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by sitkack 3268 days ago
I believe this is the only correct answer. Or at least the best answer. Code isn't written in isolation, it is a function of the compiler used. And in a large codebase it will span many compiler versions.

1) Code written against a compiler should continue working

2) New code should be able to use new features and not pinned to an old compiler

3) The language / compiler should be allowed to innovate w/o maintaining strict backwards compatibility for all past code.

I am personally ok with and support having any large scale, long term project require multiple versions of the compiler to build.
1 comments
wtetzner 3268 days ago
> I am personally ok with and support having any large scale, long term project require multiple versions of the compiler to build.

Or even better, have every compiler support all versions of the language. It obviously requires some careful architecting to keep it maintainable, but that's better than every user of the compiler having to sort out versioning issues themselves.

Edit: I've re-read your comment, and I can't tell if we're in agreement or not :)

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sitkack 3267 days ago
> have every compiler support all versions of the language

If having an interface that looks like the compiler do this, I am fine with it, but a single codebase ... not so sure. Large systems collapse under their own weight, having to support all versions when the current-4 already supports it seems kinda ridiculous.

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wtetzner 3265 days ago
Well, hopefully the changes between versions aren't too big, because at some point it doesn't make sense to consider them to be the same language.

The idea is that each version would still be translated into a common internal representation pretty early on after parsing, so it would almost be like supporting multiple versioned mime-types in a REST API.

And it's probably harder to do with languages that already exist, but if the spec is defined from the start with versioning in mind, then it might not be so difficult.

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sitkack 3265 days ago
These are the things that I think Rust should really be concentrating on. How to make a vibrant language that can support 10-20-50 year codebases and still remain fresh.
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