More D presence in Mobile, specifically on iOS (project DiOS)

[bithavoc]

I'd like D to have more presence in the mobile space. It's cool that we now have more interop with obj-c but what would be really awesome is to have the D compiler output Bitcode so we can use it in all apple products including WatchOS and AppleTV.

Same with Android.

[truedat101]

Agreed 100% on this. We probably split this discussion into Android and iOS as the requirements are very different.

[truedat101]

I've changed the title to focus on iOS. I've added an issue for #16 Android work.

[truedat101]

Some discussion of LDC iOS work here:

http://forum.dlang.org/post/m2pp04qnlk.fsf@comcast.net

[bithavoc]

Better

[truedat101]

I'm less familiar with the BITCODE flag stuff, and I realize that's a default now on the xcode projects to have BITCODE on/true.

[truedat101]

I think the initial scope of the "Dios" (God muhahaha) project would be to allow library building from a regular D toolchain with the target set for iOS, then allow the library to be imported into an existing project. There are a lot of unknowns in my head about where this breaks down. In Xcode you can of course add libraries into projects. I've never tried building with different toolchains (use gcc and then import that library archive into xcode iOS project). I assume that works.

[truedat101]

I'd like to be sure there is a clear case where one can take a well known, existing, and useful D library, and bring it into iOS as a Sample XCode iOS project to demonstrate the project.

[truedat101]

Xamarin does all this cool toolchain stuff taking their xamarin projects (c# stuff) and when it comes time to compile, they fire up XCode and presumably have spit out an xcode target that can then be build on a Mac. The same could be a part of such a toolchain style. I don't envision that there is enough time and muscle to go and do what Xamarin did (essentially writing C# bindings that mirror every single iOS *Kit api). Xamarin has a tool that prepares Objective C libraries to be ready to be used in Xamarin projects. I'll have to look at what exactly they did there to understand it.

It may be enough to just have a tool that builds against the desired toolchain, some D code, for the target iOS and architectures(s). Realize, you have to have all supported targets in your static library that gets spit out. It needs armv7, armv7s, arm64, and x86 and x86_64. So you build a fat universal binary using lipo. Can that be done on a non-apple platform? Surely it can, but I haven't tried.

[truedat101]

Need to write up the follow up I did on this, from this meetup: http://www.meetup.com/D-Lang-Silicon-Valley/events/230220032/

[truedat101]

Also: http://wiki.dlang.org/DIP43

[jacob-carlborg]

I don't envision that there is enough time and muscle to go and do what Xamarin did (essentially writing C# bindings that mirror every single iOS *Kit api)

DStep [1] supports generating bindings for Objective-C headers.

[1] https://github.com/jacob-carlborg/dstep

[truedat101]

@jacob-carlborg I guess I've starred this repository at some point, this looks very cool. Are you available at some point to present this at a Dlang SV meetup? Not sure where you are located, but should be possible to do remotely too.

[jacob-carlborg]

I guess I've starred this repository at some point

I just found this thorough [1] for the upcoming DConf.

Are you available at some point to present this at a Dlang SV meetup? Not sure where you are located, but should be possible to do remotely too.

I'm located in Europe, GMT+1. The time difference might not be ideal.

[1] https://github.com/thewilsonator/Dlang-AGM/blob/master/2019/General.md

[truedat101]

@jacob-carlborg I'm sure there is a way to make that work. We've done dial-in skype / hangouts with people in the EU. I will look into your project further. Are you presenting at DConf?

[jacob-carlborg]

Are you presenting at DConf?

No.

[truedat101]

Looks like someone from the dfoundation has posted a bug bounty: https://www.flipcause.com/secure/cause_pdetails/NjU3MTY=

This covers ios/iphone/ipad and LDC. I will follow up and find the details of what prior work they want to start from and what they ultimately would like to achieve.

[jacob-carlborg]

They’re not exactly sure what needs to be done so it’s up to the one getting the contract. This is what I suggested that needs to be done:

• iPhone Support - Getting D to to run on an iPhone
• iPad Support - Getting D to to run on an iPad. Apple announced a new name for this, iPadOS, not sure if it’s a new compiler target
• Simulator Support - Getting D to run on the Simulator
• Protocols for extern(Objective-C) - Adding support for extern(Objective-C) protocols/interfaces in DMD
• extern(Objective-C) in LDC - Adding support for all extern(Objective-C) related features available in DMD to LDC
• DStep - Make sure bindings generated by DStep are up to date with how the latest version of extern(Objective-C) looks like

[truedat101]

Let me ask around about the iPadOS thing. I haven't upgraded my toolchain yet so I don't see those compiler targets yet. The simulator, yes, should be feasible as its an x86_ia64 target. Will need to understand the extern(Objective-C) and protocol items a bit better. DStep, I haven't reviewed the project yet, but you probably have a handle on the scope.

[jacob-carlborg]

Let me ask around about the iPadOS thing. I haven't upgraded my toolchain yet so I don't see those compiler targets yet.

I just had a look, there's no SDK for iPadOS. There's only an SDK for iPhoneOS.

Will need to understand the extern(Objective-C) and protocol items a bit better

This should be fairly easy to do for anyone familiar with the process.

DStep, I haven't reviewed the project yet, but you probably have a handle on the scope.

I'm pretty sure that the changes to DStep are trivial.