D1 to be discontinued on December 31, 2012

[Andrei Alexandrescu]

On 12/13/11 10:12 PM, Don wrote:
> On 13.12.2011 17:00, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
>> On 12/13/11 7:52 AM, Don wrote:
>>> On 10.12.2011 22:19, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
>>>> In order to increase focus and unity in the language, we are
>>>> discontinuing support for D1 on December 31, 2012. That's more than one
>>>> year away, which gives enough time to D1 users to migrate libraries and
>>>> applications to D2.
>>>
>>> I thought we had moved away from these kinds of unilateral decisions.
>>> I strongly oppose this decision. In particlar, I find the lack of
>>> community consulatation deplorable.
>>
>> Apologies for this being so sudden. This was deliberate as there would
>> have been no way to achieve consensus in the matter. People prefer
>> having choices and postponement options, and are generous with others'
>> time.
>>
>> Allow me to recap the reasons why I think this is a necessary move.
>>
>> 1. We can't serve two masters. Working on two languages at the same time
>> was non-committal and artificially sustained a rift in the community.
>
> The rift was created and sustained by unilateral statements like this
> one. Abandoning half the community doesn't help.

There is no abandonment. Also, where is that 50/50 estimate from? Just 
curious.

>> It also diffused our focus, delayed us to an ever-increasing extent,
>
> What on earth gives you that idea? The only resources involved are some
> fraction of Walter's time, which is obviously an important resource, but
> nobody other than Walter is affected.

Walter told me so, and Walter is the single most important bottleneck.

> You're seriously misrepresenting
> the situation.

What is an accurate representation of the situation, and what evidence 
is there to back that up?

> I spend some time on fixing D1 bugs, but that won't change, see below.
>
>> and
>> sent the wrong message out that we're lacking confidence of what our
>> core thrust is, so we're trying to sort of please everyone. ("Here's our
>> flagship language! If you don't like it, well, we have another one.")
>
> This is a silly and offensive statement. Most languages are in this
> situation. Look at Python2 vs Python3, Perl6 vs Perl5.

I wonder who would be offended by that.

>> 2. The deadline is more than a year away. This is a long time, enough
>> for us to make D2 compelling, and also for interested people to migrate.
>
> No, it's an exceedingly short timeframe.

Other vendors give similar time scale for much larger migrations.

> What gives you the idea that
> nobody is using D1?

There is not one sentence in my message claiming nobody is using D1. 
Don, it is you who is misrepresenting the situation, and repeatedly. I 
understand you find this frustrating, but please, let's have a 
constructive dialog.

> Have you thought about what would convince them to
> switch to D2, and what would be required for them to do it?

I think the most important aspect for them would be completion of 
Tango's port to D2. The recent progress in the matter is encouraging. If 
the D1 community is sizable, resourceful, and interested, I believe that 
to be within the realm of possibility.

> I suspect you don't know much about the D1 community. (Note that only a
> small fraction of D users have ever used the newsgroup, and it's mostly
> people with an interest in language design. They are not representative).
>
> I can already say with certainty that I will still be using D1 in 2013.

That's great. The decision does not make it impossible or even 
particularly difficult for D1 users to continue using D1. Since there 
were near zero bug reports on D1, they can be assumed to be content with 
the quality of the compiler. Really I don't see the gist of the 
complaint. This is not abandonment.


Thanks,

Andrei