[haiku-development] Re: Pre-Alpha Release Builds
- From: "Niels Reedijk" <niels.reedijk@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: haiku-development@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 24 Oct 2008 09:58:49 +0200
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 :-)
>> at least, we just need to decide when to do so :-)
>
> Why not with the pre-alpha? If we are in bug fixing mode it shouldn't
> matter, right. ;)
There is little incentive to be in bug-fixing mode for an alpha. There
are agreed areas which need polishing (the proposal list), but nowhere
is there a requirement of being bug free.
>> I guess the moment we plan another feature that shouldn't go into the
>> alpha anymore, we should start that branch. AFAICT we're still mostly in
>> bug-fixing and updating mode, though.
See the argumentation above.
Enjoy!
N.
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