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digitalmars.D - D1, D2 and the future of libraries

reply Stewart Gordon <smjg_1998 yahoo.com> writes:
For the last however long, I've been still programming mostly in D1, but aiming
to keep my 
libraries compatible with both D1 and D2.

But changes in D2 have made this more of a challenge.  I've also been put off
switching to 
D2 by the wait for D1 to be finished.

Now the plan to discontinue D1 at the end of the year has been announced.  And
I'm 
wondering what to do with my libraries.

How many people here are still using D1?

What are those of you who write libraries mainly doing?
(a) supporting only D1?
(b) supporting only D2?
(c) releasing separate D1 and D2 versions?
(d) using versioning to support both with one set of code files?


If practically everyone's using D2 now, maybe I'll migrate my libraries to it. 
If, OTOH, 
there's still real demand for D1 libraries, I'll continue to support D1.  I
might have to 
see how supporting D2 as well works out.  It seems I'll have to abandon the
idea of 
keeping the code compatible with the D spec as of DMD 1.00.  It seems the
reasons for 
doing this never happened anyway, and there doesn't seem to be an equivalent
milestone in D2.

Thoughts?

Stewart.
Jan 21 2012
next sibling parent "Kiith-Sa" <42 theanswer.com> writes:
I'm only supporting D2.

D1 support would require more effort that can be better used
to add more features and create more libraries. New D users are 
unlikely to try D1 since D2 is now rather stable, and even if
the do, they won't stay there for long.

I myself started using D with D1 about 1,5 years ago, then 6 
months ago I moved to D2 and found it to be getting much more 
stable over time.

For a new D2 user, D1 libraries basically don't exist; if half of
the libraries are D1 only, it seems there are only half as many
libraries.

On Saturday, 21 January 2012 at 16:07:58 UTC, Stewart Gordon 
wrote:
 For the last however long, I've been still programming mostly 
 in D1, but aiming to keep my libraries compatible with both D1 
 and D2.

 But changes in D2 have made this more of a challenge.  I've 
 also been put off switching to D2 by the wait for D1 to be 
 finished.

 Now the plan to discontinue D1 at the end of the year has been 
 announced.  And I'm wondering what to do with my libraries.

 How many people here are still using D1?

 What are those of you who write libraries mainly doing?
 (a) supporting only D1?
 (b) supporting only D2?
 (c) releasing separate D1 and D2 versions?
 (d) using versioning to support both with one set of code files?


 If practically everyone's using D2 now, maybe I'll migrate my 
 libraries to it.  If, OTOH, there's still real demand for D1 
 libraries, I'll continue to support D1.  I might have to see 
 how supporting D2 as well works out.  It seems I'll have to 
 abandon the idea of keeping the code compatible with the D spec 
 as of DMD 1.00.  It seems the reasons for doing this never 
 happened anyway, and there doesn't seem to be an equivalent 
 milestone in D2.

 Thoughts?

 Stewart.
Jan 21 2012
prev sibling next sibling parent "Nick Sabalausky" <a a.a> writes:
"Stewart Gordon" <smjg_1998 yahoo.com> wrote in message 
news:jfenst$av2$1 digitalmars.com...
 How many people here are still using D1?

 What are those of you who write libraries mainly doing?
 (a) supporting only D1?
 (b) supporting only D2?
 (c) releasing separate D1 and D2 versions?
 (d) using versioning to support both with one set of code files?
My stuff's D2-only.
Jan 21 2012
prev sibling next sibling parent Trass3r <un known.com> writes:
D2 only.
No point in supporting D1.
Jan 21 2012
prev sibling next sibling parent "Masahiro Nakagawa" <repeatedly gmail.com> writes:
My existing and developing libraries support only D2 :)


Masahiro

On Sun, 22 Jan 2012 01:07:49 +0900, Stewart Gordon <smjg_1998 yahoo.com>  
wrote:

 For the last however long, I've been still programming mostly in D1, but  
 aiming to keep my libraries compatible with both D1 and D2.

 But changes in D2 have made this more of a challenge.  I've also been  
 put off switching to D2 by the wait for D1 to be finished.

 Now the plan to discontinue D1 at the end of the year has been  
 announced.  And I'm wondering what to do with my libraries.

 How many people here are still using D1?

 What are those of you who write libraries mainly doing?
 (a) supporting only D1?
 (b) supporting only D2?
 (c) releasing separate D1 and D2 versions?
 (d) using versioning to support both with one set of code files?


 If practically everyone's using D2 now, maybe I'll migrate my libraries  
 to it.  If, OTOH, there's still real demand for D1 libraries, I'll  
 continue to support D1.  I might have to see how supporting D2 as well  
 works out.  It seems I'll have to abandon the idea of keeping the code  
 compatible with the D spec as of DMD 1.00.  It seems the reasons for  
 doing this never happened anyway, and there doesn't seem to be an  
 equivalent milestone in D2.

 Thoughts?

 Stewart.
Jan 22 2012
prev sibling next sibling parent reply Stewart Gordon <smjg_1998 yahoo.com> writes:
So far, everyone who's replied is supporting only D2.  A few more questions:

Did you previously write libraries for D1?

If so:

- Did you find translating the code straightforward, or are there bits that you
found a 
challenge?

- What triggered you to switch?  For example, D2 just being there, signs that
D2 is 
stabilising, the announcement of D1's forthcoming end, stumbling over a
limitation of D1....

Stewart.
Jan 22 2012
next sibling parent "Kiith-Sa" <42 theanswer.com> writes:
I had a small, ~10kloc project I had to rewrite to D2 (not a 
library).

It wasn't much of a problem to port. First I just tried to compile
the code with DMD2 - there were compiler errors, so I fixed those 
-
that took about 1-2 days. More problematic were things that work 
differently in D2 - the code compiled but it didn't run. Don't
remember what exactly was the problem, but there were some things.
Fixing most/all such bugs took about a week. Only then I started 
to change the code to be more D2-like - that took another week.
The code did get more simple, though.

I moved because D2 had interesting features and stuff in Phobos, 
and because it was getting usable enough. (And because I really
wanted RAII structs.)


On Sunday, 22 January 2012 at 15:18:04 UTC, Stewart Gordon wrote:
 So far, everyone who's replied is supporting only D2.  A few 
 more questions:

 Did you previously write libraries for D1?

 If so:

 - Did you find translating the code straightforward, or are 
 there bits that you found a challenge?

 - What triggered you to switch?  For example, D2 just being 
 there, signs that D2 is stabilising, the announcement of D1's 
 forthcoming end, stumbling over a limitation of D1....

 Stewart.
Jan 22 2012
prev sibling parent reply "Nick Sabalausky" <a a.a> writes:
"Stewart Gordon" <smjg_1998 yahoo.com> wrote in message 
news:jfh9bb$2v3$1 digitalmars.com...
 So far, everyone who's replied is supporting only D2.  A few more 
 questions:

 Did you previously write libraries for D1?
Yes. Made the switch about a year, year and a half ago.
 If so:

 - Did you find translating the code straightforward, or are there bits 
 that you found a challenge?
Tango -> Phobos2 took a bit of time and some elbow grease, but the only real challenges were a few things I was using that weren't in Phobos2 (at least not at the time). Some of the code actually become much simpler due to Phobos's straightforward nature versus Tango's Java-like design. D1->D2 was quick and easy. There aren't too many breaking changes, and you don't have to really D2-ify code just to make it work in D2. (I was annoyed though that UFCS was (and still is) much more broken in D2 than D1. That's always been one of my favorite features.) I had been using xfBuild which turned out not to work on D2 code (never was sure if it was xfBuild's fault or DMD's, though). But I quickly discovered and switched to RDMD which I like better now anyway (after having fixed the major issues it used to have). The conversion certainly wasn't trivial, but all in all, it was much easier than I had expected.
 - What triggered you to switch?  For example, D2 just being there, signs 
 that D2 is stabilising, the announcement of D1's forthcoming end, 
 stumbling over a limitation of D1....
There were some killer features in D2 I was chomping at the bit for: - *Actual* constness (not even necessarily transitive const, although that is nice. Just simply *having* real const/immutable *at all*). - String literals are dynamic arrays instead of static array. So no need to be slicing them all the time. For instance, no more of this nonsense: ["string1"[], "another string"]. 'Course, that's another related benefit: Types of certain expressions determined by best common type instead of "the exact type of the first item". - Traits. God, it's nice to have traits now. Killer feature for metaprogramming. I think those were the main ones. There may have been more, but I've gotten so used to D2 I can't remember what D1's limitations were anymore.
Jan 22 2012
parent "Nick Sabalausky" <a a.a> writes:
"Nick Sabalausky" <a a.a> wrote in message 
news:jfi071$1dps$1 digitalmars.com...
 "Stewart Gordon" <smjg_1998 yahoo.com> wrote in message 
 news:jfh9bb$2v3$1 digitalmars.com...
 - What triggered you to switch?  For example, D2 just being there, signs 
 that D2 is stabilising, the announcement of D1's forthcoming end, 
 stumbling over a limitation of D1....
There were some killer features in D2 I was chomping at the bit for: - *Actual* constness (not even necessarily transitive const, although that is nice. Just simply *having* real const/immutable *at all*). - String literals are dynamic arrays instead of static array. So no need to be slicing them all the time. For instance, no more of this nonsense: ["string1"[], "another string"]. 'Course, that's another related benefit: Types of certain expressions determined by best common type instead of "the exact type of the first item". - Traits. God, it's nice to have traits now. Killer feature for metaprogramming. I think those were the main ones. There may have been more, but I've gotten so used to D2 I can't remember what D1's limitations were anymore.
Oh, and ranges, of course (along with std.algorithm). That was another killer feature for me.
Jan 22 2012
prev sibling next sibling parent Jacob Carlborg <doob me.com> writes:
On 2012-01-21 17:07, Stewart Gordon wrote:
 For the last however long, I've been still programming mostly in D1, but
 aiming to keep my libraries compatible with both D1 and D2.

 But changes in D2 have made this more of a challenge. I've also been put
 off switching to D2 by the wait for D1 to be finished.

 Now the plan to discontinue D1 at the end of the year has been
 announced. And I'm wondering what to do with my libraries.

 How many people here are still using D1?

 What are those of you who write libraries mainly doing?
 (a) supporting only D1?
 (b) supporting only D2?
 (c) releasing separate D1 and D2 versions?
 (d) using versioning to support both with one set of code files?


 If practically everyone's using D2 now, maybe I'll migrate my libraries
 to it. If, OTOH, there's still real demand for D1 libraries, I'll
 continue to support D1. I might have to see how supporting D2 as well
 works out. It seems I'll have to abandon the idea of keeping the code
 compatible with the D spec as of DMD 1.00. It seems the reasons for
 doing this never happened anyway, and there doesn't seem to be an
 equivalent milestone in D2.

 Thoughts?

 Stewart.
I have a kind of mix of projects. Most are D1 only, but I'm starting to move to D2. * Orange, DWT - D1 and D2 mixed in the same code base using version statements * DVM - D1, I plan to port this to D2 * Orbit - D1 and D2, separate git branches. I just ported this to D2 * Some other minor projects - D1 only. I'll probably port these to D2 if I continue to work on them * DStep - D2 Supporting both D2 and D1 in the same code base using version statements is not recommended and requires extra work and the use of string mixins. If you want to support both D2 and D1 I recommend different branches. I think the reason for why I'm porting my projects to D2 is that now Tango is available for D2. -- /Jacob Carlborg
Jan 22 2012
prev sibling parent "Jesse Phillips" <jessekphillips+D gmail.com> writes:
On Saturday, 21 January 2012 at 16:07:58 UTC, Stewart Gordon 
wrote:
 For the last however long, I've been still programming mostly 
 in D1, but aiming to keep my libraries compatible with both D1 
 and D2.
I haven't built libraries for D1, I have converted a few from D1. My things are D2 only, and those I have converted I haven't taken much care to maintain the D1 version. D2 is a branch of the D1, if you are going to maintain both, always change the D1 branch and merge it into D2. I throw this together a while back: http://www.prowiki.org/wiki4d/wiki.cgi?PortingFromD1 Feedback is welcome, and changes based on own experience should be made :)
Jan 22 2012