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

Anthony Baxter Anthony Baxter anthony@interlink.com.au
Tue, 09 Apr 2002 01:28:44 +1000

I only postulated that because people seem to have been calling "2.1.x" the Garth branch. I don't really care one way or the other, and having the same even-odd meaning as the Linux kernel means you won't fight the tide of people who already know that way of doing things.

That tide's only the linux users, and the linux users who care what kernel they're running. I'm an ex-sysadmin, pretty solid unix geek, and I nowadays run whatever my distro comes with - as long as it supports what I want to do, I don't care. I don't think that saying "it's what linux does" is enough to carry the day by itself. I suspect that if you want to go with the flow, we should follow the approach that Microsoft uses to mark their unstable releases. (And I'm not going to use any one of the many, many cheap shots about unstable MS releases that I have in my head here - feel free to substitute your own. :)

Once checked in and tested, Guido should have been able to say, "okay, time for a point release", after which a "few buttons get pushed" (hand wave, hand wave) and a new release appears on SF.

Hm. Maybe. It would be nice, but the other thing to consider it that particularly for a "Garth" branch (does that mean the experimental branch gets calle Wayne, I wonder?) you want to try to build it on a couple of boxes first - just in case.

That wasn't what I was referring to. I was referring to the spate of checkins where people have to advance version numbers prior to a release. I would hope that could be automated.

That's pretty much down to Include/patchlevel.h - two spots README - one line Misc/NEWS - if it's been kept up to date, no changes.

Obviously, if what I have in mind is going to work, PEP 102 is going to have to be streamlined quite a bit.

No complaints from me :)

>> I don't know what's involved in making a Windows installer, but >> somebody besides Tim should be able to do that too. Anthony> I assume nothing. The fact that Tim owns that process and nobody else seems willing to pick it up suggests otherwise.

I should be clearer - I seem to recall during 2.1.2 that Tim muttered something about 'half a day' to do the release. He also muttered something about 'damn bass players' too, though, so I'm not sure how realistic he was being there...

Anthony