Proposal: forward compatibility

[Fawzi Mohamed]

On 2008-09-06 03:00:37 +0200, "Bill Baxter" <wbaxter at gmail.com> said:

> I'm all for anything that makes D1, or the combo of D1 & D2, more usable.
> 
> --bb
> 
> On Fri, Sep 5, 2008 at 2:57 PM, Jason House 
> <jason.james.house at gmail.com> wrote:
>> D is an evolving language that does not restrict itself by requiring 
>> backwards compatibility. Instead I propose that D adopt forward 
>> compatibility...
>> 
>> Specifically, allow D1 code to accept D2 code without doing extra 
>> functionality. In D1, his would allow defining constants to be declared 
>> with either const or invariant, object invariants to allow parenthesis, 
>>  and ignoring transitive const elements of type declarations.
>> 
>> The goal is to not change the behavior of existing D1 code, but to 
>> accept previously invalid D1 code. This should make the job of 
>> maintaining a dual code base much easier.

I thnk that it would be very good for tango (and phobos?), as it would 
mean that a big part of the code (and bugfixes,...) might be shared 
between D1.0 and D2.0.
As these libraries will need to be supported in D1.0 for more time (as 
long a important projects use D1.0).

For smaller things... well the developer will probably focus just on 
the language they are using, which means the one of the base library.

Easing the transition is to D2.0 for big projects is worthwhile I think.

Fawzi