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by bsder 14 days ago
> languages ideally should not have breaking changes ever.

I disagree MIGHTILY. This is how you wind up with C++ and Java.

Languages need to be able to remove features to stay coherent. Occasionally, you get things wrong, it takes time to figure that out, and that's just the way life is.
2 comments
em-bee 12 days ago
i'd like to add, there are many things that can be criticized on C++ or java. but language stability is not one of them. in fact i believe language stability is one of the things that keeps both languages an ongoing success.
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em-bee 14 days ago
different preferences i guess. i much prefer language stability. the idea that i should have to test my code with every python version out there for example is disturbing, but there are tools to do exactly that. they should not be needed.
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maleldil 14 days ago
The solution to this is editions/epochs, like Rust. You can set your project to the 2025 edition and be sure that, even if future versions introduce breaking changes, they will not affect your project; it will continue to compile as before.
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drdexebtjl 13 days ago
You can continue to compile as before by using a previous version of the Zig compiler. You even get a 100% byte-for-byte match with reproducible builds.

Why are we so obsessed with updating dependencies, and at the same time, not willing to put in the work to update our own code?

The result of Zig’s approach is that the ecosystem of packages is very active, quickly updating to use the latest language features, and with a good foundation of tests that catch regressions.

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em-bee 13 days ago
Why are we so obsessed with updating dependencies, and at the same time, not willing to put in the work to update our own code?

because i want to benefit from the improvements/bug fixes in the dependencies, whereas updating my own code does not bring any improvements (unless it is taking advantage of a new feature in the dependencies) and for a large project can be very expensive.

more practically for my work, i need to be able to compile my application with a compiler that is actively supported, but i have no budget to rewrite old code just because the compiler developers decided to break old functionality.

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em-bee 14 days ago
pike has that. or had it. for two decades. inline in the code, in each file you could specify the version. they decided to drop it because of the maintenance overhead.
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