On Friday, 18 January 2013 at 20:21:47 UTC, bearophile wrote:
Also, I don't agree a lot about the "fog of war" theory by Walter.
I must have missed that one, what's it about?
I think a development plan should be discussed, written down, and then followed (and dynamically fixed, when necessary). Building a new system language has a high risk of failure, but there's no need to also shot D in the feet on purpose.
Yes, a plan is sorely lacking. Also the language specification can be much better managed. For example, there's no clear plan for it, no clear revision history, discussions for improvements are made but then get lost or forgotten, etc. If it were better managed, many advantages become apparent, such as being able to link a particular release of the compiler to a specific revision of the language that the compiler supports, but that's just one benefit. The limited resources can be more focused on fixing specific parts of the compiler because that specific area was made a priority. What's the priority right now? I don't know, and that's not sending a confidence inspiring message to the people who are thinking about taking a risk and using D.
On the positive side, we have seen a recent improvement with the rolling out of a defined development and release process. Some of the details are still being sorted out, but it is a;ready huge improvement and may help kick start more of the same thing. We just need to keep working towards expanding the process to include other areas of D development.
--rt
