DLF September 2023 Planning Update

[Guillaume Piolat]

On Tuesday, 14 November 2023 at 08:18:20 UTC, Mike Parker wrote:
>
> * The default edition, meaning the code you have now, should 
> compile forever.

Should we want that?

I think I really don't like even the concept of Editions. The 
reason for that it stems from an incorrect assumption about how 
software debt works.

Currently the maintenance cost of a library is paid by the 
library maintainers (if any). I'd argue people come to languages 
because of arguably alive libraries, and dead libraries less so.

That an abandoned package build will not help much if it's not 
maintained and say, does not work on Windows arm in 2030. And the 
cost of keeping up with the times is often larger than dealing 
with the language and Phobos changes.

In some economic terms, the dead package did not enough interest 
to pay for its survival.

The burden on the core team would likely be unfair and increasing 
over time, since now the compiler developers must pay the debt of 
abandoned code that should have died, code that they are no owner 
of.

If you want people to stop stumbling upon unmaintained code, then 
either hide more of it (DUB registry could do that), make the DUB 
ratings more reliable and transitive maybe. We have an increasing 
number of high quality library but the dead libraries that 
somehow were registered to DUB accumulate linearly with the 
passing of time (in the same sense that more men have died than 
the number of men that live today).

When alias this breaks the important thing is in my 
not-so-informed opinion "why DlangUI has few maintenance energy" 
not "how can we make it still build".