dmd 2.063 beta 5

[Sean Cavanaugh]

On 5/23/2013 11:17 PM, Walter Bright wrote:
> On 5/23/2013 8:53 PM, Steven Schveighoffer wrote:
>> On Thu, 23 May 2013 23:38:32 -0400, Walter Bright
>> <newshound2 at digitalmars.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> On 5/23/2013 7:38 PM, Steven Schveighoffer wrote:
>>>> This is one change where ALL code broken by this change
>>>> is fixable with a simple solution, and at some point, people will
>>>> have to deal
>>>> with this.
>>>
>>> Yes, but it is not so urgent as RIGHT NOW YOU MUST FIX IT. Hence, the
>>> warning.
>>
>> If they aren't in the mood to change their code, they don't have to
>> upgrade to
>> the latest compiler.
>
> Q: Why do we bother with the whole warning and deprecation thing anyway?
>
> A: Because forcing people to conform to our schedule with no warning is
> a bit presumptuous. Someone writing a library, for example, has to be up
> to date, and anyone using that library, for another, has to deal with it
> if it fails to compile. If your code is built from multiple blobs from
> various places, it is unreasonable to expect them to all instantly and
> simultaneously upgrade.
>

I would argue the language should be designed with the ability to easily 
add keywords without breaking things.  I would expect a simple 
implementation to be that each source file needs to be marked up with a 
version of the compiler it is designed for, and the compiler could tell 
you that A) you are using what is now a keywords B) compile the code 
correctly anyway.

The lack of this kind of feature is why c++11's new null type is named 
nullptr, and not null, and why pure virtuals are declared with '=0' 
instead of a keyword.  Arguably c++11's range based for loops are also 
designed with this constraint (avoid adding a keyword), but is a not 
ugly like =0 pure virtuals :)