When will D1 be finished?

[Derek Parnell]

On Mon, 11 May 2009 18:28:22 -0500, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:

> Derek Parnell wrote:
>> The D-Team should be dedicating resources to ensuring that the D1 
>> implementation and D1 documentation are in alignment with each other.
>>  By dedicating, I mean that is all that this D1-subteam of the D-Team
>>  work on - no D2 work at all. Any D1 fixes that need to be propagated
>> to D2 should be done by the D2-subteam. Priority should be given to
>> getting D1 completed.
> 
> Well thank you General :o).

In spite of the smiley, I'm still feel that your "General" comment is
out-of-line and not fair.

If one cannot give opinions here then why do we bother.

> Derek, I have all respect for you and your contributions to D. The
> response below does not have the slightest intent to pick on you but to
> rein in an unhelpful pattern in this group.

Thank you and I understand.

> I invite you to see the paragraph quoted above through a different pair 
> of eyes - the eyes of someone with a different vision of what should be 
> done for D, and also (most importantly) who believes in it strongly 
> enough to invest their own non-existing free time  in effecting that 
> vision.

(btw, what exactly is that vision, and why do you think that it is
different from mine?)

> I confess that this couch quarterbacking is mightily frustrating for 
> both Walter and myself. All the pieces are there for anyone with a 
> vision to make it happen. I understand you wanted to share your opinion 
> on what would be best for the future of D, and that's laudable in and by 
> itself, but such opinions have lately become a choir of whines 
> fulfilling a "if I want something from D, and I expect Walter to do it" 
> pattern. We need the exact opposite - if you care, what can *you* do to 
> make D better? D needs action and leadership.

I can only speak for myself here but I am not expecting Walter to do it
all. In fact, I expect Walter to delegate tasks to others, but I get the
feeling that is not the norm.

I cannot influence in any practical manner what happens to D1. I cannot
code in C++ (effectively) so I'm unable to contribute to fixing bugs. I
cannot add to Phobos as 'additions' are closed. I could improve the unit
tests and documentation, but ... well, I might be a little behind the
times, for the mechanisms for contributing code changes to Phobos and the
documentation have been, for me, counter-productive. It is not a simple
process and there is no feeling that my efforts will even make a
difference. Your phrase "All the pieces are there" needs to be fleshed out,
I think. Are you referring to the process that enables one to submit work
for consideration into D? If so, what exactly is that process - Bugzilla is
fine for issues and bugs, but is that also the method that we need to use
for documentation updates and unit tests?

> And why is D1 not finished? Most "finished" languages have 
> implementation insufficiencies. I've read a couple of days ago that D1 
> is unfinished (and unusable by implication) because contracts aren't 
> inherited. If I were Walter, that would be the exact kind of claim that 
> causes high blood pressure. This is ridiculous! Is *that* the feature 
> that the building of a system hinges on? Is that really what's stopping 
> you? Then go back and use contracts in C++, Java, or C#. My guess is, if 
> anyone is whining that D1 is unusable because it doesn't have contract 
> inheritance, tomorrow (should contract inheritance be fixed) they'll 
> whine that it doesn't have named arguments, template virtuals, or a 
> gorram cherry on top. Sheesh.

I realize your remarks above were not specifically directed towards myself,
however I feel the need to respond.

I am not saying that D1 is not finished, but I am saying that DMD-v1 is not
finished.

   D1 documentation says X is a function of D1.
   DMD-v1 does not implement X.
   Therefore DMD-v1 is not a complete implementation of D1.

Even though D1 is finished, DMD-v1 might not be finished.

Either the documentation is wrong or DMD-v1 is not complete yet. 

I do not automatically associate incompleteness with unusable. They are not
the same thing. There exists complete things that are unusable and
incomplete things that are usable.

I believe that D1 is very suitable for production applications today.
DMD-v1 has a level of stability and completeness that enables it to be used
for important works right now. 

I choose not to use D1 for totally different reasons that have nothing to
do with functionality or defect rates.

-- 
Derek Parnell
Melbourne, Australia
skype: derek.j.parnell