standardization of D

[Peter C. Chapin]

Clay Smith <clayasaurus at gmail.com> wrote in
news:ev9lsv$tn3$1 at digitalmars.com: 

> I'm just a hobbyer, but I care about the D v1.0 version switch. 
> 
> This switch makes it so any compiler after version 1.0 can compile my
> programs, and anyone who writes a D 1.0 compatible compiler can also
> compile my programs. D 1.0 is a nice 'target' that doesn't move. To be
> able to ever stabilize, a language needs such a target or it will
> forever be left for the bleeding edgers. 

I agree with this. The existence of v1.0 means that one can write 
software that compiles with the 1.0 version of the language and publish 
it as such knowing that everyone else should understand what that means. 
Of course such software won't be able to use any new features added to 
the language later; that is understood. But in some cases the new 
features are unnecessary to get the job done well so they don't really 
matter.

Of course this would be a bigger deal if there were a variety of 
competing D implementations. Otherwise writing "D v1.0 conformant 
software" is mostly just a formality.

I'm also a hobbiest when it comes to D, but I basically just watched the 
language until 1.0 was released. Now I'm playing with 1.0 and I probably 
won't upgrade myself for a while. If I tried to upgrade all the software 
I use whenever a new version was released I'd spend all of my time 
upgrading software and very little time actually doing anything. 
Consequently I appreciate the stability implied by the 1.0 release.

Ideally once 1.0 was released there should have been a fork in the 
release schedule for D. Bug fixes to 1.0 could be provided separately 
from language enhancements leading toward 2.0 (or whatever). That way 
people interested in coding to the 1.0 "standard" could get a fixed 
compiler without the "clutter" of new features. Do the latest compilers 
have a v1.0 compatibility switch? That would also be a reasonable 
solution.

Peter

P.S. Is there some way to find out the current version of DMD from the 
DigitalMars web page, short of downloading and unpacking the thing? I 
would have expected to find the latest release version number easily 
visible, say on the download page, but there is nothing (unless I'm 
being very dense and just missing it).