Phobos and older DMD versions

[Andrei Alexandrescu]

On 2013-08-06 16:02:30 +0000, Jesse Phillips said:

> On Tuesday, 6 August 2013 at 14:51:35 UTC, qznc wrote:
>> My recent pull request [0] triggered some issue, which should get a 
>> bigger discussion:
>> 
>> Should Phobos version N also compile with DMD N-1?
>> 
>> In my opinion it should, because it makes Phobos development simpler. 
>> You don't need a self compiled dmd to fix bugs.
>> 
>> However, reality sometimes requires exceptions. I understand that 
>> sometimes Phobos uses a feature of dmd HEAD. That is why I said 
>> "should", but not "must". ;)
>> 
>> 
>> [0] https://github.com/D-Programming-Language/phobos/pull/1454/files#r5601514
> 
> This doesn't sound related to the problem discussed. Phobos N must 
> compile with DMD N, that is a primary requirement. If Phobos N compiles 
> with DMD N-1, great but it can't fail in DMD N.
> 
> Now, if we step back from the principle of it. It would be good to 
> require DMD N-1 to compile Phobos N because it would require careful 
> thought in how to do translations. Instead of fixing the bug, prepare 
> the compiler to accept the change that will be needed in Druntime.
> 
> That is of course the armchair statement, I think is something to 
> strive for and if we're trying to do the "do what you would do if you 
> had a million users," this is probably something we would do; where we 
> is a couple hundred of the million users (oh we don't have that:).

I think it should be fair to require the new compiler with the new 
stdlib. They are released in unison.

Andrei