Moving towards D2 2.061 (and D1 1.076)

[Jonathan M Davis]

On Thursday, December 13, 2012 22:19:18 Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
> On 12/13/12 8:55 PM, kenji hara wrote:
> > I think we should have -future/-f switch and @future attribute.
> > It is a rough idea, but seems a required compiler feature.
> > 
> > Kenji Hara
> 
> That sounds interesting.

I believe that python has something similar.

> Regarding attributes, a simple solution is to release it but without
> official documentation. We place the documentation in a /unstable/
> directory of the website, distinct from the central mainstream
> documentation.
> 
> People who already started or want to start using attributes understand
> there are instabilities associated with them. Existing code is
> unaffected, only certain programs that are technically invalid will
> actually compile and run.
> 
> Works?

Yes. And attributes may not actually need much more work, but adding new, 
essentially untested features into the language and releasing them doesn't 
jive well with the recent push to stabilize and avoid breaking any code, 
because such features will frequently need changes which will break code. 
Hopefully, the adjustments to the release process that are being discussed 
will fix this sort of problem long term, but it comes across like Walter is 
willing to throw new features in but then generally refuses to change things 
which break code, which risks us being stuck with features that aren't quite 
what they could be or should be. The situation with UDAs definitely highlights 
the need to adjust our release process.

And if Remedy really needs special stuff which isn't necessarily ready for 
primetime, maybe he should create a branch specifically for them rather than 
doing it all in master.

- Jonathan M Davis