Suggestion about releases
bachmeier
no at spam.net
Wed Nov 3 19:49:36 UTC 2021
On Wednesday, 3 November 2021 at 16:09:27 UTC, Imperatorn wrote:
> On Wednesday, 3 November 2021 at 15:35:51 UTC, bachmeier wrote:
>> On Wednesday, 3 November 2021 at 09:13:59 UTC, Imperatorn
>> wrote:
>>> I don't have time to write a proper post, but I have a
>>> suggestion.
>>>
>>> Could we increase the time between releases?
>>>
>>> Today we have in practice 15 days between minor versions.
>>> That might be ok, but "major" releases are too frequent.
>>>
>>> The logic behind that is it would hopefully put more focus on
>>> testing and reliability etc. If we have to live with a
>>> release for a longer time period, the theory is everyone will
>>> be more cautious when making a change.
>>>
>>> Theory vs practice applies ofc, but I think it could be
>>> positive. As for what amount of time makes most sense, I'm
>>> not sure yet.
>>>
>>> Thoughts?
>>
>> My preference is once a year, after dconf, they release a new
>> stable version of the compiler. That wouldn't prevent them
>> from having other releases in between, they just wouldn't be
>> "stable" releases. I don't think this will go anywhere though.
>> It's been discussed before and most people don't see a need to
>> change it.
>
> Yeah, there's no such thing as a new idea. I just wasn't around
> when those discussions where had 😎
>
> I think we have pretty good tests for our code, so I'm not so
> scared there. It's more what you could maybe call
> "architectural hygiene", how you plan for changes, what to do
> when requirement x comes up, should we use strict semver etc.
The two main advantages from my perspective:
- It's easy to follow and plan for changes if the release is once
a year. I am not an insider, so it is difficult to keep track of
everything. I usually learn about changes because I installed a
new version of the compiler and I'm getting warnings or error
messages.
- You can add a preview flag for a potential feature to the
frequent releases but never add it to the stable release if it
doesn't show its worth.
A good example of how this hurts from a marketing perspective:
most non-users are unlikely to ever hear of importC. It showed up
in a random release alongside bug fixes. If you had a single
presentation each year showing off all the things coming in the
next "release" you could generate some buzz.
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