When reading stuff, like: "Yes this is bad, but people use it already, so we could only possible change this in D3 or something" and reading endless discussions about a new feature (e.g. ref semantics) of how it could break things and so on, I thought it might be a good idea to implement new features in an experimental version, which can then be thoroughly tested and only if nothing bad found they will be merged in the stable branch. People simply have to be aware that they should not rely on semantics implemented in experimental.

Discussions about new features before their are implemented would of course still be a very good idea, but it would reduce the pressure a bit, because you can simply try. This does not solve everything, because some issues will only pop up if used for a long time or only in real complicated production code, but I think it is better than the approach of having no way back?

I don't believe this idea is entirely new or maybe I am missing something. What do you think?

Best regards,

Robert

On Wednesday, 24 October 2012 at 08:06:55 UTC, Robert wrote:
> When reading stuff, like: "Yes this is bad, but people use it already,
> so we could only possible change this in D3 or something" and reading
> endless discussions about a new feature (e.g. ref semantics) of how it
> could break things and so on, I thought it might be a good idea to
> implement new features in an experimental version, which can then be
> thoroughly tested and only if nothing bad found they will be merged in
> the stable branch. People simply have to be aware that they should not
> rely on semantics implemented in experimental.
>
> Discussions about new features before their are implemented would of
> course still be a very good idea, but it would reduce the pressure a
> bit, because you can simply try. This does not solve everything, because
> some issues will only pop up if used for a long time or only in real
> complicated production code, but I think it is better than the approach
> of having no way back?
>
> I don't believe this idea is entirely new or maybe I am missing
> something. What do you think?
>
> Best regards,
>
> Robert

It is a good idea. I already thinking about something similar before.

On 2012-10-24 09:38, Robert wrote:
> When reading stuff, like: "Yes this is bad, but people use it already,
> so we could only possible change this in D3 or something" and reading
> endless discussions about a new feature (e.g. ref semantics) of how it
> could break things and so on, I thought it might be a good idea to
> implement new features in an experimental version, which can then be
> thoroughly tested and only if nothing bad found they will be merged in
> the stable branch. People simply have to be aware that they should not
> rely on semantics implemented in experimental.
>
> Discussions about new features before their are implemented would of
> course still be a very good idea, but it would reduce the pressure a
> bit, because you can simply try. This does not solve everything, because
> some issues will only pop up if used for a long time or only in real
> complicated production code, but I think it is better than the approach
> of having no way back?
>
> I don't believe this idea is entirely new or maybe I am missing
> something. What do you think?

There has been some talk about this. I think we pretty much all agreed that we should have a stable branch/repository which we would cherry-pick changes from the master branch.

I don't remember who said he would be responsible for this stable branch/repository. I neither can remember the thread.

-- 
/Jacob Carlborg

On Wednesday, 24 October 2012 at 19:59:39 UTC, Jacob Carlborg wrote:
> There has been some talk about this. I think we pretty much all agreed that we should have a stable branch/repository which we would cherry-pick changes from the master branch.
>
> I don't remember who said he would be responsible for this stable branch/repository. I neither can remember the thread.

Adam Wilson: Coming Soon: Stable D Releases!

http://forum.dlang.org/post/op.whi33qsp707hn8@invictus.skynet.com

On 2012-10-25 13:32, xenon325 wrote:

> Adam Wilson: Coming Soon: Stable D Releases!
>
> http://forum.dlang.org/post/op.whi33qsp707hn8@invictus.skynet.com

There it is, thank you.

-- 
/Jacob Carlborg