Historical moment: D2 is now D

[Jonathan M Davis]

On 2011-06-10 14:06, Steven Schveighoffer wrote:
> On Fri, 10 Jun 2011 16:11:34 -0400, Mike James <foo at bar.com> wrote:
> > "Andrei Alexandrescu" <SeeWebsiteForEmail at erdani.org> wrote in message
> > news:istj83$1rsa$1 at digitalmars.com...
> > 
> >> I think we all agree that it is appropriate to characterize D2 to mean
> >> "The
> >> D Programming Language".
> >> 
> >> From here on, we have changed the website
> >> http://d-programming-language.org to reflect that reality. D simply
> >> refers
> >> to what was formerly known as D2, and D1 stays D1.
> >> 
> >> Also, today Walter will change the "D" links from digitalmars.com to
> >> point
> >> to http://d-programming-language.org, which is now the official site of
> >> the D programming language. Expect (and please contribute) many
> >> improvements of that site going forward.
> >> 
> >> 
> >> Thanks,
> >> 
> >> Andrei
> > 
> > So D2 becomes D.
> > And D1 becomes D--.
> 
> D0
> 
> Seriously though, I'm not sure why we have to do this... It's weird to
> have D1 and D. To me, D1 > D, like in D, D1, D2, D3
> 
> I hope this pattern doesn't continue for D3 (well, actually, would that
> then be D2?)
> 
> Why can't D2 be D version 2, and D1 be D version 1, where both languages
> are the D programming language? It's how other languages do things (C#,
> php, python, etc.).

D is the programming language. There are multiple versions of it. Currently, 
we have versions 1 and 2, which are typically referred to as D1 and D2. D2 is 
the most recent - and therefore current - version, whereas D1 is the previous 
version. On the main site, we're choosing to generally mean D2 when we refer 
to D and specifically say D1 when referring to stuff which is specific to D1. 
Presumably, if and when there is D3 and it becomes appropriatey stable to be 
considered the current version of the language, then D3 will be referred to as 
D, and the term D2 will be used when referring to something which is specific 
to D2.

It's quite typical when talking about other languages (C#, Java, python, etc.) 
to not be particularly specific about version numbers when talking about the 
language. When using the language's name without a version number, you're 
generally either referring to the language as a whole or to the latest 
version. We're just going to be doing the same on D's official site. The term 
D2 will still be used if we need to be specific about versions, but in 
general, we're talking about the most recent version of the language when 
talking about D, so we're just calling it D. I don't see anything odd about 
that.

- Jonathan M Davis