Is it time for D 3.0?

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On Friday, 27 March 2020 at 15:56:40 UTC, Steven Schveighoffer 
wrote:
> There have been a lot of this pattern happening:
>
> 1. We need to add feature X, to fix problem Y.
> 2. This will break ALL CODE IN EXISTENCE
> 3. OK, cancel the fix, we'll just live with it.
>
> Having a new branch of the compiler will provide a way to keep 
> D2 development alive while giving a playground to add new 
> mechanisms, fix long-existing design issues, and provide an 
> opt-in for code breakage.
>
> Some issues I can think of:
>
> 1. The safe by default debate
> 2. pure by default
> 3. nothrow by default
> 4. String interpolation DIP
> 5. auto-decoding
> 6. range.save
> 7. virtual by default
> 8. ProtoObject
>
> Other languages evolve much quicker than D, but break things 
> only in major updates. D seems to "sort of" break things, 
> there's always a risk in every release. We try to be 
> conservative, but we have this horrible mix of deciding some 
> features can break things, while others are not allowed to, and 
> there's no clear guide as to which breakage fits in which 
> category.
>
> If we went to a more regular major release schedule, and 
> decided for a roadmap for each major release what features 
> would be included, it would allow much better planning, and 
> much more defensible breakage of code. If you know that your 
> code will only compile with D2.x, and you're fine with that, 
> then great, don't upgrade to D3.x. If you desperately want a 
> feature, you may have to upgrade to D3.x, but once you get 
> there, you know your code is going to build for a while.
>
> We could also not plan for many major releases, but at least 
> move to D3 for some major TLC to the language that is held back 
> to prevent breakage.
>
> I work occasionally with Swift, and they move very fast, and 
> break a lot of stuff, but only in major versions. It's a bit 
> fast for my taste, but it seems to work for them. And they get 
> to fix issues that languages like C++ might have been stuck 
> with forever.
>
> The biggest drawback is that we aren't a huge language, with 
> lots of manpower to keep x branches going at once.
>
> I just wanted to throw it out as a discussion point. We spend 
> an awful lot of newsgroup server bytes debating things that to 
> me seem obvious, but have legitimate downsides for not breaking 
> them in a "stable" language.
>
> -Steve

D has been around for 20 years and hasn't gained the traction 
that younger languages like Rust or Go have (though as we all 
know, the main reason for this is D's lack of a big corporate 
patron a la Mozilla or Google). Maybe what's needed is a "new" 
language that breaks backwards compatibility (as conservatively 
as possible and hopefully in a way that makes it easy to 
automatically port your D2 code).

Walter originally wanted to call it the Mars language - maybe 
it's time to revive that name in a complete rebranding of the 
language.