DMD front end should define a version containing the front end version

[Don]

On Monday, 25 February 2013 at 10:09:18 UTC, Iain Buclaw wrote:
> On 25 February 2013 09:35, Don 
> <turnyourkidsintocash at nospam.com> wrote:
>
>> On Monday, 25 February 2013 at 01:04:01 UTC, Iain Buclaw wrote:
>>
>>> On Feb 24, 2013 10:16 PM, "Walter Bright" 
>>> <newshound2 at digitalmars.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>>
>>>> On 2/24/2013 8:48 AM, SiegeLord wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> I am quite sick of DMDFE breaking my code every release 
>>>>> with bugs
>>>>> that are then solved for the next release (that is, if they 
>>>>> are
>>>>> solved).
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Here's the current regression list:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>  http://d.puremagic.com/issues/**buglist.cgi?query_format=**
>>> advanced&bug_severity=**regression&bug_status=NEW&bug_**
>>> status=ASSIGNED&bug_status=**REOPENED<http://d.puremagic.com/issues/buglist.cgi?query_format=advanced&bug_severity=regression&bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_status=REOPENED>
>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>> All regressions should have a link to the commit where the 
>>> issue first
>>> recurred.
>>>
>>
>> In my experience, that's nearly always a waste of time. In 
>> almost
>> all cases, there is nothing wrong with the offending commit, it
>> merely triggered an existing latent bug. This is particularly
>> true of forward reference bugs.
>>
>>
> I didn't imply that there was anything wrong with the offending 
> commit.

I didn't intend to imply that you did. My experience is that it 
doesn't even have any useful relationship to the bug, and that 
(even worse) you waste a lot of time trying to figure out what 
the relationship is.

> It
> does help to give a reference point on where to start looking 
> for tracing
> the different code paths down and find a resolution to the 
> regression, a
> opposed to "removing this line" or "adding this safegaurd seems 
> to work".

Intuitively, I used to think that, but I personally have not 
found that to be true in practice. I think tracking down the 
exact commit is a complete waste of time. In the cases I've seen 
where it had a clear relationship to the bug, it was obvious what 
part of the code contained the bug, anyway.