RE: looking ahead to 3.6 (John W. Eaton)

[Thomas Yengst]

> Date: Fri, 11 Feb 2011 15:16:21 -0500
> From: "John W. Eaton" <address@hidden>
> To: octave maintainers mailing list <address@hidden>
> Subject: looking ahead to 3.6
> Message-ID: <address@hidden>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
> 
> I know, we just barely have 3.4 out there, but I'd like to take a look
> at what should be done for 3.6.
> 
> First, I'd like to continue to try to shorten the release cycle.
> We've made some progress since the no release :
> 
>  1.0: Feb 17 1994
>  1.1: Jan 12 1995  11 months!  Things were simpler back then...
>  2.0: Dec 10 1996  23 months
>  2.1: long series of widely used snapshots but no "stable" releases
>  3.0: Dec 21 2007  ???
>  3.2: Jun  5 2009  18 months
>  3.4: Feb  8 2011  20 months
> 
> My goal is to cut the time between releases to 9-12 months, so that
> would mean starting the release process sometime in september this
> year.  If the release cycle is much longer than a year, then it seems
> to become difficult to make releases.  If they happen more frequently,
> maybe we won't pressure ourselves into trying for last minute
> perfection.

excellent idea - releases measured in months keeps the knowledge base alive.

> 
> Next, I have a few projects that I would personally like to work on
> (these might not all happen for 3.6, but they are things I'm currently
> most interested in):
> 
>  * Make the current FLTK+OpenGL plotting system work better so that
>    we can make it the default.  For this to happen, there are a lot
>    of little bugs that need to be fixed, plus we need to make
>    printing reliable.  If possible, we need to make printing work
>    even when a plot is not displayed on the screen.

agreed - life is easier/better with OpenGL.

> 
>  * Integrate a GUI with the core Octave distribution.  My preference
>    would be to start with OctaveDE since I think it is doing the
>    right thing by embedding Octave rather than communicating with
>    Octave using pipes.  I'm willing to consider other alternatives,
>    but it is important to me that we have a way to interact with
>    Octave's command line without needing to completely reinvent
>    readline.

yes please. Like many Octave users, I'm comfortable with the command line 
interface, but having a GUI accelerates adoption (more users = more developers)

> 
>  * Make a gtk+OpenGL graphics system.  Or use wxWidgets, or
>    something (anything!) that looks better than FLTK (sorry, FLTK
>    fans).
> 
> Maybe we should create a page on the wiki for these goals and ideas.

most definitely - something that pops up with google searches would show the 
uninitiated that there is an alternative to Matlab with an active community.