D1 to be discontinued on December 31, 2012

[Jacob Carlborg]

On 2011-12-14 09:30, Don wrote:
> On 14.12.2011 05:37, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
>> On 12/13/11 10:12 PM, Don wrote:
>>> On 13.12.2011 17:00, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
>>>> On 12/13/11 7:52 AM, Don wrote:
>>>>> On 10.12.2011 22:19, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
>>>>>> In order to increase focus and unity in the language, we are
>>>>>> discontinuing support for D1 on December 31, 2012. That's more than
>>>>>> one
>>>>>> year away, which gives enough time to D1 users to migrate libraries
>>>>>> and
>>>>>> applications to D2.
>>>>>
>>>>> I thought we had moved away from these kinds of unilateral decisions.
>>>>> I strongly oppose this decision. In particlar, I find the lack of
>>>>> community consulatation deplorable.
>>>>
>>>> Apologies for this being so sudden. This was deliberate as there would
>>>> have been no way to achieve consensus in the matter. People prefer
>>>> having choices and postponement options, and are generous with others'
>>>> time.
>>>>
>>>> Allow me to recap the reasons why I think this is a necessary move.
>>>>
>>>> 1. We can't serve two masters. Working on two languages at the same
>>>> time
>>>> was non-committal and artificially sustained a rift in the community.
>>>
>>> The rift was created and sustained by unilateral statements like this
>>> one. Abandoning half the community doesn't help.
>>
>> There is no abandonment. Also, where is that 50/50 estimate from? Just
>> curious.
>
>
> The D2 community is definitely bigger than the D1 community. But how
> much more?
>
> It's hard to be sure, but the Tango users used to be 75% of the
> community, based on a few polls that were held, but they never had much
> representation on the ng. I guess between half and 2/3 are gone now.
> I don't think the entire D community is as big as it was back then
> (based on number of public repositories).
> Additionally, the number of contributors, and level of activity, in
> Tango, was higher than Phobos has ever had.
>
>>>> It also diffused our focus, delayed us to an ever-increasing extent,
>>>
>>> What on earth gives you that idea? The only resources involved are some
>>> fraction of Walter's time, which is obviously an important resource, but
>>> nobody other than Walter is affected.
>>
>> Walter told me so, and Walter is the single most important bottleneck.
>
> So "us" means Walter?
>
>>> You're seriously misrepresenting
>>> the situation.
>>
>> What is an accurate representation of the situation, and what evidence
>> is there to back that up?
>
> This is an issue of Walter's time, and nothing more. I think the
> evidence for that is clear -- who else is spending time on D1?
>
> Important thing to notice: GDC and LDC also have D1 compilers. Does this
> decision apply to them?
>
>>> I spend some time on fixing D1 bugs, but that won't change, see below.
>>>
>>>> and
>>>> sent the wrong message out that we're lacking confidence of what our
>>>> core thrust is, so we're trying to sort of please everyone. ("Here's
>>>> our
>>>> flagship language! If you don't like it, well, we have another one.")
>>>
>>> This is a silly and offensive statement. Most languages are in this
>>> situation. Look at Python2 vs Python3, Perl6 vs Perl5.
>>
>> I wonder who would be offended by that.
>
> Other than me? Well, I think the Python guys would be offended if you
> said it of them.
>
>>>> 2. The deadline is more than a year away. This is a long time, enough
>>>> for us to make D2 compelling, and also for interested people to
>>>> migrate.
>>>
>>> No, it's an exceedingly short timeframe.
>>
>> Other vendors give similar time scale for much larger migrations.
>
> Only when the migration is to a mature product.
>
>>
>>> What gives you the idea that
>>> nobody is using D1?
>>
>> There is not one sentence in my message claiming nobody is using D1.
>
> Ok, I can't make sense of it otherwise.
>
>> Don, it is you who is misrepresenting the situation, and repeatedly. I
>> understand you find this frustrating, but please, let's have a
>> constructive dialog.
>>
>>> Have you thought about what would convince them to
>>> switch to D2, and what would be required for them to do it?
>>
>> I think the most important aspect for them would be completion of
>> Tango's port to D2. The recent progress in the matter is encouraging. If
>> the D1 community is sizable, resourceful, and interested, I believe that
>> to be within the realm of possibility.
>
> At the present time, do they actually desire to move to D2? If not, why
> not? And the big one: are they confident that D2 is sufficiently stable?
>
>>> I suspect you don't know much about the D1 community. (Note that only a
>>> small fraction of D users have ever used the newsgroup, and it's mostly
>>> people with an interest in language design. They are not
>>> representative).
>>>
>>> I can already say with certainty that I will still be using D1 in 2013.
>>
>> That's great. The decision does not make it impossible or even
>> particularly difficult for D1 users to continue using D1. Since there
>> were near zero bug reports on D1,
>
> There are 400 open bugzilla D1 + common D1/D2 compiler bugs in Bugzilla,
> including nearly all of the heavily voted bugs. D1 is very much more
> stable than D2 (D2 has 800 open bugs), so there are far fewer bug reports.
>
> If you mean, there were no bug reports on the beta, that's not
> suprising, there are no D1 Phobos changes, which is where regressions
> mostly show up.
>
> they can be assumed to be content with
>> the quality of the compiler. Really I don't see the gist of the
>> complaint. This is not abandonment.
>
> You, Andrei, are personally making a decision which affects the entire
> community. I'm actually a bit shocked that you've done this.
>
> Especially since there was a big public discussion on the D internals
> newsgroup (Nov 10) about reducing the pressure of Walter's time.
> ---------
> Kenji:
>  > Today only Walter improvements D1 branch. Almost dmd pulls only
>  > consider D2 branch. Should we add D1 patch at the same time?
>
> Walter:
> Merging with D1 hasn't been too difficult; I use a program called "meld"
> which makes it a snap.
> ...
>
> It usually takes a couple hours to merge a patch, if things go smoothly.
> Most of that is running the test suite. Some more time is spent updating
> the changelog and bugzilla.
> ----
> So, didn't sound then as though D1 was a big issue. Yet a month later
> you announce you've made a private decision about axing D1.
> Feels exactly like a military coup.

I completely agree with Don.

-- 
/Jacob Carlborg