github release procedure

[Rob T]

On Friday, 4 January 2013 at 20:41:47 UTC, Dmitry Olshansky wrote:
>
> Staging branch was there, so did the betas.
> What could have helped is announcing beta at D.announce instead 
> of separate list. Plus at holidays there was not much of beta 
> test coverage.

Yes, being the first pass through with an incomplete and poorly 
understood process didn't help, along with the timing, so the 
result is what the process produced in its current form.

We're definitely making progress however, and hopefully the 
criticisms are taken constructively as they should be. We just 
want to see things improve, that's all.

One improvement for next pass through, is to release installable 
snapshots of the next beta directly on the download page (with 
appropriate labeling) so that it is trivially easy for end users 
to download and install the latest beta for testing.

Also, as I mentioned in my previous post, we ought to define what 
"stable" means so that we have a much better way to judge if the 
current beta is ready for release or not. As it sits, we have no 
definition, so it's not surprising that some people thought the 
current version was ready, while others are not so sure of that.

--rt