[Python-Dev] PEP 407: New release cycle and introducing long-term support versions (original) (raw)

Steven D'Aprano steve at pearwood.info
Thu Jan 19 01:12:06 CET 2012

Antoine Pitrou wrote:

Le jeudi 19 janvier 2012 à 00:25 +0900, Stephen J. Turnbull a écrit :

> You claim people won't use stable releases because of not enough > alphas? That sounds completely unrelated.

Surely testing is related to user perceptions of stability. More testing helps reduce bugs in released software, which improves user perception of stability, encouraging them to use the software in production. I have asked a practical question, a theoretical answer isn't exactly what I was waiting for. [...] I don't care to convince you, since you are not involved in Python development and release management (you haven't ever been a contributor AFAIK). Unless you produce practical arguments, saying "I don't think you can do it" is plain FUD and certainly not worth answering to.

Pardon me, but people like Stephen Turnbull are users of Python, exactly the sort of people you DO have to convince that moving to an accelerated or more complex release process will result in a better product. The risk is that you will lose users, or fragment the user base even more than it is now with 2.x vs 3.x.

Quite frankly, I like the simplicity and speed of the current release cycle. All this talk about separate LTS releases and parallel language releases and library releases makes my head spin. I fear the day that people asking questions on the tutor or python-list mailing lists will have to say (e.g.) "I'm using Python 3.4.1 and standard library 1.2.7" in order to specify the version they're using.

I fear change, because the current system works well and for every way to make it better there are a thousand ways to make it worse. Dismissing fears like this as FUD doesn't do anyone any favours.

One on-going complaint is that Python-Dev doesn't have the manpower or time to do everything that needs to be done. Bugs languish for months or years because nobody has the time to look at it. Will going to a more rapid release cycle give people more time, or just increase their workload? You're hoping that a more rapid release cycle will attract more developers, and there is a chance that you could be right; but a more rapid release cycle WILL increase the total work load. So you're betting that this change will attract enough new developers that the work load per person will decrease even as the total work load increases. I don't think that's a safe bet.

-- Steven

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