D versionning

[Jonathan M Davis]

On Tuesday, July 17, 2012 06:37:23 RivenTheMage wrote:
> On Monday, 16 July 2012 at 22:14:03 UTC, Jonathan M Davis wrote:
> > Going to v3 would mean incrementing the 2.
> > We have _no_ intention of doing that for years
> > to come.
> 
> Small steps are perfect for many projects, but - in my opinion -
> not for a programming language specification (and reference
> implementation). Big leaps are better.
> 
> Look at C# - 2.0, 3.0, 4.0...
> 
> I'm aware of counterexamples (like PHP), but these are bad
> examples to follow.

Actually, most programming languages are very conservative in how often they 
break existing code. And as I understand it (I haven't used C# much), C# 
doesn't break a lot of code either. They mostly just add more stuff on top of 
what they did before and then try and get you to use the new stuff in addition 
to the old stuff (or instead of, depending on what it is). But the old stuff is 
still there.

We'll continue to add new features to Phobos for the forseeable future as long 
as those features are worth adding. And while I don't expect that we'll add 
very many language features to D or that they'll be added very quickly, non-
breaking additions will still occur from time to time. However, _breaking_ 
changes to the language should be pretty much non-existent for _years_ to 
come, and breaking changes to Phobos should become quite rare if not non-
existent as well.

We'll eventually look at starting D3, which will mean breaking core language 
stuff where we deem appropriate and possibly completely revamping stuff in 
Phobos, but D2 needs to become fully stable and get a solid user base _long_ 
before we'll consider pulling the rug out from everyone with D3.

- Jonathan M Davis