From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.io!.POSTED.blaine.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Eli Zaretskii Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Confused by y-or-n-p Date: Sun, 03 Jan 2021 17:13:08 +0200 Message-ID: <83mtxqcauz.fsf@gnu.org> References: <834kkcr1eo.fsf@gnu.org> <43b24209-fa65-0e26-7cbd-f99175a7ffd8@gmx.at> <87wnx7j5is.fsf@mail.linkov.net> <83im8qnyca.fsf@gnu.org> <83bleinmse.fsf@gnu.org> <56435592-d2d0-5fb6-977f-01e1931da835@gmx.at> <87k0t38g1z.fsf@mail.linkov.net> <83czyvkts6.fsf@gnu.org> <87bleetirr.fsf@mail.linkov.net> <87y2hhri3n.fsf@mail.linkov.net> <83pn2tkfg8.fsf@gnu.org> <871rf7ippu.fsf@mail.linkov.net> <83a6trg6mc.fsf@gnu.org> Injection-Info: ciao.gmane.io; posting-host="blaine.gmane.org:116.202.254.214"; logging-data="21539"; mail-complaints-to="usenet@ciao.gmane.io" Cc: rudalics@gmx.at, juri@linkov.net, emacs-devel@gnu.org To: rms@gnu.org Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane-mx.org@gnu.org Sun Jan 03 16:14:31 2021 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane-mx.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([209.51.188.17]) by ciao.gmane.io with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.92) (envelope-from ) id 1kw55T-0005Ve-43 for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane-mx.org; Sun, 03 Jan 2021 16:14:31 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:58994 helo=lists1p.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1kw55S-0005gr-6H for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane-mx.org; Sun, 03 Jan 2021 10:14:30 -0500 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:470:142:3::10]:54032) by lists.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1kw54Z-0005Bf-H4 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 03 Jan 2021 10:13:35 -0500 Original-Received: from fencepost.gnu.org ([2001:470:142:3::e]:43542) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1kw54Y-00039k-J9; Sun, 03 Jan 2021 10:13:34 -0500 Original-Received: from 84.94.185.95.cable.012.net.il ([84.94.185.95]:2304 helo=home-c4e4a596f7) by fencepost.gnu.org with esmtpsa (TLS1.2:RSA_AES_256_CBC_SHA1:256) (Exim 4.82) (envelope-from ) id 1kw54J-0002u8-FI; Sun, 03 Jan 2021 10:13:22 -0500 In-Reply-To: (message from Richard Stallman on Sun, 03 Jan 2021 01:03:00 -0500) X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.23 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane-mx.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: "Emacs-devel" Xref: news.gmane.io gmane.emacs.devel:262361 Archived-At: > From: Richard Stallman > Cc: rudalics@gmx.at, emacs-devel@gnu.org, juri@linkov.net > Date: Sun, 03 Jan 2021 01:03:00 -0500 > > > > After this is included in a release, we can ask users > > > to try the value t for a week or two and tell us whether they like it. > > > Then we can tell which default is best. > > Adoption of a new release by users is > > very slow; I wouldn't be surprised if a year passed before major > > distros made a new release their main one. E.g., we are still getting > > bug reports from people who use Emacs 25 and even 24, let alone 26, > > although Emacs 27.1 was released 5 months ago. > > That is true, but it may not be a problem. To get useful results, we > don't need most of the community to switch. It is enough to get > answers from a variety of users. Which users should they be, and how do we find them and reach out to them? They should definitely be users who have the just-released version installed, which is why I mentioned the observation that the process of upgrading to a new version is slow and takes many moons. > Likewise, we should not be in a hurry about getting the answers. We > can wait a few months if necessary while accumulating users' > responses. Let's say we have half a dozen of such features, and we need to wait for the answers for a few months about each one of them. Who can have a long enough attention span to manage such a polling system? who can keep track of all those features even though we could switch branches and release a couple of versions in-between? If someone volunteers to do the job, then I'm okay with trying that, although I'm skeptical as to success chances. If no one volunteers, I don't see how we could do something like that. We don't even have a forum for conducting such polls, let alone a tried and working procedure.