DMD 1.032 and 2.016 releases

[Bill Baxter]

Steven Schveighoffer wrote:
> Besides this annoyance, Tango can be looked at as a really good exercise for 
> DMD.  If Tango compiles, and Phobos compiles, then most likely DMD is stable 
> enough to be useful for everyone.  I can't see any down side to having Tango 
> devs test a pre-release version of DMD.  It should just be one of the screen 
> tests that helps make DMD a better product, and helps make D less 
> frustrating to those of us who rely on Tango.

The down sides of such a devs-only pre-release are that
1) It deprives the majority of D users the opportunity to find bugs.
2) it deprives everyone not affected by the bugs from getting their 
hands on every new D release for about a week (while the selected devs 
work on testing the release, reporting results back to Walter, and then 
fixing any problems found).  And since Phobos seems to be getting tested 
pretty well, that means basically Phobos users have to wait while things 
get fixed for Tango.

Ok, so maybe you say "fine -- make the pre-release public so that anyone 
interested can try it out".  Ok, that would be great.  But let's be 
realistic: Walter has proven quite reluctant to change anything about 
how he does D releases, despite repeated pleas to change to a different 
  system.  Whether it be adding a major/minor, stable/unstable, 
even/odd, or alpha/beta distinctions, or whatever.  He has his system 
and he's sticking to it as far as I can tell.  He's been using it 
basically since version 0.001, and the only change he's made in all that 
time is when 2.x was released and required a split.

So what can you do given that the release process itself isn't likely to 
change?
Answer: put out quick regression-fix releases as soon as possible.


I think Tango-breaking regressions like these are kind of like "breaking 
the build".  When you break the build you don't just tell your 
co-workers, "oh well, I'll fix it the next time I have some code that 
needs checking in".  You fix it ASAP.  It becomes the *only* item on 
your TODO list until it is fixed.

--bb