D versionning

[Walter Bright]

On 7/15/2012 3:52 PM, Adam Wilson wrote:
> So the problem is semantics then? Because I dredge up another word to describe
> what we are asking for if that's all it takes. But I don't think that anyone
> else is going to read "stable" as "unchanging". Software is by definition
> changing, or it's dead. It appears to my parsing of your sentence that you are
> asserting that stable == static. By that definition of stable, Windows ME is
> "stable" and ... ehrm, not a soul in the tech world would agree with that
> summation of WinME.
>
> As I said earlier, no one else in FOSS or Commercial equates stable with "has no
> bugs", it means no new features and no regressions. Not a single solitary person
> I've talked too expects their software to be bug free.
>
> THIS is what we mean when we say "stable":
> http://www.modernperlbooks.com/mt/2009/06/what-does-stable-mean.html
> It's also how pretty much everyone else will read "stable".

D does have a test suite, and it is a (almost always achieved) goal to keep it 
always passing, even on the dev branch. In fact, most of my work is running the 
test suite and making sure each change doesn't regress. (Regressions that do 
slip through were not in the test suite.)

Frankly, I don't know how to do what you're asking for. D users, every single 
day, clamor for:

1. more bug fixes
2. more new features
3. why aren't deprecated features removed more quickly?
4. why don't we add this breaking feature?
5. why did you add that breaking feature which broke my code?

Often, these are the same people! Sometimes, even in the same post!

And, to reiterate, we did release D1. Since its release, it has only received 
bug fixes. No breaking changes, no regressions. This, inevitably, has made many 
D1 users unhappy - they wanted new features folded in.

So that was not satisfactory, either.

Yes, I do feel a bit put upon by this, as I see no way to satisfy all these 
mutually contradictory requests.