[O] Losing trust in Org: stable org-mode releases and unit tests for basic functionality

[Karl Voit]

Hi!

I want to re-heat the discussion of last summer about stable
releases[1] of Org-mode:

* Scott Randby <address@hidden> wrote:
> While I've used Org's development version in the past, I stopped doing 
> that due to my failure to learn how to use git (no time) and other 
> issues. Now, I only use the stable releases. But the latest 8.3 release 
> doesn't seem so stable to me[...]

For Scott (I think) and for me "stable" means: save to use with my
current data without corrupting things or losing features of my
workflows.

I had several occasions where "git pull origin master" ended up in
much work for fixing my large set of Org-mode data. 

For example several times, org-todo -> DONE on recurring tasks lead
to DONE and closed tasks.

This is quite evil behavior because I rely heavily on a reliable Org
for currently 1162 open tasks in several dozen files. When such a
bug finds its way to my system and I don't recognize it (which is
highly likely in this case), I lose important tasks and even worse:
I lose my trust in Org-mode.

The most current issue of "recurring tasks get closed"[2] is fixed
(with another scoping issue newly introduced[3]): please don't
discuss this issue or any other concrete bug/issue in this thread.

It's just an example to make my point clear:

What I am trying to raise is a discussion on whether or not there
should be a stable git branch or at east some kind of unit test set
that make sure that really basic functionality doesn't get broken
without being recognized instantly. In my humble opinion, there has
to be some kind of continuous integration tests where breaking
things rings loud whistles.

Unfortunately, I don't have time to follow all the interesting
discussions on the mailing list any more. Does this imply, I can't
use Org-mode any more?

The only alternative I can think of is using the conservative(?)
Org-mode which comes with Emacs from my current Linux distribution.
However, I remember multiple cases where those Org-mode versions
still had some bugs and the recommended solution was "upgrade to
Org-mode git commit abcdef". This is how I started with Org-mode
from git in the first place!

So: what should I do to get reliable Org-mode in future to minimize
the chances of losing tasks or my trust in Org?

[1] http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.orgmode/99881/
[2] http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.orgmode/104219
[3] http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.orgmode/104219/focus=104260

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