D versionning

[Andrei Alexandrescu]

On 7/15/12 7:06 PM, Walter Bright wrote:
> Frankly, I don't know how to do what you're asking for. D users, every
> single day, clamor for:
>
> 1. more bug fixes
> 2. more new features
> 3. why aren't deprecated features removed more quickly?
> 4. why don't we add this breaking feature?
> 5. why did you add that breaking feature which broke my code?
>
> Often, these are the same people! Sometimes, even in the same post!
>
> And, to reiterate, we did release D1. Since its release, it has only
> received bug fixes. No breaking changes, no regressions. This,
> inevitably, has made many D1 users unhappy - they wanted new features
> folded in.
>
> So that was not satisfactory, either.
>
> Yes, I do feel a bit put upon by this, as I see no way to satisfy all
> these mutually contradictory requests.

I think you're conflating two different trends. One is the annoying one 
you mentioned, and the other is a very reasonable request - that D has 
one branch containing only bug fixes, and another branch with new 
features and other potentially disruptive things.

The key is that the branches are merged once a more risky branch is 
stable enough, and the essential ingredient is that git makes branch 
merging easy.

This is not something you could have done essentially at any pre-github 
time in D's history, and is not to be confused with D1 vs D2 or with the 
known contradictory requests.


Andrei