[haiku-development] Re: Pre-Alpha Release Builds
- From: Stephan Assmus <superstippi@xxxxxx>
- To: haiku-development@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 24 Oct 2008 10:14:50 +0200
Niels Reedijk wrote:
> Hello,
>
> 2008/10/22 julun <host.haiku@xxxxxx>:
> > Hi Axel,
> >
> > Axel Dörfler schrieb:
> >>
> >> julun <host.haiku@xxxxxx> wrote:
> >>>
> >>> Axel Dörfler schrieb:
> >>> I wonder if we are going to branch of from main for the alpha
> >>> release, so that people can keep adding features without introducing
> >>> new bugs in the alpha trunk? Sure that would involve a bit of more
> >>> work since bug fixes need to be integrated into main, but knowing how
> >>> we do here at work it's way better then having a last day feature bug
> >>> introduced.
> >>
> >> That's the plan,
> >
> > Great! :)
>
> I'm not too sure. Why branch for an *alpha* release? Three thoughts on
> why not to do it. First of all it would create a certain overhead in that
> someone needs to keep merging the trunk and the branches. Though it will
> be reasonably simple right now, subversion is not as intuitive as
> mercurial or git.
>
> Secondly, the alpha is an alpha, which is a snapshot of a product that
> will be released in the future. Snapshots include half-baked features and
> bugs. Remember, we already have decided which things are absolutely
> required, this does not mean we should keep ourselves from other
> potential improvements.
>
> Finally, as soon as a branch point is made, you sort of encourage people
> to start splitting their attention. I love our developers, that's why I
> think we need to help them retaining their focus every now and then.
> Keeping the trunk as the base for the alpha release might encourage
> someone to postpone a cool new enhancement and pressure them to get the
> alpha out of the door ASAP to be able to work on cool new stuff.
>
> This is quite liberal democrat of me, but hey :-)
I don't have a strong opinion either way, but the above does sound
reasonable. I guess it will be a matter of how close we feel we are towards
releasing the alpha. If we are really almost there, I can see us making a
branch to avoid getting half-baked last minute changes into it so easily.
So maybe let's try to avoid branching for as long as possible and everyone
should focus on fixing bugs or missing alpha features as the first priority.
Best regards,
-Stephan
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