Building the compiler is a mess

[GrimMaple]

I've been trying to get into workin on the actual compiler, but I keep having issues while trying to make it even build to begin with.
There are a few things I would like to point out and discuss so maybe they can get fixed in some near future. I might PR some things as I go by.

• The build is inconsistent. For example, building on windows (with build.d from compiler/src folder) outputs to both debug and release folders in generated folder, while building on Linux with make -j4 outputs to release only -- even if it's a debug build.

• make -j4 failed to build phobos on my Manjaro installation. I used upstream's dmd 2.111, and it failed to build with errors regarding to some glib C header (while compiling zlib)

• Getting a windows debug build reliably is a hussle, I don't remember now if installing gnu make helps, but I wish we didn't need that at all (especially since we can just run .d code and have a very easy way to build things)

• dub build for druntime fails on windows. It should either be fixed, either removed if not intended to be supported. Same goes for phobos, btw.

So currently, I struggle to get a debug build of dmd on my Windows machine. Any input would be appreciated!

[GrimMaple]

UP: Windows build of druntime with make -j4 fails because of this:

C:/LDC/bin/make -C druntime
Using make SHELL "C:/Program Files/Git/usr/bin/bash.exe", should be bash.
make[1]: Entering directory `D:/opend/opend/druntime'
../generated/windows/release/64/dmd.exe -c -conf= -Isrc -Iimport -w -de -preview=dip1000 -preview=fieldwise -m64   -preview=dtorfields -O -release -inline  -I. -P=-I. src/core/stdc/errno.c -of../generated/windows/release/64/errno_c.obj
D:\opend\opend\druntime\src\importc.h(141): fatal error C1083: Cannot open include file: 'sal.h': No such file or directory
Error: C preprocess command C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\2022\Community\VC\Tools\MSVC\14.37.32822\bin\HostX64\x64\cl.exe failed for file src\core\stdc\errno.c, exit status 2

make[1]: *** [../generated/windows/release/64/errno_c.obj] Error 1
make[1]: Leaving directory `D:/opend/opend/druntime'
make: *** [druntime] Error 2

I assume this is due to MSVC compiler, but I don't really know what the workaround should be as of now

[adamdruppe]

Yeah, that's importc dogfooding for you, a pain in the butt. You can only build on windows from the vstools command prompt, called i think "native tools for x64" or something from visual studio community install.