On Thursday, 23 May 2013 at 18:50:12 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:
I agree that there are many D users who do not hang out here, who sometimes surface and argue that they weren't informed about something. We have to consider their interests, too.
Could a list of users be assembled who would be emailed directly when serious decisions require the input of the widest possible user base? Would that be a reliable way to maintain good communications? The idea would be to spare them the effort of keeping up to date on the busy newsgroups.
I feel bad about the stability versus innovation issue. I'm no expert in communications, but it would be great to discover that effective communications could solve problems that hacking wizardry alone could not. It might be too idealistic to imagine that the community will ever be one big happy family, rallying around important breaking changes for the sake great language design. But I don't think it's a Wild West, everyone for himself, kind of deal either. It even seems like the kind of issue where it's not so much about solid language design as it is about managing people's expectations and the process of change.
Until, that is, the day when D is so mainstream that it's being used by all sorts of rabble and vermin, who just can't take change the same way. But hasn't someone brought up the fact that PHP changed a value type to a reference type even in its very mature state? I don't know the details of that, but if it's true, then I think D seriously needs someone from PHP's public relations committee to jump that ship and board this one. :-)
And feel free to take my opinions with a grain of salt. I want D to succeed, but I wouldn't consider myself a serious trench soldier here, as you know.
