backporting features to D1

[Mike Parker]

bobef wrote:
> Walter Bright Wrote:
> 
>> Bill Baxter wrote:
>>> I think there was some hope that making a really stable D1.0 would
>>> somehow make D1.0 an attractive choice for companies.  But come on.
>>> It was a stretch when D1 was just a niche language.  Now it's a niche
>>> language that's also obsolete.
>> People made it clear they were not going to use a language for
>> production if it got new features every month. D 1.0 is a complete and
>> very usable language, with the goal of being stable and bug free.
>>
> 
> Are they going to use the language if it is practically dead? No new features added, D2 too experimental and practically another language. D2 goes so far away from D1 that the task to port a big project seems very unappealing. Plus it is a different language. I come from C++ and like D because it fixes the stupidness of C++ while remaining fast and not too high level. D2 becomes too high level for me... So what is the point to develop for D1? To be honest what I read recently about D2 drives me off. I love D1 and I'd love to have some of the D2 features, but not D2. Now I hope for something like LLVMDC that will keep D1 alive and maybe developing. I brought this up before, but unfortunately Walter didn't respond (http://www.digitalmars.com/webnews/newsgroups.php?art_group=digitalmars.D&article_id=76149). I fully support Bill Baxter's post.

I have a growing, evolving code base that I plan to use for a long time. 
Initially, I was developing it in D1. I've since moved to Java. My 
reasoning follows what is expressed here. D2 is so far gone from D1 that 
I have no interest in porting. Nor do I have any desire to use a 
language that seems obsoleted. Maybe that's just perception, but the 
dearth of mature development tools (considering the amount of time D1 
has been stable -- since well before D 1.0 was released) certainly does 
little to dispel it.

I've not given up on D altogether. I'm actively (albeit slowly) working 
on one project with D1 while maintaining another, and have a couple in 
the pipe waiting for D2 to finalize (and for the D Runtime project to 
mature and for Tango to support D2). But all of that is on the side and 
doesn't put food on the table. As far as my meat and potatoes work, I 
feel like D missed the boat. All of the attention on D2 just turned me 
off. It's rather frustrating sometimes working with D1 code and pining 
for a feature that is already in/coming to D2.