What's the current state of D?

[Walter Bright]

Leandro Lucarella wrote:
> Walter Bright, el 10 de mayo a las 11:21 me escribiste:
> I posted it in this very same thread, just before the link to the GDB
> patches link. Here it is again:
> http://www.digitalmars.com/d/archives/digitalmars/D/Getting_D_language_patch_into_GDB_82597.html

Thank you.

>> Given all the beating of breasts and rending of robes about D1 not being
>> stable and breaking code even when a bug is fixed in it, I just can't
>> see coming out with a new D1 that substantially breaks every existing D1
>> code base.
> 
> It would break all existing D1 code base?

I suspect it would break pretty much all the non-trivial code.


> If the compiler were really open source, and the frontend were in a public
> repository, and fixes would be well separated patches, you wouldn't have
> to maintain 3 D version.

It's not just me, it's the poor sap who has to maintain 3 different 
versions of his library.


>> D2 has already taken the steps necessary to support both Phobos and Tango.
> But D2 is not nearly ready for production use. D1 is almost there... Is
> missing so little that it's frustrating.

I don't believe that contract inheritance is the key to production use. 
There shouldn't be anything standing in the way of using D1 for 
production use, and in fact it is being used that way.


> In case you are not following the thread about interior pointers, here is
> another drawback for the Tango vs. Phobos problem, here is copy&pasted
> fragment:
> 
>   I think it would be great to have a centralized place where to put this
>   improvements. This is another situation where I think Tango vs. Phobos
>   issue is killing D. When I started my work in the thesis I had to decide
>   whether to work with Phobos or Tango. I finally decided for Tango, because
>   is the only option for LDC and because is way better organized (and more
>   receptive to patches). But I hate knowing that my work will be available
>   (in the best case) only for people using Tango.

I don't believe that splitting D into yet another separate version can 
fix this, as then the user has to decide which D to use.