Inconsistencies in the Spec about class

[fare]

1. The Scala 3.4 specification uses the word "class" inconsistently, sometimes meaning "that Java-inherited concept that only supports single inheritance", sometimes meaning "class or trait". Please be consistent in the specification if nowhere else. Maybe introduce and systematically use a word for class-or-trait; or declare that class (or trait) encompasses both unless specified otherwise ("non-class trait" if trait encompasses both, "non-trait class" if class encompasses both), and use it consistently afterwards. It's a spec, it must be precise.
2. The Scala 3.4 specification fails to explain that the most-specific superclass (if not Object) need not appear first among the direct super classes-or-traits of a class-or-trait, whereas it needed to in Scala 2.
3. While we're at it, it really sucks that you use a variant of the LOOPS algorithm for class-or-trait linearization, instead of C3. For why the consistency constraints of C3 matter, see the 1992 and 1994 articles by Ducournau, Habib, Huchard, and Mugnier. I realize this breaks backward compatibility and thus may have to wait until a new major Scala version, though.

[Gedochao]

Hey, can you link specific sections?
Also, just a reminder that Scala 3.4 is no longer supported.
We currently support 3.7 (the current Scala 3 Next) and 3.3 (the current Scala 3 LTS, soon to be replaced with 3.9)

[som-snytt]

A trait is a class that is meant to be added to some other class as a mixin.

I don't detect the imprecision.

The section on linearization distinguishes "linearization of a class" and "linearization of mixins", but maybe it could say "linearization of a subclass" instead, for clarity.

The "published" spec calls itself 3.4 but includes latest edits. (I don't know the workflow.)

[Gedochao]

The "published" spec calls itself 3.4 but includes latest edits. (I don't know the workflow.)

Oh, now that's worrying... 🤔
cc @WojciechMazur @sjrd

[WojciechMazur]

The specification is synchronized on each commit to main (merged PR) - it's uploaded to LAMP server building all scala-lang websites

The version showed and the endpoint upon which it would be available is controlled by config

scala3/docs/_spec/_config.yml

Lines 1 to 3 in 0be2091

	baseurl: /files/archive/spec/3.4
	latestScalaVersion: 3.4
	thisScalaVersion: 3.4

Currently these are pointing to 3.4.
We can change these, but it would also require additional changes on docs.scala-lang becuse the link to specification is hardcoded : https://github.com/scala/docs.scala-lang/blob/2b612762460ecde204d54fd2afcbd5d77d06fc78/index.md?plain=1#L72-L75

Probably it would be the best to change config and update entry in docs.scala-lang. There is no switch for different versions of specification on that side, but the old versions should still be reachable by links (unless when syncing these would be overrdined, we'd need to confirm that)

I think there is also one more problem - the specification is showing the state of main branch so nightly releases. I belive it would be better if spec would be synced only on stable releases. That's what we do with reference docs.