[dmd-internals] Pulling D language enhancements

[Daniel Murphy via dmd-internals]

On Fri, Oct 10, 2014 at 5:42 PM, Walter Bright <walter at digitalmars.com> wrote:
>
> On 10/9/2014 10:43 PM, Daniel Murphy wrote:
>>
>> On Fri, Oct 10, 2014 at 3:07 PM, Walter Bright via dmd-internals
>> <dmd-internals at puremagic.com> wrote:
>>
>>> if the language design change is rejected, then the PR author's coding
>>> effort has gone to waste. We don't have the luxury of throwing peoples'
>>> work
>>> away like that. It pains me very much when this happens.
>>
>> Walter, this is the most effective way to push for decision on
>> enhancements.  You have an awful track record at deciding on
>> theoretical changes.  It is _supposed_ to pain you when the work gets
>> thrown away.
>
>
> Throwing a valuable contributor's code away should not factor into a
> decision as to whether a language enhancement is a good idea or not. But
> doing it this way makes it a factor. This does not lead to the best
> decisions.
>

I can't say I've seen you making bad decisions because of this.  In an
ideal world you wouldn't be put in this position, but it's a lot
better than the alternative of _never_ getting a decision on
enhancements.

The only other options are to post on the newsgroup, which almost
always results in nothing useful and no decision, or to approach you
or Andrei personally.

>
>>
>>> So please, please, before submitting a PR that involves a language
>>> change,
>>> be sure you've got agreement and approval for the change. Otherwise, you
>>> risk wasting your time in a most frustrating matter.
>>
>> Following this would result in near-zero enhancement PRs.  Is that
>> what you want?
>
>
> We need to approach language changes with increasing caution, not less. We
> get a lot of flak, some of it deserved, for reaching for shiny new features
> rather than doing the drudgery of making existing features work correctly.
>

I would consider both of those merged enhancements as arguably making
existing features work correctly.