Version of implementation for docs

[Tyler Jameson Little]

On Sunday, 11 August 2013 at 15:25:27 UTC, JS wrote:
> On Sunday, 11 August 2013 at 10:16:47 UTC, bearophile wrote:
>> JS:
>>
>>> Can we get the version of implementation/addition of a 
>>> feature in the docs. e.g., if X feature/method/library is 
>>> added into dmd version v, then the docs should display that 
>>> feature.
>>
>> Python docs do this, and in my first patch I have added such 
>> version number.
>>
>> Bye,
>> bearophile
>
> Too bad have the "development team" feel this is not important. 
> Very bad decision and will hurt D in the long run. It's not a 
> hard thing to do. Seems to be a lot of  laziness going around. 
> Maybe you can tell us just how hard/time consuming it was to 
> type in 2.063 when you added a method?

Personally I don't like the tone here, but I agree that having 
version numbers would be very nice to have, especially when using 
a pre-packaged DMD+Phobos from a package manager.

Perhaps this could be automated? It'd be a little messy, but it 
could look something like this:

* get list of all exported names changed since last release 
(using diff tool)
* eliminate all names that have the same definition in the last 
release
* mark new names (not in last release) as new in current release
* mark changed names as changed in current release (keep list of 
changes since added)
* document deleted names as having been removed

This would only have to be run once per release, so it's okay if 
it's a little expensive.

This bit me once in Go when a dependency failed to compile 
because of a missing function name. It existed in the official 
docs, but not in my local docs. After updating to the latest 
release, everything worked as expected. There was, however, no 
indication in the docs that anything had been added, only in the 
change logs.