RE: [Aimmath-developers] changes

[Neil S. <N.P...@sh...>]

Chris said:

> (1) The problem that generated the errors about too many open files have
> been fixed by Ken Monks who committed an updated file into a separate
> branch on CVS.   I'm not sure I understand why there is a separate branch
> here.  Have I done something wrong?

I think that in general we have too many branches, too many web sites, too
many mailing lists and so on.  I would like to suggest:

1) We should have a development branch and a stable branch and that should
   be it.  If you make a change that is reasonable enough that other people
   might want to try it, then it can be committed to the development branch;
   the change can always be reversed later if necessary.  If you are not
   ready to to commit to the development branch, then the change can just
   stay on your own machine, the CVS system need not see it at all.

   I think that Gustav wanted a private branch as a convenient way to sync
   his home and office machines.  It would be OK to have branches like that,
   if they are clearly marked as such.

2) I have removed my AIM distribution page, and replaced it with a link to
   SourceForge.  I would suggest that other people do likewise; otherwise
   we will end up with various sites offering incompatible versions and
   causing horrible confusion.  It was useful to have alternatives when my
   machine was the primary distribution source, as it was sometimes
   unavailable; but that should hardly ever be a problem with SourceForge.

   I think that the SourceForge site currently refers to Ken Monks's site
   for some of the installation instructions etc.  This should be changed
   so that the SourceForge site is self contained.

   While I'm at it, I think that
   (a) You should be able to get the stable version of AIM from
       http://aimmath.sourceforge.net without having to go via
       http://sourceforge.net/projects/aimmath
   (b) The stable version should be provided as a zip file as well as a
       tar file.
   (c) It should be possible to access as much as possible of
       http://aimmath.sourceforge.net without registering.  Where it is
       possible to log in as a guest, the web site should make this as
       obvious as possible.

3) I think we only need two mailing lists/discussion forums: one for people
   who are willing to read source code, and one for people who are not.  I
   don't think that any finer subdivisions are useful in practice.

Let me know what you think.

Neil