Andrei's Google Talk

[Nick Sabalausky]

"Jeff Nowakowski" <jeff at dilacero.org> wrote in message 
news:i3ekaf$14hd$1 at digitalmars.com...
> On 08/04/2010 09:22 PM, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
>>
>> Walter is more silent than usual because he's working very hard on the
>> 64-bit compiler. He hopes to have one by the end of this month. His next
>> big goal is shared library support.
>
> While those are both important, isn't it even more important to have the 
> existing 32-bit implementation complete? How can you showcase a language 
> that's incomplete and buggy? Can't both those features wait until after D2 
> is considered polished enough to be released?
>

Perhaps. But a debate on the ideal priority-ranking could go in circles 
forever. At the end of the day, something needs to just be picked, worked 
on, done, and move on, even if it isn't the perfect choice.

> I keep seeing reports from people running into bugs, unfinished features, 
> and incomplete documentation. There's no end in sight, either, yet a book 
> has been released and the language is promoted as if it were a finished 
> product.

Most of those aren't really breakers, though. Even with all of that stuff 
I'm still far more productive in D than any other language I use. I imagine 
many other D users feel the same. But lack of 64-bit is a breaker (or 
near-breaker) for some people, and it's also an obstacle for PR. And the 
better the PR is, the better chances we have of getting more people coming 
in and helping out with other aspects, etc.

So there'd be benefits to focusing more on misc bugs, features, 
documentation, but there's also benefits to focusing on 64-bit. And Walter's 
gotta at least choose something.