State of the Compiler

[Laeeth Isharc via Digitalmars-d]

On Tuesday, 1 March 2016 at 16:23:37 UTC, Jack Stouffer wrote:
> On Tuesday, 1 March 2016 at 13:48:18 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu 
> wrote:
>> How would cutting and pasting from phobos be better than using 
>> it? -- Andrei
>
> There wouldn't be downward pressure on Phobos devs from DMD 
> devs to not change anything.
>
> One of the things that contributed to my decision to switch to 
> D from Python is that D is:
>
> 1. Willing to admit that it made a mistake
> 2. Willing to fix it through deprecation -> un-documentation -> 
> removal
>
> Python is no longer willing to make backwards incompatible 
> changes with with it's bad experience with Python 3. Therefore 
> one of two things will happen. Either the language will 
> stagnate, or the bad ideas will remain when new ideas are 
> added, bloating the language.
>
> If you have more pressure not to not change anything, I think 
> this will have negative consequences. Bad ideas must be 
> removed, and removed as soon as possible, if the language is to 
> thrive.

I agree - that's exactly right (I don't mean about python, as I'm 
not involved there).  Balancing between change for the sake of it 
and stasis requires good judgment, and not everybody who voices 
loudly an opinion on the topic excels at this.

As Walter says, you should listen to the people who already like 
you and use your product, and spend less time worrying about 
those who don't.  Because it tends to be the case that should you 
change what they say, they'll find something else to complain 
about.

Of the 'serious developers' who have the most skin in the game 
commercially, it doesn't seem like they are upset with the 
present way things are done.  If anything, Sociomantic - to take 
the most prominent example - have asked for a bit more breakage 
to do things right.

Also, life involves Type 1 and Type 2 errors.  If over time you 
don't have some people unhappy that there is too much breakage 
and some unhappy that you seem to be stuck with bad legacy 
choices then you probably aren't striking the right balance, and 
it's worth bearing that in mind, I think.