Re: Development/Production versions (was RE: CVS)

[Matthew Flatt <mflatt@cs.utah.edu>]

I'd like augment Robby's answer, addressing the balance between bug
fixes as most users see them and bug fixes as power users want them.

Quoting see signature:
> Here is a question: current MzScheme release is 101. 
> Let say, somebody found a bug and a bug has been promptly fixed. 
> What will be the bug-fix version: 102  or 101/9 ?

For most users, it would be 101p1, obtained by applying a .plt-based
patch to version 101.

Very few of our users compile their own binaries, or know how to use
patch software, or use CVS. Our bug-fix strategy is therefore to
provided patches that DrScheme can easily apply to itself. Also, we
only create patches when the bugs affect a lot of people in significant
ways. We haven't released any patches 101, so far (although we did
release a patch or two for version 100 before 101 was released).

In contrast to patches, the CVS server provides the latest and greatest
(and possibly stablest) code we have - and nothing else. That puts the
power user in a relatively awkward place: you don't get frequent small
patches to working code. You have to settle for either broken code or
potentially unstable code. Unfortuntely, I doubt we'll do much better
in the near future.

> Projects of the scale of PLT Scheme usually have two lines of
> development: one targeted towards the new features and new
> functuanality, the other being bug fixes to existing released
> versions.

This would be much nicer, but we're not equipped to make it work. Sure,
we have five individuals working on PLT Scheme, but it's really five
part-time people, since we all have classes to teach, dissertations to
write, etc. :)

Our strategy for now is to make the latest code as stable as possible,
hopefully with the help of many fine testers. Meanwhile, we're trying
recruit new hackers, and maybe we'll be able to support a more
fine-grained bug-fix system in the future.

Hope that clarifies things,
Matthew