From: Alan W. I. <ir...@be...> - 2007-05-21 00:36:08
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Hazen's comments and questions about the changes to the release procedure due to our switch to subversion have got me thinking about how we get from here to our next stable release, 5.8.0. My own feeling is we should do at least one more development release, 5.7.4, in a month or two. That gives us a chance to work out any bugs in the release process itself caused by the switch to subversion. It also gives us a chance to finish up a number of different development/documentation projects. These projects include the Ada interface API changes (Jerry Bauck), the Ada examples (a number of us are waiting to help with those once the Ada API is finalized), fortran 95 documentation (Arjen Markus), a family of Cairo-based device drivers (Hazen Babcock), and a new windows device driver (Jim Dishaw). Please let me know if there are any other on-going projects out there that have a chance to be finished before the 5.7.4 release. I think you should consider the 5.7.4 release deadline an important one for development since 5.7.4 is likely to be our last development release before we make our 5.8.0 stable release. Furthermore, I propose we release 5.8.0 relatively soon after 5.7.4. The interval should be long enough to give 5.7.4 users a chance to report bugs, but should be short enough that we do not start adding a lot of new features beyond what is already in 5.7.4. I think an interval of about a month between 5.7.4 and 5.8.0 would be about right. Hazen, what do you think of this proposed schedule for the release of 5.7.4 and 5.8.0? Please modify it to conform with your own personal time constraints since a lot of that proposed rough schedule depends on you both as our release manager and also as developer. Alan __________________________ Alan W. Irwin Astronomical research affiliation with Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Victoria (astrowww.phys.uvic.ca). Programming affiliations with the FreeEOS equation-of-state implementation for stellar interiors (freeeos.sf.net); PLplot scientific plotting software package (plplot.org); the libLASi project (unifont.org/lasi); the Loads of Linux Links project (loll.sf.net); and the Linux Brochure Project (lbproject.sf.net). __________________________ Linux-powered Science __________________________ |
From: Jim D. <ji...@di...> - 2007-05-21 04:45:24
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"Alan W. Irwin" <ir...@be...> writes: > My own feeling is we should do at least one more development release, > 5.7.4, ... and a new windows device driver (Jim Dishaw). > I defintely concur about having one more developmental release. I will not have the windows driver "release quality" until late August. I'm in the midst of finishing my dissertation and preparing for my defense and the only work I do on plplot is to add a necessary feature (you should see the debugging messages spewing out of the new driver...). So, I would prefer that the new windows driver makes it debut in a developmental version rather than a stable release. -jd |
From: Alan W. I. <ir...@be...> - 2007-05-21 06:02:11
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On 2007-05-21 00:34-0400 Jim Dishaw wrote: > "Alan W. Irwin" <ir...@be...> writes: > >> My own feeling is we should do at least one more development release, >> 5.7.4, ... and a new windows device driver (Jim Dishaw). >> > > I defintely concur about having one more developmental release. I will > not have the windows driver "release quality" until late August. > I'm in the midst of finishing my dissertation and preparing for my > defense and the only work I do on plplot is to add a necessary feature > (you should see the debugging messages spewing out of the new driver...). > > So, I would prefer that the new windows driver makes it debut in a > developmental version rather than a stable release. Jim, thanks for that update on the current experimental status of your windows device driver and also your currently severe time constraints. I should mention that your project as well as the rest of those that I listed are all in the "would-be-nice" category, and I don't think we should delay the proposed 5.7.4 and 5.8.0 releases for any of them. The reason why I feel this way is we have done a lot of work in the current series of development releases, and it would be nice to make that work available as a stable release as soon as possible so the conservative subset of our users that wait for stable releases will benefit from our work sooner rather than later. The only reason why I think we need one more development release before that stable release is to to get any kinks out of the release scripts and procedures caused by our conversion to subversion. Of course, depending on Hazen's time constraints that delay in the stable release might give any of the projects I mentioned (including your own) a chance to get into the last development release before the stable release. Note, your code does not have to be perfect to get into PLplot. I expect, instead, that Werner, Arjen, and Andrew (the core developers in a position to evaluate a windows device) will instead just want to make sure your windows device has some unique potential that does not exist in current windows devices. Once that uniqueness test is passed, I presume they would be willing to commit experimental device code donated by you with the device turned off by default so the experimental code only builds if specifically requested by the user. (Note, that is how I am treating Jerry Bauck's experimental Ada interface code that he has been working on recently.) But if you decide to contribute your code for evaluation by our core windows developers after 5.8.0, that is fine as well. Alan __________________________ Alan W. Irwin Astronomical research affiliation with Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Victoria (astrowww.phys.uvic.ca). Programming affiliations with the FreeEOS equation-of-state implementation for stellar interiors (freeeos.sf.net); PLplot scientific plotting software package (plplot.org); the libLASi project (unifont.org/lasi); the Loads of Linux Links project (loll.sf.net); and the Linux Brochure Project (lbproject.sf.net). __________________________ Linux-powered Science __________________________ |
From: Hazen B. <hba...@ma...> - 2007-06-17 01:51:38
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On May 20, 2007, at 8:35 PM, Alan W. Irwin wrote: > Hazen's comments and questions about the changes to the release > procedure > due to our switch to subversion have got me thinking about how we > get from > here to our next stable release, 5.8.0. > > My own feeling is we should do at least one more development > release, 5.7.4, > in a month or two. That gives us a chance to work out any bugs in the > release process itself caused by the switch to subversion. It also > gives us > a chance to finish up a number of different development/documentation > projects. These projects include the Ada interface API changes (Jerry > Bauck), the Ada examples (a number of us are waiting to help with > those once > the Ada API is finalized), fortran 95 documentation (Arjen Markus), > a family > of Cairo-based device drivers (Hazen Babcock), and a new windows > device > driver (Jim Dishaw). Please let me know if there are any other on- > going > projects out there that have a chance to be finished before the 5.7.4 > release. > > I think you should consider the 5.7.4 release deadline an important > one for > development since 5.7.4 is likely to be our last development > release before > we make our 5.8.0 stable release. Furthermore, I propose we > release 5.8.0 > relatively soon after 5.7.4. The interval should be long enough to > give > 5.7.4 users a chance to report bugs, but should be short enough > that we do > not start adding a lot of new features beyond what is already in > 5.7.4. I > think an interval of about a month between 5.7.4 and 5.8.0 would be > about > right. > > Hazen, what do you think of this proposed schedule for the release > of 5.7.4 > and 5.8.0? Please modify it to conform with your own personal time > constraints since a lot of that proposed rough schedule depends on > you both > as our release manager and also as developer. Ok. 5.7.4 at the end of July, 5.8.0 at the end of August. -Hazen |
From: Hazen B. <hba...@ma...> - 2007-07-23 04:03:00
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On Jun 16, 2007, at 9:49 PM, Hazen Babcock wrote: >> Hazen, what do you think of this proposed schedule for the release >> of 5.7.4 >> and 5.8.0? Please modify it to conform with your own personal time >> constraints since a lot of that proposed rough schedule depends on >> you both >> as our release manager and also as developer. > > Ok. 5.7.4 at the end of July, 5.8.0 at the end of August. The latest is that I hope to have time to do this (i.e. 5.7.4 release) next weekend, but I could be a week or two late. -Hazen |