On Fri, May 29, 2009 at 4:52 PM, Frits van Bommel <fvbom...@remwovexcapss.nl> wrote: > Sean Kelly wrote: >> >> Jason House wrote: >>> >>> Over in D.anounce, the LDC devs said they would have an easier time >>> upgrading to newer dmd (fe) versions if the source was in source control. >>> Even if Walter is the only one with write access, it's still be helpful. >>> It's helpful for more than just the LDC folks; that's just the most recent >>> example. >> >> It would be nice to have DMD in version control, but I don't buy the LDC >> argument. It's trivial to diff one release against another, regardless of >> whether version control is involved. > > It's probably just easier what a change is for[1] if it's small and > self-contained, with a description (commit message) of what it's supposed to > do. > But that's just a guess, you'd have to ask Thomas Lindquist since he's the > one that usually merges new frontend versions. > > > [1]: And thus what to do in case of conflicts, as well as what may need to > change in the backend (if anything). >
Yes... the DMD frontend is poorly documented, and small self-contained commits (with meaningful commit messages) would be a great way to learn a little more, even if just about how Walter does his coding. In the end there's a lot more to it than just version control. What I'd really like to see is the DMD frontend made into a proper opensource project. I don't care about the backend. It's "personal use only". But right now you have to remove a lot of code to get down to the part you want, the frontend. Imagine if LDC was just a backend module that you could use pretty much out-of-the-box with the official DMD frontend source tree !! I've worked with a few smaller open source project communities, and it's just a much nicer way to work than what we have with DMD right now. With version control, DMD will feel more like an open source project. -Tomas