So D will have LTS or not?

[GrimMaple]

For the OP, I think D is not getting any LTS.

On Monday, 3 July 2023 at 10:36:11 UTC, Martyn wrote:
> I am not sure if we need another thread on this as the previous 
> one is still rather active.

The more threads there are, the bigger the chance of something 
being actually done. At this point, I don't even know what is 
going to work.

> Thing is, I do not see an LTS being created any time soon. It 
> is more than to simply `git branch..` and here ya go! It will 
> require a few people to maintain it. On top of this, it will be 
> a cultural change in the D ecosystem especially for library 
> developers to target target LTS, and to provide a version 
> number standard to indicate which LTS it refers to.
>
>    At least that is my opinion on the matter.

I share a similar opinion, that simply branching off any release 
point and calling it LTS isn't going to be cutting it. Not only 
this LTS has to be recognized, but the whole D language would 
need some form of feature/bugfix planning. You can't have an LTS 
release without planning features ahead-of-time. Inevitably, LTS 
is going to affect language development. And it's not going to 
happen when leadership wants to have the mentality of "I can add 
whatever I want whenever I want".

> I want D to be successful. To me Dlang is 'the language' that 
> ticks 90% of the boxes and easy to transition to being a C and 
> C# developer. I am at an age, now, where I am not sure I want 
> to learn Rust - as I hear is a steeper curve coming from those 
> C\C++ background. I know I can do it, obviously - but I was 
> hoping for D to be the preferred choice for me.

Also same, except I'd rather go back to C because it gives much 
less trouble long-term.

> Rust is getting more and more momentum. Recently it has been 
> included into the Linux kernel which, to me, has given it some 
> extra brownie points in terms of free advertising. With 
> Z3Solver recent comment about facebook ditching D and replaced 
> with Rust does say a lot, along with his comments on crates not 
> breaking (or worrying as much about breaking) if he upgrades, 
> etc, comes back to my views on using D for larger projects.

This just further cements my view of D being unable to retain 
users and being overfocused on bringing temporary users with some 
weird new half-baked feature. Walter complained that Facebook 
never "reached out to him", but why doesn't he reach out to ask 
why? I reached out with my complaints, for example, and where did 
it bring me? It only cemented my wish to drop D.

> There is a lot of talent in the D community and I plan to 
> invest some time learning the internals of D, hoping I could be 
> one of the LTS maintainers in the near future. Of course, it is 
> very unlikely I can do this on my own... and won't get round to 
> "being ready" for such a task anytime soon.

I think, first of all, the D community must be open for the idea 
of LTS. As in, they need to "man up" and bring a valid set of 
points at which an LTS would be even possible. As long as they 
have the position of "do it yourself", there is an endless pit of 
possibiliteis for D Core Team (and Walter personally) to reject 
your work based on opinion. In short, I'd say don't waste your 
time trying to convinince people to accept your work. It's not 
worth it for free.