D versionning

[Jonathan M Davis]

On Sunday, July 15, 2012 17:23:44 Adam Wilson wrote:
> I guess I just see it as differing definitions of "stable". For example,
> dsimcha was here not twenty hours ago praising D for how stable it's
> become.
> 
> I think this is a pretty good summation of stable in the community project
> context:
> http://www.modernperlbooks.com/mt/2009/06/what-does-stable-mean.html
> 
> Note: We meet all criteria for stable.

What I want to see is dmd having fully implemented all of the features in TDPL 
(e.g. multiple alias thises) and sorted out all of the major design or 
implementation issues (e.g. the issues with const and Object). After that, D2 
has been fully implemented, and we can look at adding new features if we want 
to and restricting those as well as any breaking changes that we need to make 
to a different branch which only gets merged into the main branch in certain 
releases.

Arguably, we've been adding too many new features (e.g. new lambda syntax and 
SIMD support), given that we're supposed to be making everything that we 
already  have work properly, but those features haven't been breaking changes, 
and presumably forcing Walter to just fix bugs wouldn't be all that pleasant 
for him. But until we've fully implemented what we have, I think that it's 
just going to slow us down to little benefit to change the release model. Once 
we have, _then_ I'd love to see a release model which promotes major vs minor 
releases and the like, because then we can evolve the language and library as 
appropriate while still maintaining stable releases which programmers can rely 
on for long periods of time without worrying about breaking changes and 
whatnot.

- Jonathan M Davis