A (un)stable idea?

[Guilherme Vieira]

On Tue, Jan 4, 2011 at 3:07 AM, Heywood Floyd <soul8o8 at gmail.com> wrote:

>
>
> Hi D!
>
>
> I'm quite new to D (been here for maybe half a year?) and I'm not sure if
> what I'm about to say is called for, so please forgive me if I'm crossing
> some line here. I just had a thought and I wanted to share it:
>
>
> I've noticed, during my time here, that D seems to suffer from quite a lot
> of frustration. This frustration in turn seems to stem from periodical
> annoying bugs and regressions etc. There are stories of dedicated developers
> abandoning the ship and things like that. I'm not really in a position to
> say if this is normal or not, but I think at least it's fair to say a lot of
> poeple are frustrated with D(?).
>
> At the same time, what's interesting is that these kinds of bugs can hardly
> be unique to D -- in fact, it would be really weird if these kinds of issues
> was not present in D! (I think so, at least.) Software is complex, and we
> all know bugs are part of the normal course of things. I'd go so far to say
> bugs are a natural part of software.
>
> So why all the frustration?
>
> This lead me to a thought: maybe, just maybe, one thing that causes so much
> frustration, is the fact that D doesn't really seem to have any testing /
> stable branches. Seems to me, and please correct me if I'm wrong, changes
> made to the trunk are released about once every month? And that's it. That's
> the latest version of D.
>
> This is very agressive. Isn't it? Seems to me, many people hold off the
> latest version of D, because it's so agressive.
>
> I think most non-trivial software projects keep one branch that is the
> "sand box"-branch where new features are tried out, and one branch where
> special care is taken to keep it stable. Now, this setup doesn't mean that
> the software will be bug free. The _key_ here is, that once you label a
> piece of software as "testing" or "experimental", bugs are ok! In fact, bugs
> are to be expected! No one can complain! (And if they do, you say "hey,
> chillax dude, it's experimental!")
>
> Also, most developers will be in different phases in their projects -- some
> are building on some project that is years old and the last thing they want
> is some new experimental feauture. Others are just playing around and don't
> mind getting all the latest bells and whistles. Testing/stable solves all
> that, while still allowing the software to evolve.
>
> Then of course, you have to actually keep the stable branch stable. I
> realize that simply dividing D(2) into two branches wouldn't achieve that.
> So I don't know. I guess this is more an idea for future version of D?
>
> That's it. I'm not quite going to finish my reasoning, because, yeah I
> don't know. Maybe this has been up before? Sorry in that case. I just wanted
> to give this idea some air: How about maybe having a testing/stable branch
> for D at some point in the future? I for one would like that, anyhow.
>
>
> (Fun thought experiment: Imagine Debian Linux abandoning their testing
> branch and just making all changes to trunk. Imagine _that_ mailing list.
> You can feel the frustration, can't you? :)
>
>
> Kind Regards
> /HF
>
>
> PS. I've too experienced some frustrating bugs with D, but it's still the
> only compiled language I can stand! *bow*
>
>
Shouldn't TDPL have set the safe subset of the language to use? Maybe it
only happens much when you cross that line?

-- 
Atenciosamente / Sincerely,
Guilherme ("n2liquid") Vieira
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