Biggest Issue with D - Definition and Versioning

[Patrick Stewart]

Walter Bright Wrote:

> On 1/18/2012 4:03 PM, Patrick Stewart wrote:
> > I am sorry to see many D community projects and libraries dead as they are
> > targeted for D1 and not portable to D2, or just locked to specific version of
> > D and not transferable to latest version due some bug.
> 
> I am sorry about Tango apps being incompatible. I cannot do anything about that.

Not only Tango, there is lot of work that staled and was abandoned or is frozen due to technical difficulties with core (compilers, lang. specs, manuals, whole bundle). It is significant number of man hours gone down the drain.

> 
> 
> > I think it is possible for community to make all necessary libraries and
> > tools once the D is "carved in stone". I suppose D1 is attempt to do that,
> > but not having ready substitute yet (D2 not working as advertised) and D1's
> > clock ticking away, it is risky gamble to say at least.
> 
> What issue with D2 is blocking you?
> 

It is not what issue is blocking me, there are enough issues to block more than one user of D. In my opinion, that is not a way to direct development - by listening to loudest complainer. And community not complaining is not proof everything is going in right direction.

> 
> > To put it plain and simple, I have strong feeling D development is motivated
> > by desire to add latest ideas and features and not by desire to produce
> > practical and stable tool.
> 
> People often write postings, where in the very same posting, they'll write that 
> they absolutely must have new feature X now, and that no new features should be 
> added.
> 
> How would you resolve this?

First to say about myself is that my programming style is aimed at simplicity and maintainability. Feature set I find in D1 is 90% sufficient to solve problems my work places in front of me. Those 10% D1 lacks I solve with more lines of code, and I find it preferable and better solution than to switch to D2. 

Direction I imagine could solve current state is frozing D2 specs. Declare that job is done. Announce that on site and NG. Take a week or month to think about what is done. Let all the users do that. After that month, put on list of only those rare cases and minor changes that could be added in matter of days as last chance before language is locked for significant time to come.

Then inspect it critically. Give it care and attention. Fix all bugs. Write new docs. Sync website with that docs. Give assurance language core is there to stay as it is. Assure community their work is appreciated and all they make in D will work with future compilers and not be in vain.

Long story short - I find new things added and premature optimizations The worst enemy of language at the moment. They might look like selling point to you, to me they look like distractions from fixing D's shaking legs and solving some real problems underneath.