D Stable Proposal

[r_m_r]

On 11/30/2012 12:48 PM, 1100110 wrote:
> Raid it for ideas!

Since we're raiding for _ideas_, I guess we can have a look at the 
development process used by other languages.

Here's what the cPython mercurial repository looks like 
(http://hg.python.org/cpython/branches):

branch 		
------		
2.7 	 	
default  	
3.3 	 	
3.2 	 	
2.6 	 	
3.1 	 	
2.5 		
3.0 		
legacy-trunk 	
2.4 		
2.3 		
2.2 		
2.1 		
2.0 		

and here's the revision graph: http://hg.python.org/cpython/graph

This is what Wikipedia had to tell about Python's development process 
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Python_%28programming_language%29#Development):

--------
CPython's public releases come in three types, distinguished by which 
part of the version number is incremented:

*    **Backwards-incompatible versions**, where code is expected to 
break and must be manually ported. The first part of the version number 
is incremented. These releases happen infrequently—for example, version 
3.0 was released 8 years after 2.0.
*    **Major or "feature" releases**, which are largely compatible but 
introduce new features. The second part of the version number is 
incremented. These releases are scheduled to occur roughly every 18 
months, and each major version is supported by bugfixes for several 
years after its release.
*    **Bugfix releases**, which introduce no new features but fix bugs. 
The third and final part of the version number is incremented. These 
releases are made whenever a sufficient number of bugs have been fixed 
upstream since the last release, or roughly every 3 months. Security 
vulnerabilities are also patched in bugfix releases.

A number of alpha, beta, and release-candidates are also released as 
previews and for testing before the final release is made. Although 
there is a rough schedule for each release, this is often pushed back if 
the code is not ready. The development team monitor the state of the 
code by running the large unit test suite during development, and using 
the BuildBot _continuous integration system_.
--------

Regards,
r_m_r