Why version() ?

[Jarrett Billingsley]

On Tue, Feb 10, 2009 at 8:50 PM, Walter Bright
<newshound1 at digitalmars.com> wrote:

> I'll argue that I've never seen anyone create such a mess in D, while I see
> it regularly in C. So something about D is discouraging developing those
> things.

D is also only _really truly_ supported on about three or four
platforms, has been around for a fraction of the time C has, and has a
core code-producing community of I'd say around 100~150 people.
Sample bias.

> I think the tipping point is that it's too easy in C to slip into writing
> such a mess without actually trying to, while in D you have to work harder
> to do it. Hard enough that one might as well do it better in the first
> place.

If nothing - NOTHING - else, please give us version(!something).  Out
of everything wrong with it, that is the worst.  You say that
according to "cognitive studies" that people don't see the !; then why
didn't you remove it from the rest of the language?  And how is THIS:

version(Poopy) {} else
{

}

supposedly better?!