Re: Release Issues

[Rik]

On 07/05/2013 01:55 PM, address@hidden wrote:
>>    * Release with Java enabled by default.  The JVM is not loaded
>> >      unless it is needed, so having Java enabled by default should not
>> >      cause trouble for users unless they actually want to try using
>> >      some Java functions.  The only exception is that the dialog
>> >      functions attempt to use Java if the Qt versions are not
>> >      available, but I think that will be a tiny minority of users.
>> >
>> >    * Release with the JIT compiler disabled by default.  The JIT
>> >      compiler does not currently compile very many things but a bug in
>> >      the way it compiles and executes a loop would be bad for many
>> >      users.  I also don't think it has had the testing it needs to be
>> >      considered ready for release.
> It's past the end of June and although a lot of work has been done on
> Octave since April we still have a significant amount of work to do
> before making a new stable release.
>
> The GUI is better, but we don't have QtHandles integrated and the
> terminal widget does not work properly on either Windows or Unixy
> systems.  The biggest problem is that using Ctrl-C for interrupting
> the Octave interpreter does not work and we seem to be unable to make
> keyboard shortcuts work properly, or to allow users to customize them.
> I intend to start a separate thread about these issues.  As I see it,
> the GUI is the single largest issue preventing the release from
> happening.
>
> I still plan to work on fread/fwrite performance and the 64-bit
> issues, but these have a lower priority for the release.
>
> The Java interface is probably OK for release, but we could use a few
> small improvements in the way the configuration works.  I think all we
> really need to do is test for the JVM at run time instead of configure
> time since Octave is not linked directly to the JVM library.
Possibly.  Although the detection stuff is still useful for the build
process since we need to create an octave.jar file.

We might want to make it similar to the requirement for QHull which is
required if you want to build a tarball for others but not if you simply
want a customized build of Octave for yourself.
>
> It's easy enough to release Octave with the JIT compiler disabled by
> default, so I don't think there is anything to do there.
Disabled from the build, i.e., not included or included but defaulted to
off?  I queried the mailing list in the last week or so and it seemed that
the desire was to keep JIT enabled by default whenever it was actually
built into Octave.

--Rik