DMD 1.032 and 2.016 releases

[Steven Schveighoffer]

"Bill Baxter" wrote
> 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.

It already deprives the majority of users (who use Tango) from finding bugs 
since we can't use the compiler!  If anything, this will increase the number 
of users that can log bugs against it.

> 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.

This is a pretty lousy reason to not have interim releases.  Waiting a week 
for more bug fixes that could potentially affect you is not that bad.  Tango 
users already sometimes have to wait several extra weeks or months.  It's 
just amazing what a slow pace Phobos and DMD move compared to Tango, and 
Phobos users would be complaining about slow releases.

All this would be a moot point if Tango devs could build dmd directly.  That 
is my first preference.

> 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.

If this is what happens, it's fine with me.  This is essentially the same as 
pre-releasing except you are going to have lots of extra version increments 
:)

-Steve