D versionning

[SomeDude]

On Monday, 16 July 2012 at 05:56:47 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:
> On 7/15/2012 5:36 PM, Jonathan M Davis wrote:
>> 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.
>
> SIMD support is critical for D's mission as a systems 
> programming language, and has been important in attracting some 
> significant adoption of D.

OTOH, if the people who were attracted end up quitting because 
the language is continuously unstable, the net effect is 
negative, because those who leave the boat won't come back.

I tend to agree that there should be a stable and a dev branch, 
with regular merges from dev --> stable when new non breaking 
features have been shown to work for a while. For instance, 
nothing prevents you to develop COFF and SIMD on the dev branch, 
and decide in 6 months to merge those features in the stable 
branch, because they've been shown to have stabilized.

In fact, it's much easier to make a roadmap this way than it is 
right now, where releases are delayed because new features don't 
work.

The 2.060 is late, very late.