Ghosting a language feature

[Mike Parker]

On Monday, 21 September 2020 at 23:57:17 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:
> While C++ names things by the year, the compilers don't 
> actually follow this schedule. Compilers have varying levels of 
> implementing the new standards, some years before, some years 
> after.

Doesn't have to be thr year. Java does just fine with sequential 
whole numbers. The point is that I can't tell you which D feature 
came in which release without digging through the changelog, but 
though I don't even use Java anymore I know that switch 
expressions came in Java 12 or 13.


>
> Once something is implemented, I don't see the advantage of 
> delaying deployment of it, possibly for years, in order to meet 
> some arbitrary milepost.

We have milestone releases already (2.094, 2.095). What we don't 
have is extended patch support or any ckear way to delineate the 
language versions. I mean, D 2.094 is a different languge than D 
2.074. How many people can say how they differ?

And if I want to upgrade from 2.094 to 2.095, but the new version 
introduces a regression that blocks me, that regression might not 
be fixed until 2.098. Now in order to upgrade I need to deal with 
the changes and possible regressions in multiple milestone 
realeases because there's no long-term patch support for 2.095. 
This is not a hypothetical situation. It has happened to 
companies using D in production.