As https://github.com/dlang/dmd/pull/14121 has been merged, the following #ImportC program can now be compiled and run:

  #include <stdio.h>

  void main()
  {
    printf("hello ImportC!\n");
  }

It's been a longer and windy-er road than I'd anticipated, but isn't that the way all software projects work?

Next up:

1. passing dmd command line arguments to the preprocessor

2. capturing the #define macro dump from the preprocessor, so it can be mined for macros that can be translated to D symbols (anticipating leveraging Atila's great dpp work on this)

On Saturday, 14 May 2022 at 21:05:09 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:
> [...]
> 2. capturing the #define macro dump from the preprocessor, so it can be mined for macros that can be translated to D symbols (anticipating leveraging Atila's great dpp work on this)

Item 2 is very interesting! About 10 years ago, when I was just learning, I was thinking how can I make a feature like #define in D.

SDB@79

On Saturday, 14 May 2022 at 21:05:09 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:
> ...
>
> It's been a longer and windy-er road than I'd anticipated, but isn't that the way all software projects work?
> ...

Well...I'm not aware of any software projects where someone wakes up one morning, with a thought bubble, and then decides to submit a PR, marked as 'Trivial', that adds a C compiler insider an already existing compiler for a different language.

https://github.com/dlang/dmd/pull/12507/

The long, windy road 'could' have been anticipated.

I certainly anticipated it when I read that PR.

It'll be a long, windy road ahead to, for anyone having to maintain projects that explicitly, actively, encourage you to combine different languages.

On Sunday, 15 May 2022 at 01:00:14 UTC, forkit wrote:
> On Saturday, 14 May 2022 at 21:05:09 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:
>> ...
>>
>> It's been a longer and windy-er road than I'd anticipated, but isn't that the way all software projects work?
>> ...
>
> Well...I'm not aware of any software projects where someone wakes up one morning, with a thought bubble, and then decides to submit a PR, marked as 'Trivial', that adds a C compiler insider an already existing compiler for a different language.
>
> https://github.com/dlang/dmd/pull/12507/
>
> The long, windy road 'could' have been anticipated.
>
> I certainly anticipated it when I read that PR.
>
> It'll be a long, windy road ahead to, for anyone having to maintain projects that explicitly, actively, encourage you to combine different languages.

That depends on the nature of the combination.

I will likely never compile a C dependency with ImportC directly, and I will definitely never import a D module into a C project, but I have already used ImportC for some things and it really isn't that complicated either in implementation or praxis.

ImportC should've really happened 10 years ago.

On Sunday, 15 May 2022 at 13:09:45 UTC, Nick Treleaven wrote:
> Walter never claimed supporting all preprocessor macros would work.

One of the interesting potentials of importC is that all of them *could* work:

http://dpldocs.info/experimental-docs/mixinc.html

> ImportC was very useful even not long after it was first merged.

What did you use it for?

On Saturday, 14 May 2022 at 21:05:09 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:
> As https://github.com/dlang/dmd/pull/14121 has been merged, the following #ImportC program can now be compiled and run:
>
>   #include <stdio.h>
>
>   void main()
>   {
>     printf("hello ImportC!\n");
>   }
>
> It's been a longer and windy-er road than I'd anticipated, but isn't that the way all software projects work?

Amazing. Thanks and congratulations to everyone who worked on this feature.

I'm looking forward to the future when we can stop worrying and deprecate the entirety of https://github.com/D-Programming-Deimos.

On Saturday, 14 May 2022 at 21:05:09 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:
> As https://github.com/dlang/dmd/pull/14121 has been merged, the following #ImportC program can now be compiled and run:
>
>   #include <stdio.h>
>
>   void main()
>   {
>     printf("hello ImportC!\n");
>   }
>
> It's been a longer and windy-er road than I'd anticipated, but isn't that the way all software projects work?

Go ImportC! Great news, and great feature.