Start of dmd 2.064 beta program

[Iain Buclaw]

On Oct 19, 2013 10:11 AM, "Johannes Pfau" <nospam at example.com> wrote:
>
> Am Fri, 18 Oct 2013 11:45:27 -0700
> schrieb Andrei Alexandrescu <SeeWebsiteForEmail at erdani.org>:
>
> > > - We do not have any defined release timeline. When is it time to
> > > start prepping for a release? It's up to Walter's arbitrary decision
> > > for when this happens, he doesn't even talk to the community or
> > > contributors on whether it's a good time for a beta phase (maybe
> > > there's a huge or disruptive new pull request that's planning to be
> > > merged and a beta should be delayed).
> >
> > I understand how that can be a bother. Walter figures the time is
> > ripe for a new release when we have enough compelling features and
> > fixes. I'll try to make the appropriate announcements in the future
> > prior to deciding on starting a beta.
> >
>
> Why is everyone here so obsessed with feature based releases? Quoting
> Iain's post from 30.8:
> > It has been about 3 months since the last release of the D
> > front-end implementation.  Three years experience and carrying
> > out over 100 merges into GDC tells me that each time the
> > development cycle starts edging towards it's fourth month, it
> > makes things an absolute nightmare, in both the time consumed
> > merging in the changes, and with time spent tracking down bug
> > reports for unittests/testsuite cases that test backend code
> > generation - with 2.060, 2.061 and 2.063 being the worst releases
> > I have ever had to deal with - before 2.060 the release schedule
> > (if it even qualifies as a 'schedule') was anywhere between 1-2
> > months.
>
> Even a rough schedule (We try to release a new frontend version every 2
> months) would help. Would it have been the end of the world if we just
> released 2.064 two months ago and 2.065 now?
>
> But what's worse: If we keep making feature based releases then the
> criteria for release should be documented by those making the decision.
> It's as simple as writing two sentences on a wiki page.
> Right now I don't have any clue why the 'time is ripe' now and not 2
> months ago, or one month ago, or in two weeks... It seems like Walter
> is just flipping a coin every month (I don't say it is like that -
> but it looks like that because there's no information on the release
> criteria)
>
> And btw: 5 months between releases is just way too long for users as
> well. Although the features Walter envisioned for 2.064 may not have
> been ready 2 months ago we could have shipped many bug fixes two months
> earlier.

And a big +1 to that as well.

Regards
-- 
Iain Buclaw

*(p < e ? p++ : p) = (c & 0x0f) + '0';
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