How can we make it easier to experiment with the compiler?

[Ola Fosheim Grostad]

On Monday, 24 May 2021 at 21:01:05 UTC, Max Haughton wrote:
> On Monday, 24 May 2021 at 20:47:39 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu 
> wrote:
>> On 5/24/21 9:53 AM, 12345swordy wrote:
>>> On Monday, 24 May 2021 at 10:34:35 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:
>>>> [...]
>>> 
>>> I seriously question the "Optimized for people who spend 
>>> thousands of hours working on it" line, as I had a very 
>>> intelligent person posted on slacks asking what does this 
>>> function do, as there is no comments for said functions.
>>
>> Adding documentation would be another good investment with 
>> terrific dividends. Again it minds my boggle that people talk 
>> about big changes (and no doubt would be willing to try them) 
>> but can't be bothered to make small changes with 
>> disproportionately good impact.
>
> Where do you start? i.e. there's always work to be done but 
> unless you enforce change from the top you're blocking a river 
> at the mouth (to play devil's advocate)

The reason I put documentation low on my list is that it has a 
high maintenance cost if you are going to redesign.

Also, it has not been a hindrance for experimentation for me. 
Probably a hindrance for fixing bugs, but that is not the topic..

In general, let us try too focus on macro issues, there is no 
need for dmd to be perfect in order to better support 
experimentation. Partitioning and interfacing is more important 
than statement and block level issues. Micro issues such as 
imports and number of OutBuffer implementations are low impact 
issues, those are more aesthetical in nature...