Thoughts on Backward Compatibility

[ryuukk_]

Fast compilation, modules, compile time stuff should have been 
enough for D to rule in the system language area.. but too much 
distraction (Java OOP stuff), time has passed and still no way to 
do better then C in some areas

And i disagree with you on Python3, breaking change didn't hurt 
its adoption, it gave it a new birth, what hurt its adoption was 
distro maintainers

I do lot of python these days, and it sadden me whenever i go 
back to D and i can't do a simple pattern match, i have to use 
the old ass verbose C style switch

Similar with returning multiple values, can't do it in D unless 
you import a template everywhere and even then, using them is not 
as smooth and is too verbose

It's hard to win people over these matter because everyone has 
its own idea of what's needed, what's important and what is useful

At some point the leadership has to bruteforce and implement 
things he thinks will be needed, important and useful

Expecting users to contribute is wrong, it's your project, we are 
only using it to power our own projects

Anyways.. i don't mind breaking changes, as long as:

- it is properly documented

- the upgrade path is automated with tooling as much as possible 
(i wish dmd had a: `dmd fmt` built in)

- it was done to make the language future proof


Backward compatibility should have a minimum version, otherwise 
there is no way to fix past mistakes or to adapt

For me, the strengths of D:

- fast compilation
- close to C performance/control wise
- very easy access to C code / libraries, great to kickstart a 
project
- compile time type introspection
- modules
- not ruled by a big corp

It however show its lack of adaptiveness, when compared to the 
competition, its weaknesses:

- verbosity/repetition in the wrong areas
- no switch as expression
- no native tuple
- no tagged union
- no static array length inference
- can't have anonymous struct within structs
- C++ style of "the solution is a template in phobos"
- hard to predict what's next