Re: [Plplot-devel] Wish list for the release--various thoughts.

[Alan W. I. <ir...@be...>]

Joao, you have brought up a number of interesting points which I will
attempt to answer in context below.

Alan

email: ir...@be...
phone: 250-727-2902	FAX: 250-721-7715
snail-mail:
Dr. Alan W. Irwin
Department of Physics and Astronomy,
University of Victoria, P.O. Box 3055,
Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, V8W 3P6
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On Thu, 17 Jan 2002, Joao Cardoso wrote:

>
> Hi,
>
> I think that the main directory README, INSTALL, CHANGES and NEWS files
> should be updated, as they are the first think that I read on (and I assume
> others also do it :).
> The ToDo and PROBLEMS file also needs an update, as some users can have the
> expertise and mood to do/solve it. WE *should* use it, also!

I agree with both your points here.  I don't have time to start any of this
myself so I would encourage you (after the release, please!) to change these
files any way you like. Once you start to use them, I (and perhaps the other
developers) will most likely follow.  Note, if there are any English
problems with your changes, I would be willing to make corrections after you
make your main changes.

>
> The examples/java/README file should be in bindings/java, or its name changed
> to README.java, to follow what is done in the other examples directory.

Done.

> I thinks that each bindings and examples subdirs should have a README file,
> and the main README file should point to them.

We are gradually getting there on the first point, and on the second point
I say please go ahead.  I would be happy to see changes in the overall README
before the release.

>
> What is the purpose of the "new" directory and its "bogus" file? And the
> bindings/python/1.4b3 subdir?

Haven't got a clue.

>
> When will be 5.1 released?

24 January.

What do we intend to have on it?

Current CVS HEAD plus any changes we do from now until then.  See my wishlist.

> Can we add more
> and more stuff to HEAD

Yes, so long as it is useful.  plimage is an excellent example of such
an add-on.

and always have an unstable CVS?

No.  For example, we are in a stabilizing phase right now in preparation for
the release.

We have discussed release philosophy many times before so I will try to keep
this short.  As far as I am concerned, I never plan to make an experimental
or unstable release.  Instead, periodically we work hard to stabilize cvs
HEAD and release that.

My own view is we are too small a project to support a lot of different
branches.  For example, I never want to see a special stable branch (except
periodically for CVS HEAD).  Branches are useful for the really big changes
such as dynamic drivers, but I personally lost weeks of work on the tea
branch because there wasn't a critical mass of interested developers at the
time.  Thus, you have to be really careful about splitting development up
too much.  Taking the plimage example, again, I wouldn't have gotten
interested in it if you hadn't put it on the HEAD.  So for relatively small
changes like this that don't impact a lot of other stuff, put them right on
HEAD, then work to stabilize them in time for a release. Obviously, you are
not quite satisfied with plimage yet ("work in progress"), but I am not
personally going to worry if you change the API one more time after this
release.  Users of new features have to expect API changes.  However, I do
hope that the x20c example at least works for this release, and that you
have plimage completely stabilized (including API decisions) in time for the
release after this one.

>
> I would like to add some things to the documentation, after english-proofing
> by an English native speaker, but I found the DocBook too complex! I was
> still not able to create the development environment (and I tried, and I
> tried, and I tried , but I couldn't get it :-)).

I will be happy to help you get this sorted out, Joao.  But I need specifics
from you off list.  (In the next few days I will be going through this for
my own woody system and perhaps a RedHat 7.2 system as well so now is an
excellent time to get the DocBook development environment working on your
system as well.)

> Is there a xml2sgml utility?
> ( My system has a sgml2xml utility). Than I could convert to latex and add
> the docs.
>

I have not heard of an xml2sgml facility.  sgml is being phased out in favor
of xml so I think the sgml/xml language types would view xml2sgml as a
retrograde step they were unwilling to support. I think a much better
solution is simply to get the DocBook-xml environment working on your
system.  I will help, but as I said above, I need specifics about what
doesn't work.  For example, how far did you get in README.developers?

Alan