[dmd-beta] dmd 1.062 and 2.047 beta

[Steve Schveighoffer]

----- Original Message ----
> From: Don Clugston <dclugston at googlemail.com>

> That's untrue, for 
> three reasons. Firstly, and most importantly, the version information is 
> indicated by the date the bug was filed; people are almost always using the 
> latest version.

The date filed is not nearly as useful as the version.  Quick, compile the code with dmd circa 5/24!  Your assumption is very wrong, people don't use the latest version often because a) it's easier not to update your code whenever a new version comes out that doesn't interest them (new features don't affect them, or bugs fixed don't affect them) or b) the newest version has some other bug that makes it unable to compile/use their code.

By your reasoning, why do we have version numbers at all?

> (For sure, they are not using a future version!)

Yeah, getting rid of "future" would be fine with me (as long as W. maintains the list properly!)

> Secondly, you cannot 
> trust the version information. It is very often
> incorrect.

Of course, you cannot really "trust" anything you don't try yourself.  That doesn't mean it's never true.  Even if it isn't, you test the version they say reproduces the bug, and if it's not true you close the bug.  This is much easier than guessing what the user was doing.  Responding with "you gave me wrong information" is a lot easier than "I did an exhaustive search on all D2 compilers, and it seems none of them have this problem."

> I've seen many 
> regressions where the bug wasn't introduced
> until one or two versions after 
> the specified version.

Maybe because the list isn't properly maintained? ;)

> And that's the
> only time when version information 
> could potentially be useful.

I'd say no, it's always good to compare apples to apples.  Testing the version being used by the user is step one, testing the latest version to see if it's fixed is step 2.

> But by contrast, it's 
> really dreadful that you cannot search for
> D1-only bugs! This is a really 
> important feature which is missing.

So you're saying, it's easier to do a binary search for the correct version the user might have been using via compiling their code with various D compilers, vs. selecting the range of D1 versions in the bugzilla search form when doing a bug search?  I disagree.

-Steve