The Case Against Autodecode

[Ola Fosheim Grøstad via Digitalmars-d]

On Friday, 13 May 2016 at 00:47:04 UTC, Jack Stouffer wrote:
> D is much less popular now than was Python at the time, and 
> Python 2 problems were more straight forward than the 
> auto-decoding problem.  You'll need a very clear migration 
> path, years long deprecations, and automatic tools in order to 
> make the transition work, or else D's usage will be permanently 
> damaged.

Python 2 is/was deployed at a much larger scale and with far more 
library dependencies, so I don't think it is comparable. It is 
easier for D to get away with breaking changes.

I am still using Python 2.7 exclusively, but now I use:
from __future__ import division, absolute_import, with_statement, 
unicode_literals

D can do something similar.

C++ is using a comparable solution. Use switches to turn on 
different compatibility levels.