D versionning

[Jonathan M Davis]

On Sunday, July 15, 2012 21:11:12 Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
> On 7/15/12 7:44 PM, Adam Wilson wrote:
> > I should note that we use this exact model for every project we have
> > where I work and that it is been highly successful at keeping those five
> > points of tension moderated. And our users can actually get work done
> > without waiting for weeks and months because thing X is just plain
> > broken, which in turn makes us look good. (Improving Loyalty)
> 
> Allow me to propose something.
> 
> Right now all dmd changes get merged in the head. Suppose we find a
> volunteer in the community who is:
> 
> 1. Highly motivated
> 
> 2. With a good understanding of D
> 
> 3. Expert with git
> 
> 4. Reliable
> 
> I wonder if it's possible that that person cherry-picks commits from
> HEAD into two separate branches: bugfixes and unstable. It should be
> easy to create installers etc. for those.
> 
> If we see this works well and gathers steady interest, we can improve it
> and make it the practice of the entire team.
> 
> Would this be possible?

I'm sure it's possible. The problem is that it requires someone who 
understands the compiler well enough to do it and is willing to take the time 
to do it. Such a person could be very hard to find. It would probably require 
that one of our primary contributors to the compiler use some of the time that 
they've been using for that to maintain the new bug fix-only branch. It may 
very well be worth it to do so, but we'll need a volunteer.

- Jonathan M Davis