Re: Bugs in 0.96 (was Re: 0.96(pre-9) crashes on Windows when insereting a line before ...)

[christian ridderstrom gmail com]

On Thu, 29 Mar 2007, Lars Clausen wrote:

> > IMHO, there were too many pre-releses, sometimes with an intervall in 
> > between that was too short. This discouraged me as a tester - the time 
> > was so short beween releases that I didn't feel I had the time to 
> > upgrade to the latest release.
>
> Yes, it got kinda fast towards the end.  Is a week long enough?

I'd say a week is on the short side for a "beta" release. I think the 
confusion stems from the purpose of the release. If it's a beta release, I 
think 2-3 weeks in between is more reasonable.  If the release is more of 
a "snapshot of what's in SVN", then a more frequent schedule is in order.

I guess another important question is if it's possible to have to versions 
of Dia installed simultaneously (on Windows, it's obviously possible on 
Linux).  Then I'd be less reluctant to install a new pre-release, as I 
know I can always use the old version.

> > I'm not sure I understand you. Do you do the development in two 
> > branches, a development branch and a stable branch? (So that if for 
> > instance a bug is discovered, it can be fixed in the development 
> > branch, backport the fix to the stable branch and eventually do a 
> > semi-release?)
>
> More or less.  I'd put the release out fairly fast (basically as soon as 
> somebody has tried the pre in practice) and then deal with critical bugs 
> through post-releases.  The bugfixes would then get forward-ported to 
> the development branch.  This would fit better with the 
> release-early-release-often philosophy.

I agree with that philosophy in general. The problem for me is that my use 
of it in "production" clashes with my use of it as a tester. Being able to 
have two installations would fix that.

Anyway, with a two-branch approach, I don't see why you couldn't have 2-3 
weeks between the betas. Development of new features can contiunue in the 
development branch, can't they?

/Christian

--
Christian Ridderström, +46-8-768 39 44               http://www.md.kth.se/~chr