Fixing C's Biggest Mistake

[Walter Bright]

On 12/22/2022 4:05 AM, Siarhei Siamashka wrote:
>> The request is always "I want X bug fixed, I want to keep the old Y feature, I 
>> want the new Z feature."
> 
> What's wrong with such request? Assuming that the new feature Z doesn't break 
> compatibility.

Everyone has a different XYZ combination they want. This is why versioning does 
not work.


>> But the people objecting to breaking code also object to using a -revert switch.
> Again, is this -revert switch really useful for anything?

More useful than versions.


> Would selecting some compiler version as LTS and backporting only minor bugfixes 
> to it require too much effort?

If someone wants to volunteer to do this, I would welcome it. In fact, an LTS 
version isn't even necessary. Any fix could be backported to any previous D release.


> Not every bugfix comes with breaking existing code.

I didn't say every. But a lot of critical bugs do.


> And there's a big difference between breaking the existing *buggy* code (the 
> maintainers of such existing code will be grateful for getting the bug exposed) 
> and breaking some perfectly *valid* existing code due to unnecessary language 
> syntax changes (the maintainers of such existing code will be only annoyed).

One person's valid code is another's bug. Fixing autodecoding, for example, 
breaks existing code.