On Thursday, December 13, 2012 22:19:18 Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
> On 12/13/12 8:55 PM, kenji hara wrote:
> > I think we should have -future/-f switch and @future attribute. It is a rough idea, but seems a required compiler feature.
> > 
> > Kenji Hara
> 
> That sounds interesting.

I believe that python has something similar.

> Regarding attributes, a simple solution is to release it but without official documentation. We place the documentation in a /unstable/ directory of the website, distinct from the central mainstream documentation.
> 
> People who already started or want to start using attributes understand there are instabilities associated with them. Existing code is unaffected, only certain programs that are technically invalid will actually compile and run.
> 
> Works?

Yes. And attributes may not actually need much more work, but adding new, essentially untested features into the language and releasing them doesn't jive well with the recent push to stabilize and avoid breaking any code, because such features will frequently need changes which will break code. Hopefully, the adjustments to the release process that are being discussed will fix this sort of problem long term, but it comes across like Walter is willing to throw new features in but then generally refuses to change things which break code, which risks us being stuck with features that aren't quite what they could be or should be. The situation with UDAs definitely highlights the need to adjust our release process.

And if Remedy really needs special stuff which isn't necessarily ready for primetime, maybe he should create a branch specifically for them rather than doing it all in master.

- Jonathan M Davis

On Friday, 14 December 2012 at 01:37:22 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:
> On 12/13/2012 4:55 PM, deadalnix wrote:
>> You'll go nowhere without a community.
>
> And we need major users, too.
>

Indeed ! That why I'm all for supporting such user, and I'm pretty most people that are unhappy with the situation will agree.

The way it is done is problematic, because the community is kept out. Choice are made that nobody can understand, because nobody have the knowledge necessary to understand.

> It's a balancing act. And I wish to point out, again, that the design was based on extensive discussion threads right here in the ng, and the design was modified based on feedback right here in the ng. So to say the community was uninvolved in this is incorrect, it is very much a community design.
>

Yes, and that is great. However, discussion can't really replace field testing. And we are a bit short on that one.It seems we don't have much choice right now :/

> And, if you recall, I was initially opposed to UDAs and skeptical they'd be of any actual use :-)

Ho, this is really useful, and I'm really happy that you changed your mind on that.

On Fri, Dec 14, 2012 at 04:39:49AM +0100, Jonathan M Davis wrote: [...]
> And if Remedy really needs special stuff which isn't necessarily ready for primetime, maybe he should create a branch specifically for them rather than doing it all in master.
[...]

Again, this highlights the need for a staging branch instead of just going from master directly to releases.


T

-- 
One disk to rule them all, One disk to find them. One disk to bring them all and in the darkness grind them. In the Land of Redmond where the shadows lie. -- The Silicon Valley Tarot

On 2012-12-14 01:19, Walter Bright wrote:

> It was the D community that selected the @(attribute) syntax, and the
> overall design was based on extensive public discussion threads here
> about it.

And you still implemented the [attribute] syntax first.

-- 
/Jacob Carlborg

On 2012-12-14 01:17, David Nadlinger wrote:

> 1. How much work would it be for the guys at Remedy Games to convert
> their codebase from [] to @()?

Basically none. Just do a global search-and-replace with regular expression. Search for @\[(.+)\] replace with @($1). It won't cover 100% percent but it will work pretty well.

-- 
/Jacob Carlborg

On Friday, 14 December 2012 at 03:19:18 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
> Regarding attributes, a simple solution is to release it but without official documentation. We place the documentation in a /unstable/ directory of the website, distinct from the central mainstream documentation.
>
> People who already started or want to start using attributes understand there are instabilities associated with them. Existing code is unaffected, only certain programs that are technically invalid will actually compile and run.
>
> Works?
>

Can we have a feedback from this game dev company on how hard it is to migrate from one syntax to another ?

On 2012-12-14 04:30, Jesse Phillips wrote:

> The process must be defined before we can use it and UDA has already
> missed that boat. I'm in agreement with the way Andrei has said it, we
> need to let this slide.

Sure, I can agree in this case. But we need to stop putting out new release until we have the new process in place. Otherwise we will have this problem all over again. We already talked about a new release process three releases ago.

-- 
/Jacob Carlborg

On 12/14/2012 08:42 AM, Jacob Carlborg wrote:
> On 2012-12-14 01:19, Walter Bright wrote:
>
>> It was the D community that selected the @(attribute) syntax, and the
>> overall design was based on extensive public discussion threads here
>> about it.
>
> And you still implemented the [attribute] syntax first.
>

It is my understanding that the public discussion deciding in favour of @(attribute) was started after [attribute] had already been implemented.

On Friday, 14 December 2012 at 07:58:25 UTC, deadalnix wrote:
> Can we have a feedback from this game dev company on how hard it is to migrate from one syntax to another ?

Actually this is the best approach IMO, but maybe Walter thinks it's not worth bringing up at this point because it may give an indication of instability even though we're trying to achieve the exact opposite effect and prevent instability from happening.

--rt

On Friday, December 14, 2012 09:34:50 PM Timon Gehr wrote:
> On 12/14/2012 08:42 AM, Jacob Carlborg wrote:
> > On 2012-12-14 01:19, Walter Bright wrote:
> >> It was the D community that selected the @(attribute) syntax, and the overall design was based on extensive public discussion threads here about it.
> > 
> > And you still implemented the [attribute] syntax first.
> 
> It is my understanding that the public discussion deciding in favour of @(attribute) was started after [attribute] had already been implemented.

Yes. But I believe that pretty much every other discussion on it prior to it actually being implemented discussed using parens and not brackets.

- Jonathan M Davis