Windows experience is atrocious

[harakim]

On Tuesday, 25 July 2023 at 16:51:04 UTC, H. S. Teoh wrote:
> In compiler terms, this just means that the compiler has to (1) 
> understand that it's dealing with code meant for an older 
> version of the language, and (2) based on that knowledge adapt 
> the way it processes the code in a way that preserves its 
> original meaning.
That's an interesting comparison to older languages. I agree if 
you can do 1 and 2 then the problem wouldn't exist. I have doubts 
about whether people would do (1), although it could be done 
retroactively as needed, maybe even in an automated fashion. So 
that could work. Then there is (2). Would there be 104 code paths 
(for ex, 1 for each version) in the compiler? That seems like it 
would be super complicated.

> Something along these lines has to be done, otherwise we're 
> never gonna move forward.  The ecosystem is just gonna stagnate 
> because the more the language advances, the more old code and 
> old libraries will stop compiling.

This is definitely true. I worked a job where we would sell a lot 
but our software was so bad, we would lose more customers than we 
gained. I hadn't really thought of it like that but I do feel 
like I find fewer tools and native libraries than I used to.

I think it would be reasonable for people to keep multiple 
compilers around. Maybe someone could be expected to keep each 
LTS version around. I don't know how much that would solve though 
since there would still be all the incremental versions. I'm not 
convinced the version thing is practical yet, but it would solve 
the problem. Do you think it would be practical to have a single 
compiler managing 100s of versions of the language?