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[Georg Wrede]

eao197 wrote:
> PS. I’m not a D programmer yet not because D has something or miss
> something as a language, but because I think that priority #1 should
> be support of stable release of language (e.g. D 1.0), not the
> development of D 2.0.

I think that's what we all want.

But, (1) in today's /grow or die standing/ world, if D were to stop 
evolving, we'd miss a heck of an oppornity (to IMHO take over the world 
;-) ). If Walter really did move from mainly D2 to solidifying D1, I bet 
we'd se a mass extinction of (even) D1 folks, overnight, because 
"there's no future".

And (2), since we only have one Walter, what can I say? We've been at it 
all of this decade here, and a couple of years more is a short time in 
comparison.

Within the next couple of years, there'll simply come a day when we have 
made all Grand Things into D2, and it'll be some time before the next 
Really Must Haves are thought of. That's the natural time when D2 (or 
whatever the version) is frozen and then we have much time on our hands 
to really polish it and prune the last bugs and minor warts.

It won't be as cool or challenging work, but it needs to be done, and 
that time lends itself naturally to such activities. Manuals, a proper 
web site, not to mention proper and detailed scrutinizing of Phobos and 
all "too small to see when busy" things will then get our attention.

Historically, we've already seen a few such "plateaus" in D development, 
but at those times there's always been something grossly missing or 
wrong with the language, so that we haven't been able to call it a 
Version Release. (And, of course, the last time we tried it the wrong 
way: we set a date for the release, and "the week before deadline" 
Templates flooded the room. Well, we know better now than to slate a 
release 4 months from now. It's ready when it's ready.)

These waves between frenzied development and calmer days will continue 
indefinitely. It may be that the waves grow bigger (both in caledar time 
and in lines written), but the pattern will stay the same. Since we 
don't need to fix arbitrary deadlines for D releases (as a commercial 
project would have to), we are in a position to go with these waves and 
make the most of it, instead of paddling upstream at both tides.

PS, I think D1 is pretty darn good right now. Sure there are bugs, but 
if one reads this NG, one inevitably gets the impression there are more 
and severer bugs than really is the case. Programmers have historically 
(before www) been satisfied with their compilers, but in the old days 
that was mainly because any bugs you encountered were hushed and 
pooh-poohed by the vendor's consultants (and always in a tone of voice 
like you're the only person on earth to encounter the particular bug -- 
funnily they still had the workaround already figured out! Or even 
worse, a patch to fix just this particular bug. I was there, for example 
SunOS cc.) The total number of known unfixed bugs was a trade secret, 
and people lived happily /believing/ they use a reasonable compiler. 
Quality wise, D1 beats the lot hands down already.

I bet Walter would have a couple of juicy anecdotes on this.