[Python-Dev] Re: Stability and change (original) (raw)

Guido van Rossum guido@python.org
Mon, 08 Apr 2002 10:44:06 -0400

I don't know if I understand what you're getting at here. I think that 2.x.a -> 2.x.b should be relatively stable, certainly if x is odd. Less so if x is even, but most of the time not dramatically so.

Ehm, haven't you got that backwards? I did "uname -a" and my kernel version is 2.4.9, which would suggest that even minor numbers are stable for Linux. And you just agreed that we should do the same for Python.

For this to work, a number of things have to happen. First, the effort required to actually cut a release have to drop dramatically.

Yes, I think that our current process is a bit too heavy. I guess we should stop having a new webpage for each release, and the Doc, Mac and Win releases could be completely from the source releases (proceeding at their own, usually slower, pace).

Even all the editing of files to replace 2.1.2 with 2.1.3 needs to be automated.

At least the LICENSE file should stop referring to a specific micro version. Lawyers be damned.

(One way to accomplish this would be to have a standard patch file whose version numbers are twiddled, probably by a script, and which is then applied from the top of the source tree.)

You'd still have to watch it though.

Getting from "let's cut a release tomorrow" to "2.1.4 is released" should not be much more labor than running "make dist" and sticking it on SF, at least on the Unix side of things.

Let's also forget about releasing via SF (at least for experimental releases). It's slow and cumbersome, and most people download from python.org anyway.

I don't know what's involved in making a Windows installer, but somebody besides Tim should be able to do that too.

I can do it in 5 minutes, but I don't bother to test it much. Again, for an experimental release that shouldn't be a big deal.

I presume that over time, the Mac will look more and more like Unix for distribution purposes as fewer and fewer people use Mac OS <= 9.

Certainly they might not be interested in experimental releases much (you have to conclude that people still running Mac OS <= 9 are not early adopters ;-).

--Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)