Re: [Statcvs-users] Release early and often?

[Martin d'A. <md...@ne...>]

> What do you think? How should an open source release process for a 
> project like StatCVS work? Both developer's and user's point of views 
> are welcome.

I am really interested in people's opinions as well. Note that I have not
used StatCVS in years. So forgive me for stating the obvious here.

Software evolves by making bug fixes or adding features (by adding 
features I mean the general sense including code rewrites that does not 
necessarily add a feature visible to the user - like restructuring code
for future developments). So I am going to consider two cases: bug and 
features in the release process. Then there are the tests for the bug or 
the specific feature and the existing test suite, and then whether a 
stable release should be made or not depending on the result of the test

Case   Test for bug/feature Existing test  Stable release?
       has passed           suite passed
bug    yes                  yes            yes
bug    yes                  no             no
bug    no                   yes            only if there are new features
                                           in the release and the tests 
                                           for those have passed
feat.  yes                  yes            yes
feat.  yes                  no             no
feat.  no                   yes            only if there are bug fixes
                                           in the release and the tests
                                           have passed

In other words, a good the test suite speeds up stable releases. If you 
don't have a good test suite, then you have to rely on users' generosity.

Martin

PS: Here is another view of the same table for those with whitespace 
impaired email clients:

<table>
<th>
<td>Case</td>
<td>Test for bug/feature has passed</td>
<td>Existing test suite has passed</td>
<td>Do a stable release?</td>
</th>
<tr>
<td>bug</td>
<td>yes</td>
<td>yes</td>
<td>yes</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>bug</td>
<td>yes</td>
<td>no</td>
<td>no</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>bug</td>
<td>no</td>
<td>yes</td>
<td>only if there are new features in the release and the tests for those have passed</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td>feature</td>
<td>yes</td>
<td>yes</td>
<td>yes</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>feature</td>
<td>yes</td>
<td>no</td>
<td>no</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>feature</td>
<td>no</td>
<td>yes</td>
<td>only if there are bug fixes in the release and the tests for those have passed</td>
</tr>

</table>