DMD needs branches

[Frederico Wagner]

I agree.
D really needs 2 branches:
* 1.x would be a bug fixes only version. (stable)
* 2.0 would be a new features and bug fixes version. (unstable, language expansion version)

After some time, for example, 1 year, it would merge the 2.0 branch into the stable branch and do it again. (2.x and 3.0 branches).
So users could keep using DMD until there's a new stable version, and they could port / fix the code to be compatible with the new stable release.

If DMD stays very unstable as it is it will be forever having broken libraries, which will slow down the development of possible frameworks and tools. Because of this one-version-only compatibility.
And this is a bad thing for the growing of the language and the community itself.

It's very sad to have a hard work with some project and then you find out that it doesn't work with the new compiler version, and you have to fix this very quickly because users want updated compilers to use with your library. With the stable branch we would keep using it and every library would work OK.
If someone decides to use the unstable DMD version this person would do it knowing that it may not be compatible with current libraries and source codes.

I hope the developers of D do something about this.
miller[] is really a very active user of D and is doing great work coding libraries.
If the current problem is making he write this, I think this is a serious problem that might be affecting other users as well.
Sorry, for my bad english. And I hope you understand what I'm saying.

Thanks.

Frederico Wagner
Lectus on #D freenode.