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Driving with D

dlang.org

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Re: Driving with D

#101

Post by 0dyl »

kleiba wrote: post #36
0dyl wrote: post #13

Hi, I'm the author of the article. Feel free to ask any questions you may have. I have to go to bed, I have work in about 4 hours, so I'll reply when I can.

What are the legal hurdles you had to jump to get this hack approved for street use? As car modders know all too well, this can often be the hardest task.

Fortunately, and surprisingly, this project was smooth sailing on the legal front.

I contacted a VicRoads certified engineer in regards to the project and got the all clear.

Even my insurance was OK with it.

I think it's because most of the legislation is aimed at engine modifications.

Re: Driving with D

#102

Post by 0dyl »

lbj wrote: post #96
0dyl wrote: post #13

Hi, I'm the author of the article. Feel free to ask any questions you may have. I have to go to bed, I have work in about 4 hours, so I'll reply when I can.

No questions, but let me just congratulate you on a wonderful hack, very well done!

Thank you so much for the kind words :D

Re: Driving with D

#103

Post by pretty_dumm_guy »

0dyl wrote: post #13

Hi, I'm the author of the article. Feel free to ask any questions you may have. I have to go to bed, I have work in about 4 hours, so I'll reply when I can.

Hi,

Firstly, Congratulations. This is no trivial accomplishment. Here are the questions I have.

1. Normally, cars come with their own ECUs for the engine. Interfacing with them requires knowledge about the underlying firmware used afaik. Did you happen to reverse engineer the firmware so that you could interface your own electronics with the provided ECU ?

2. How did you make the car believe that your 6 speed automatic transmission was a 4 speed automatic ?

3. > "the ability to go ahead and change the way it works whenever I want." - Could you please elaborate what you mean by this ?

Again, I am amazed by what you have accomplished. My inner mechanical engineer is so keen to know how this all came together. I think everyone would definitely appreciate if you could provide a rough overview of how you achieved these things. Thank you :)

Re: Driving with D

#104

Post by nix23 »

eggy wrote: post #46
Diggsey wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used D for a while. It improves several things over C++, among them: - More powerful metaprogramming capabilities. - Better module and library system. - Nicer syntax. The problem IMO is it's just not enough to justify a total move from C++ -> D. The syntax of C++ can't really be fixed, but the other aspects can be improved without a new language. Furthermore, many of the other downsides of C++ are still present: -…

I am learning Rust and SPARK2014, and I would think SPARK2014/Ada would be a better fit for high-integrity software for verifiable, embedded software than Rust. This was the older article that stimulated me to look at Ada and then SPARK2014 again: https://www.embedded.com/spark-2014-why-i-am-backing-a-predi... EDIT: Cool list of SPARK2014/Ada embedded projects: https://blog.adacore.com/tag/embedded%20development

Ada is absolutely great, it's a shame that is was "closed" behind really expensive compilers and government work in the past.

GNAT Aux could use some help too:

http://www.dragonlace.net/

Re: Driving with D

#105

Post by 0dyl »

emteycz wrote: post #58

> From the factory, it came with a rubbish four-speed automatic gearbox. During 18 months of ownership, I destroyed four gearboxes. [I'm from Europe.] I absolutely don't get this. Just... what? Four gearboxes? I don't know anyone who destroyed a single one - even after an entire lifetime of daily driving, but I don't mean Mercedeses - more like Škodas. What's up with American cars? Is this common? Edit: my bad, the c…

They're really not good gearboxes.

Keep in mind, with the 4 speeds I drove casually. With this 6 speed, I can push it hard and it's still going strong almost a year later.

They're quite an old (American) design bolted to a modern engine. It simply doesn't mix well. 4 speeds (4L60e) are the bread and butter of automatic transmission rebuilders in Australia.

My father killed one in his daily driver, and all it did was go 20km each way to and from work. My Aunt's Commodore was recently in the shop getting a new 4L60e. They're simply not suited to the car.

Re: Driving with D

#106

Post by 0dyl »

ok123456 wrote: post #90
cgh wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Holdens are Australian, not American.

They're owned by GM now. Modern ones will be GM parts-bin cars. Going through that many GM transmissions is possible. This is why GM cars have horrible resale value and anything over 150k miles is on borrowed time.

Holden has been owned by GM since the 1930s and has been building its own vehicles since 1948. Holden ceased building cars in 2017 and was disbanded in 2020 (RIP).

But yeah, the 4L60es are lemons in my eyes.

Re: Driving with D

#107

Post by p0nce »

jhvkjhk wrote: post #34
gagege wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use D every day at work (inherited codebase) and the UFCS bothers me to no end. I try not to use it.

Can you explain why? I have never used D, but I think UFCS is really convenient.

I don't know for GP, but UFCS functions just litter the auto-completion tab for me. It's also not always readable.

Re: Driving with D

#108

Post by Corazoor »

mhh__ wrote: post #38
Corazoor wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Certainly not the sole reason, but the mix of language features puts it into a weird spot: You have great control over memory layout and can easily embed assembler, which would be perfect for performance sensitive software like games. Yet "default" D comes with a garbage collector and - more importantly - language features that require said GC. If you want to go the noGC route, you have to refrain from using certain…

I'm surprised you mentioned memory allocation without spotting the memory allocators in the standard library. Andrei designed the library and as far as I can tell no other language comes close when it comes to composable allocators.

I dunno why you assume that I don't know about them...

Apart from that, they came pretty late, are still in experimental, and don't change the fact that only a subset of D is usable without GC.

I very much like D, I really do, but I never encountered a usecase where the pros of using D outweight the cons. It sits in a very very weird spot design-wise, and while Walter and Andrei tried their best to get rid of the most common problems, not much of that effort resulted in actual useful change: Still no other GC than the default linear one, the stdlib is still not fully noGC usable (and probably never will), and "proper" compile time functions are still not done, after quite a few years now...

Which is a shame, D is very close to being the perfect C++ replacement.

Re: Driving with D

#109

Post by olyjohn »

0dyl wrote: post #26
jgilias wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is what I love HN for. Every now and then there's a submission like this that makes me go: "How do you even...". That being said, is there maybe somewhere a more thorough write-up about the whole thing? You know, with more in-depth technical details, gotchas, and so on? I'm sure many people would enjoy reading that! Thanks for posting!

Thank you so much for the kind words :) Sorry, no. I don't have a blog or website or anything. The closest thing I have to a devlog are some posts in a private Facebook group dedicated to the Holden Commodore. I think this project is almost 12 months old now.

This project sounds awesome. I hope you will find some time later to post it on the web. So much legendary information is stuck in Facebook, and difficult to find, or just lost forever.
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