DMD needs branches

[Don Clugston]

Chris Miller wrote:
> On Thu, 12 Apr 2007 05:20:27 -0400, torhu <fake at address.dude> wrote:
> 
>> I'm also having the same problems with my D projects.  I just added 
>> 'doesn't compile with 1.011' to the readme.txt for one project.
>>
>> Since branches has been suggested before, and nothing has happened, I 
>> have a suggestion that might mean less extra work for Walter, but 
>> still improve the situation a bit:  Release a version marked as a beta 
>> or release candidate before the final version.
>>
>> If the beta version is accepted by the community (all very informal, 
>> what 'accepted' means will have to be Walter's call in each case), it 
>> can be renamed, or even just reannounced as a final version.  The zip 
>> file should at least be renamed, even if the compiler's version number 
>> is not changed (in order to avoid the risks of a recompiling and 
>> repackaging).
>>
> 
> This might be a decent compromise. At least small oversights can be 
> fixed up without affecting regular D users. Beta testers (probably those 
> testing their libraries) can try things out and report any issues.
> 
> There could be a standard beta time, such as one week after the latest 
> beta release, before the public version and release announcement.
> 
> Beta tests could possibly only be accessible via a new separate page and 
> are not posted to the announce NG. Perhaps there could be a separate 
> digitalmars.D.beta group for that instead, also for discussing beta issues.
> 
> - Chris

Why not simply add a line to the download page which states 'last stable 
version' and points to the previous download. So that newcomers to D 
don't download a half-hour old compiler and find that popular libraries 
won't compile. (a PR disaster).

BTW, to be fair, g++ 4.0 was a mess, with more codegen bugs than I've 
seen in any DMD release -- and that's a much higher profile project, 
with a much bigger team than DMD does.