Final by default?

[Jonathan M Davis]

On Thursday, March 13, 2014 11:24:10 Martin Krejcirik wrote:
> To me it seems this whole debate highlights the problem in the release
> cycle, not in the development of the language. DMD needs a long-term
> stable point release, supported for at least a year. Everybody should
> expect possible breakage in the latest development release, even if
> unintended. The latest version should also be marked as
> development/experimental on the download page.

Considering that a lot of the breakage that occurs (most?) actually results 
from fixing bugs, I don't think that trying to maintain "bugfix" releases is 
really going to help much. There may ultimately still be some value in them, 
but most people who suggest this sort of solution seem to be under the 
impression that it would somehow stop accidental code breakage, and that isn't 
the case at all. Pretty much the only way to guarantee no accidental breakage 
is to make no changes at all - including bug fixes.

- Jonathan M Davis