Why version() ?

[Walter Bright]

Nick Sabalausky wrote:
> The point is, the current semantics for D's version() are *plenty* 
> susceptible to most of same versioning mess as C's #if/#ifdef, and in some 
> cases (such as ||), even worse. With either style, the solution is exactly 
> the same as any other chunk of messy code: Clean it up! Not only is gimping 
> the version-control mechanism the wrong solution, it doesn't even solve the 
> problem anyway.

I'll argue that I've never seen anyone create such a mess in D, while I 
see it regularly in C. So something about D is discouraging developing 
those things.

I think the tipping point is that it's too easy in C to slip into 
writing such a mess without actually trying to, while in D you have to 
work harder to do it. Hard enough that one might as well do it better in 
the first place.