stability

[Janice Caron]

On 24/02/2008, Derek Parnell <derek at psych.ward> wrote:
>  So I would imagine that before another D compiler is written, a
>  specification is created that forms the benchmark to measure what is a
>  conforming D compiler.

Specifications can have bugs in them too.

That's why specifications have continual addenda and/or new versions.
Without that, conforming implementations would be forced to implement
bugs.

The /real/ definition of a bug is probably "doesn't do what the
designer intended it to do". That's certainly true when /I/ write code
- if it doesn't do what I want, it's a bug. /Sometimes/ what I want it
to do is comply with a spec, in which case non-compliance is a bug,
but other times I'm creating something new, but in either case, a bug
is "it doesn't do what I intended".

In the case of D, I'm happy that Walter is not constrained to a
possibly buggy spec.