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Re: Perl 5.10.1
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From:
Ben Evans
Date:
June 21, 2009 13:22
Subject:
Re: Perl 5.10.1
Message ID:
38a53eb30906211321y43cc6632g47351a82c50306af@mail.gmail.com
On Sat, Jun 20, 2009 at 10:39 PM, Darren Duncan <darren@darrenduncan.net>wrote:
>
> Moreover, it will hopefully start a series of more frequent and simpler
> releases. Follow the Parrot/Rakudo mold, of just releasing something on X
> intervals, containing updates that are ready at the time.
Yes, but when you have zero production users (and mighty morphing APIs), all
release strategies are equally useful.
I personally find the Java version model of major, minor and update level to
work reasonably well. However, there have been a couple of instances I can
think of where breaking API changes (not just binary-incompatible but
actually source-level compile-time failures) were introduced at a minor
release. Both caused havoc at large shops I'm familiar with, and there was
an awful lot of cleanup which had to happen.
"Release to a fixed schedule, with whatever's ready" to my mind turns every
single minor release into that kind of Russian Roulette, and is something I
think should be avoided at all costs for a language which has a large,
complex and mature install base. It also does not address the need for
critical updates (eg last years US DST craziness) which may need to be made
available at very short notice.
I'm glad that the Parrot model works for them, but their situation is
completely different, and we have responsibilities to our users which should
be the paramount consideration when making these kinds of decisions.
Ben
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