D Editions

[Quirin Schroll]

On Tuesday, 14 January 2025 at 05:27:10 UTC, Paul Backus wrote:
> On Thursday, 30 May 2024 at 18:31:48 UTC, Atila Neves wrote:
>> https://github.com/atilaneves/DIPs/blob/editions/editions.md
>>
>> Destroy!
>
> My opinion on this remains the same as it was when I wrote 
> ["Thoughts on Backward Compatibility"][1]; to wit:
>
> * Even without an edition bump, small-scale breaking changes 
> with easy migration paths aren't a big deal.
> * Even with an edition bump, large-scale breaking changes that 
> make migration difficult should probably be avoided.
>
> In other words: the presence of editions in a language does not 
> really make a difference w.r.t. which kinds of breaking changes 
> are feasible to introduce.
>
> Since the stated purpose of editions is to make it easier to 
> introduce breaking changes, I believe that this flaw renders 
> the entire proposal unfit for purpose.
>
> [1]: 
> https://forum.dlang.org/post/axvuuknmtxpmuirbbgax@forum.dlang.org

This. There is something implicitly said in your post, though: 
Medium-scale breaking changes with non-trivial migration paths. 
For those, editions shine. A simple example might be the 
introduction of a new keyword.