I certainly appreciate the general statement, as keeping ones users
happy is one of the most important, if not the single most important
thing, to a positive image.
However, please don't forget that there has already been put quite a lot
of effort into making the current version ready for release (I don't
think there are any blockers left, are there?). Addressing all the
points raised would require several potentially high impact changes,
which could easily set us back for two or three weeks.
Also, the soon-to-be 2.057 fixes quite a few codegen bugs, which are
notoriously troublesome since tracing them down takes a lot of effort.
And personally, I'd like to see a new version being released soon
because I'd otherwise have to tell Thrift people to use a Git version of
DMD when I post my GSoC project for upstream inclusion, which I can't
postpone infinitely. ;)
As 2.057 will contain a few additions which could potentially require
some fixes before they can be considered stable, my proposal would be to
release 2.057 now, and aim for a quick 2.058 to address both the issues
you mentioned, and any problems turned up by FReD/OS X x86_64 being used
in the real world.
David
On 12/10/11 8:23 PM, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
I think we have a great release in the making: 64-bit code generation on
OSX, improved floating point arithmetic, and a bunch of bugfixes.
Yet, if I had my way, I'd stop the release until every single complaint
of Mehrdad's recent rampage has been looked at and addressed. Sure, we
can label Mehrdad as a whiny baby, but I suspect his experience is
representative for the out-of-the-box experience of many others: they
see D's cool features, they download the compiler to try it out on their
own terms, and as soon as they deviate from what is tried and works, or
they combine features in an unusual yet meaningful manner, it all comes
unglued.
It's about time to make a statement of reconnecting with our community,
and in particular to the whiny babies out there. Sure, the kind of stuff
we have in this beta is useful. Floating point arithmetic benchmarks
have long hurt us, and 64-bit generation on OSX is a gating issue. But
simple, long-standing issues that make babies whine are very important,
too, and require our immediate attention.
I vote for making a strong point of fixing these out-of-the-box
experience issues raised before we move forward with this release.
Andrei
