Re: emacs 21.2

[Juanma Barranquero]

Sorry for jumping in.

On Fri, 22 Mar 2002 15:20:32 -0000, "Marshall, Simon"
<address@hidden> wrote:

> If it was directed at pretesters, then, put yourself in my (a pretester)
> shoes.  I spent a large amount of my own time tracking down problems
> with the last pretest & coming up with some fixes & testing others'.  I
> did it because I thought it would be worth it: I thought the next Emacs
> release would fix those problems.  Why would I bother if fixes wouldn't
> appear in the next release?  Why would I bother if I could just leave it
> to the pretests after next (or some future) release?

If I understand you right, you're saying that you consider pretesting
valuable for you if it is going to help to solve ASAP the problems you
encounter/suffer.

Well, I certainly don't see it that way. To me being a pretester is more
like voluntarily giving a helping hand in ironing out the bugs of Emacs
in a general way. Whether any fixes are to be included in the next
release, or the next one after that, or perhaps deemed too difficult, or
not right, or whatever, is not my call to judge. Obviously I would
"fight" and argument if I was told that something I deem very important
is to be delayed... but I ultimately must trust those who have more
Emacs experience than I do. And I'm not talking just about technical
experience, but project management experience as well.

> I think your release policy itself is wrong---assuming I know what it
> is---I think the only reason to release a version that does not fix
> serious but not necessarily fatal bugs is when a quick release is needed
> because the previous release was broken.  I think 21.2 should have fixed
> known serious bugs as well as addressed "stability" (however you define
> that) issues.

src/ChangeLog contains 367 non-blank, non-header lines of log comments between
release 21.1 and 21.2. lisp/ChangeLog has 329. Not earthshaking, but
nothing "minor" about it.

IMHO, increasing stability without simultaneously increasing complexity
for the users who want to use Emacs without it changing a lot under
their feet is a good, sensible goal.

But I don't think Eli is saying that 21.2 was meant to be a "minor
bugfix" under any circunstances; more like "it is a necesary release even
if only has minor bugfixes". The point not being "serious bugfixes won't
go in", but "no unnecesary changes (of interface, new features, etc.)
will go in". If a bug needs a big fix, it probably does not increase
stability...

That's not to say that a single, serious bug wouldn't be reason enough
to release a version, though :)

All that's MHO and nothing more, of course :)

                                                           /L/e/k/t/u