D1 to be discontinued on December 31, 2012

[Jakob Bornecrantz]

On Thursday, 15 December 2011 at 20:42:26 UTC, Jacob Carlborg 
wrote:
> On 2011-12-15 20:41, Walter Bright wrote:
>> On 12/15/2011 9:49 AM, Robert Clipsham wrote:
>>> * Do it all in one go, and DO NOT GET DISTRACTED. The moment 
>>> you start
>>> trying to
>>> clean up code as well as finish porting it you introduce lots 
>>> of issues
>>
>> I've done many projects that translated code from one language 
>> to
>> another, some were pretty large. The One Big Most Important 
>> Rule is:
>>
>>
>> !!!! DO NOT REFACTOR/ENHANCE/IMPROVE/FIX/CLEANUP THE CODE WHILE
>> TRANSLATING !!!!
>>
>>
>> I know how tempting it is. It's incredibly tempting. It's a 
>> huge mistake.
>>
>> The method that works is to turn your brain off, and simply 
>> translate.
>> Strive for a 1:1 correspondence between the original code and 
>> the
>> translated code. Do not divert from this until after your 
>> translation is
>> done, and it behaves identically to the original.
>>
>> The reason is that the translated version inevitably will not 
>> behave
>> like the original. A lot of things will be broken. If you did 
>> a 1:1
>> translation, you can instrument both, find where the 
>> translation
>> diverges, and fix it in a fairly quick and straightforward 
>> manner. If
>> you changed the way it is organized or works, then you have no 
>> idea if
>> it is a translation error or your changes broke it, and you 
>> have a much,
>> much harder time fixing it.
>
> Having ported the Mac OS X version of SWT from Java to D (and a 
> couple of other code bases) I completely agree with everything 
> above. You just have to turn your mind off and work like a 
> machine when porting. It's extremely tempting do some small 
> fixes here and there but restrain yourself, you'll thank 
> yourself in the end.

Thanks for the tips!

Cheers, Jakob.