1.0 ??

[Dave]

Bill Baxter wrote:
> Walter Bright wrote:
>> BCS wrote:
> 
>> While an independent implementation of D would be worthwhile for many 
>> reasons, there are many very successful languages for which only one 
>> implementation exists - such as Perl, Ruby, etc., so it is not a 
>> requirement.
> 
> I definitely agree.
> 
>> What I think is critical for the success of a single implementation 
>> language is it being open source, which D is.
> 
> Technically yes.
> 
> But practically, no.  D is not open source.  D is partially open source. 
>  Just because there is an out-of-date open source compiler that does 
> compile and an up-to-date open source front end that won't compile does 
> not make it open source in the sense that matters most, I think.
> 
> The sense that matters is the one in which I can do "cvs update -Pd" and 
> get the latest complete, working compiler, make changes to it, and 
> submit those changes as patches.
> 

Patches, yes. But that's assuming that the current method of fixing bugs is lacking in some way. 
That is, we have the person most familiar with the compiler and language doing the bug fixing, so we 
may actually have the fastest, safest and most efficient way of getting things done. Obviously, 
often a patch to a seemingly simple problem can wreak havoc on other functionality. I'd hate to have 
someone else submitting patches to the template code right now for example.

Over the space of several releases, I took the dmdfe front-end, kept it up to date with the current 
front-end source code (distributed with DMD) and modified it to do header generation. I mention this 
because the current distribution model allows for things like that if you want to pursue it, and I 
don't think it was much more difficult than if the latest version was in a publicly available 
repository somewhere; if it took longer than a single release cycle, you'd have to keep the code 
you're working on in sync with the latest before you submitted the patches anyhow. One should be 
able to do the same with other new language features.

What may have made things easier initially is if somehow we could get a binary of the back-end to 
plug into the open-source front-end, because a decent amount of time was spent adjusting things to 
work w/ the back-end interface stubbed out. I don't want to push for that though if it would impede 
other progress, or make it tougher for Walter to add new features and/or fix bugs.

> It's great that there's an open source D compiler, and I applaud the 
> effort of those folks who have gotten it to where it is.  But it really 
> should be the MAIN compiler not a sad also-ran huffing and puffing to 
> keep up.
> 

As for GDC - I don't know what the deal is there except to say that since I don't have the time to 
maintain it, I'm assuming that's the case with others as well.

But GDC was started to address your exact concerns and now what's needed is for people to jump-in 
and keep it up-to-date.

> I'm pretty sure I could get to the point where I could submit simple 
> patches to fix some things here and there in the front end, but frankly 
> I have very little interest in spending that time if it's just going to 
> serve the purpose of getting an out-of-date compiler a smidge closer to 
> where DMD was three months ago.  Maybe not everyone feels that way, but 
> I'd be willing to bet a significant number do.  I love new features.  I 
> like to get stuff that's hot off the presses.  I have the source code 
> for 5 or 6 open source projects on my harddrive right now that I 
> sometimes contribute to.
> 
> Open source is most motivating when everyone is working together to 
> create something new and useful and cutting edge, but it's not so 
> exciting when the goal is the re-create that which was new and cutting 
> edge last month.  I can only assume that at least some other would-be 
> contributors feel the same way.
> 
> Anyway, I do applaud you for making so much of D open source.  I think 
> it probably wouldn't be going as strong today if you hadn't.  But at the 
> same time, you shouldn't have any illusions that DMD's model is 
> equivalent to or contains the same magic open source recipe that helped 
> Perl or Ruby or Python make it to where they are today.  It's more like 
> Java's recipe, but Sun had megabucks with which to force Java down 
> everyone's throat despite not being fully open source.
> 

As mentioned above, I can't say I agree with that. After all, it's taken several years for those 
languages to get where they're at and D is a relative newcomer with a whole bunch of leading-edge 
features.

One thing that makes those languages so useful (and seems to need the most work (judging from this 
news-group)) is the open-source library work, and that is completely open-source for D. The current 
'model' should not impede development there at all.

All IMHO.

> --bb