2009/5/12 Luís Marques <luismarq...@gmail.com>: > Walter Bright wrote: >> >> D1 regularly gets around 20 bug fixes a month. I don't understand why this >> is not seen as progress to a stable state. About 80% of bug fixes are common >> to both D2 and D1. > > I think my perception (and I accept it may be a perception which does not > reflect reality at large) comes from issues like the following. It's not a > particularly important issue, but it's one for which I could find a bug > report. > > Two years ago, I tried to use a particular construct and DMD incorrectly > detected that a statement was not reachable [1]. OK, D1 had been frozen > earlier that year, so I thought it would be only a matter of time until the > higher priority stuff had been taken care of and someone took care of this > issue. That's my experience with stable languages, even if they aren't > particularly mainstream (say, Lua). > > Two years later I see this issue is still lingering. My perception is that > unless I nag someone or send a fix myself no one will take care of it > anytime soon. I guess they just have a huge pile of more important stuff, > which is fair. > > But, 1) how long do you perceive it will take until more pressing matters > delay fixing these kinds of bugs? I don't know if 20 bug fixes a month is > enough or not to have DMD v1 rock solid in the next 5 years. Are most of the > fixes for new bug reports? Is the list of old bugs being cleaned at a good > rate? My perception, I said, was that the rate was a bit disapointing > (compared with my experience using other language implementations) > > 2) Even if most bug fixes are common to D1 and D2, isn't it still true that > if D2 is being discussed, elaborated, documented and implemented, most of > those activities do not fix bugs and take time away from making D1 / DMD v1 > stable and with few bugs? > > Some say "send a patch". I'll try, when that is possible. But I can't send a > patch for every bug I find in my spreadsheet software, browser, programming > language, IM client, etc. That means that much of the software I use I have > to accept it as is. That applies to everyone which uses a large amount of > software and is not a programming demigod. >
I think this is pretty spot on. The point is not that D1 isn't getting bugfixes, it's which bugs are actually fixed. I realise I've done my part of the whining now and in the past, something I'm going to try and change (by fixing bugs myself and sending patches), but ... I don't know anyone who tried out D seriously who haven't found some near-deal-breaking bug (most of the time already reported), which requires them to implement workarounds that often make some otherwise neat (and according to spec, value) design impossible. It's a huge demotivator. -Tomas P.S. I know we can vote for issues now, that's a really good development and has helped already, but the situation is still not perfect.