Installation script
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Many bioinformaticians have never used D, and it can be problematic for them to assess features of the new library. The script should work on all platforms.
The better idea is to generate binaries for all platforms. Reasons are
- gem can just download the binary during installation;
- GDC generates much faster code than DMD but is much harder to install (compiling gcc takes a lot of time, and it's crazy to advertise the library like 'hey, just wait half an hour while gdc compiles, and then you'll see enormous speeds').
So D programmers will find some basic info on 'Getting started' page, while for other people binaries should be provided. I'll have access to a Windoze machine soon, and I also can make binaries for x86/x86_64 linux. So only Mac will be a little issue (which can be resolved, say, using Clayton's machine?).
Are you thinking about supporting the DMD compiler too? I have a feeling it's support for Windows is better then GDC's. It's just a hunch, I haven't checked it yet.
I don't know yet but the existence of a few wiki pages devoted to building with MinGW (https://bitbucket.org/goshawk/gdc/wiki/Home#!building-on-windows) suggests that it's not that hard.
The most annoying thing about DMD is that its optimization code uses inefficient algorithms: http://d.puremagic.com/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=7157
It became noticeable when I created my Ragel parser for SAM, because all the generated code is put into one function. With DMD, I get neither fast compile times nor fast executable.
So DMD is still good for unit testing and debugging but I'll use GDC for binary releases.
Fair enough :)