Add support for the D programming language

[doob]

There is a port of SWT and JFace called DWT written in the D programming language, it would be really great if SWT Designer could add support for it. Java and D are so similar (in this case at least) so I think it would be quite easy to add support for it.

Here are a couple of useful links:
The D programming language website: http://www.digitalmars.com/d/1.0/index.html
DWT/JFace webiste: http://www.dsource.org/projects/dwt
DWT and JFace snippets and samples: http://hg.dsource.org/projects/dwt-samples/file
The DWT/JFace features pages: http://www.dsource.org/projects/dwt/wiki/Features
Descent, Eclipse plugin for D : http://www.dsource.org/projects/descent
Tango, the runtime library DWT is built with: http://www.dsource.org/projects/tango

[Eric Clayberg]

SWT Designer makes heavy use of the Eclipse Java parser and AST model.

Assuming that the Eclipse support for D was as good as the Eclipse support for Java (which I highly doubt), this would be a 4-6 month effort minimum.

Something this highly speculative (who would buy this?) would have to be a customer funded effort.

Given all the things we still need to do in the SWT, Swing and GWT worlds, there is no way we could afford to do something like this unless it was completely paid for.

[doob]

Ok I understand. It was just a suggestion and I thought it would be easy because the code is so similar.

Thanks for the reply.

[Eric Clayberg]

Ok I understand. It was just a suggestion and I thought it would be easy because the code is so similar.

If it were just a matter of generating slightly different code, it might not be too hard, but we also need to be able to parse that code, generate an AST model for it and then execute parts of it.

[doob]

The public API is almost unchanged, the biggest differences are: instead of "org.eclipse.swt" it's "dwt" and instead of "SWT" it's "DWT". There are a couple of small changes between Java and D also, I can list them here if you want to. I don't know exactly what the D plugin needs to be able to do but it has: Syntax highlighting, formatter, Syntax errors and some semantic errors, Autocompletion, Go to definition and a lot of other features so I guess that means it can build an AST model.

If SWT Designer was open source I would try to modify it myself to output D code.

[Eric Clayberg]

SWT Designer is very dependent on the existing Eclipse JDT. Swapping that out for a alternative set of plugins that may or may not provide the same set of services would be very difficult.

It would easily be a 4-6 month effort even for us, and we do have the source.

[doob]

OK, that's too bad, because you really have a great product. Visual Editor from Eclipse doesn't even come close.

[Eric Clayberg]

Ultimately, it comes down to funding and whether there would be any customers to buy the results.