticket
> if the issue isn’t listed yet. Maybe you are feeling adventurous and want
> to try fixing it yourself; in that case take a look at our getting started
> guide.
> LDC could support other platforms. Furthest along so far are
>  * x86-64 Linux: needs people to start fixing smaller bugs, exception bug
>    (LLVM issue)
>  * x86-32 Mac: small runtime issues, needs tests
>  * x86-32 Windows: exceptions not supported (LLVM issue)
> but support for these platforms won’t improve on its own! Several friendly
> people have offered their help - we need more of those!
> For those with big CTFE memory needs, we have an experimental version of LDC
> available
> http://www.incasoftware.de/~kamm/ldc/ldc-0.9-gc.tbz2
> which has the compile-time garbage collector enabled. In the future, we're
> going to experiment with a forward reference hack, but right now it still
> introduces too many regressions.
> Feedback and questions are appreciated and should go to the mailing list:
> ldc-dev@googlegroups.com. Alternatively, we're often seen in #ldc on
> FreeNode.
> Tomas Lindquist Olsen, Christian Kamm

Awesome.  Great job!  Any estimate on when decent D2 support might be available?

On Fri, Jan 9, 2009 at 8:21 AM, Christian Kamm <kamm-incasoftware@removethis.de> wrote:
> The first version of LDC (http://www.dsource.org/projects/ldc), the LLVM based compiler for version one of the D programming language has been released for x86-32 Linux. Get it here: http://www.incasoftware.de/~kamm/ldc/ldc-0.9.tbz2


Congrats!  Probably like many folks here I'll be a lot more excited when there's a Win32 version, but still this is a great milestone.


--bb

== Quote from Christian Kamm (kamm-incasoftware@removethis.de)'s article
> The first version of LDC (http://www.dsource.org/projects/ldc), the LLVM
> based compiler for version one of the D programming language has been
> released for x86-32 Linux. Get it here:
> http://www.incasoftware.de/~kamm/ldc/ldc-0.9.tbz2
> We had already announced this release during the Tango conference in
> September (we hope the video of our presentation will be out soon), but -
> as was to be expected - it took a bit longer than planned.
> LDC ships with a precompiled Tango rev 4237 and passes all except two of
> Tango's unittests (io.digest.Md2 and text.locale.Posix fail). DStress
> results also look favorable. The chances are good that your code will work
> with it too!
> There are several known issues, the most severe being:
>  * LDC does not compile DWT successfully for unknown reasons
>  * an LLVM 2.4 bug sometimes leads to linker errors when unreachable code is
>    optimized away
>  * LDC doesn’t fully follow the D calling convention (but it's close!)
>  * we inherit every DMD-frontend related bug in the D bug tracker
>  * … there are more in our tracker
> If you encounter a bug, please check our bug tracker and create a new ticket
> if the issue isn’t listed yet. Maybe you are feeling adventurous and want
> to try fixing it yourself; in that case take a look at our getting started
> guide.
> LDC could support other platforms. Furthest along so far are
>  * x86-64 Linux: needs people to start fixing smaller bugs, exception bug
>    (LLVM issue)
>  * x86-32 Mac: small runtime issues, needs tests
>  * x86-32 Windows: exceptions not supported (LLVM issue)
> but support for these platforms won’t improve on its own! Several friendly
> people have offered their help - we need more of those!
> For those with big CTFE memory needs, we have an experimental version of LDC
> available
> http://www.incasoftware.de/~kamm/ldc/ldc-0.9-gc.tbz2
> which has the compile-time garbage collector enabled. In the future, we're
> going to experiment with a forward reference hack, but right now it still
> introduces too many regressions.
> Feedback and questions are appreciated and should go to the mailing list:
> ldc-dev@googlegroups.com. Alternatively, we're often seen in #ldc on
> FreeNode.
> Tomas Lindquist Olsen, Christian Kamm

Also, some Win32 builds, both w/ and w/o D2 support, would be appreciated if possible.  I am interested in playing around with LDC on Win32 and filing bug reports, etc. even if exception handling is broken.  I just tried to build LDC myself and got some ridiculous, inscrutible error messages that I probably won't get to troubleshooting too soon.  If someone more familiar w/ LDC has a decent build environment set up already, please post some builds.

Congrats. Is anyone working on any idividual packages like ubuntu/gentoo?

Tim M Wrote:
> Congrats. Is anyone working on any idividual packages like ubuntu/gentoo?
You can find ebuilds for ldc trunk here: http://www.assembla.com/wiki/show/d-overlay Sorry I have an exam in two days so v0.9 ebuild won't be available for a while.

dsimcha wrote:
> Also, some Win32 builds, both w/ and w/o D2 support, would be appreciated
> if
> possible.  I am interested in playing around with LDC on Win32 and filing
> bug
> reports, etc. even if exception handling is broken.  I just tried to build
> LDC myself and got some ridiculous, inscrutible error messages that I
> probably won't
> get to troubleshooting too soon.  If someone more familiar w/ LDC has a
> decent build environment set up already, please post some builds.

D2 support is still a long way off, we haven't even begun implementing most of its specific features.

We won't release official Win32 builds as long as exception handling is unsupported. However, Elrood actually had Win32 binaries online a few months ago. He's also written the extensive LDC on Windows with MinGW step-by-step guide (http://www.dsource.org/projects/ldc/wiki/LDC_MinGW) and would surely welcome your feedback if something in there is unclear or doesn't work for you.

Walter Bright wrote:
> This is great news, congratulations to the LDC team!
> 
> Can I ask if a powerpc and ARM version will be available soon?

Thanks!

PowerPC support is still in its infancy. We've had two people looking at it a few months back, but I haven't heard from either recently. I think they ran into a frontend-portability issue: http://www.dsource.org/projects/ldc/ticket/76

I don't think anyone has tried LDC on ARM yet.