The next releases

The next releases

[Stefan Monnier]

> (A 2 year-old archived bug about Mac keyboards isn't the best place for
> this discussion, but I'm not going to bother to move it.)

Oops, indeed, thanks for staying alert.

>> I wanted to bring this up to 2 releases per year, but noone had the
>> energy to take care of the release management
> That's not how I recall it.  IIRC, you wanted to freeze 24.4 ~ six weeks
> after 24.3 was released.  This would have left very little time for
> people who had been concentrating on the release to develop any new
> features.

I might indeed be looking at the past through those funny lenses.

>> BTW: since we're about to freeze and start a new pretest phase, we're
>> looking for a volunteer to take care of rolling the pretests.
> Oh, are you?

Very much so, yes.

> I would have been happy to do it again.  But I see Chong Yidong is
> back (yay!), so if he wants to do it; or if someone else wants to have
> a go, it's fine by me.

Not sure if Yidong is volunteering, but in any case I'm very happy to
see him back as well.

But to tell you the truth, I'd welcome newer blood to roll
the pretests.

>> Also, we'd welcome some help to update the manuals (most urgently, to
>> integrate all the changes mentioned in NEWS into the manuals).
> That, of course, is the hard part.  Traditionally this large burden has
> fallen on a tiny number of people.  If suddenly lots of people are going
> to start doing this, of course you can crank out more frequent releases.

I wish I knew the magic recipe to get people working on it.


        Stefan

Re: The next releases

[Stefan Monnier]

> But to tell you the truth, I'd welcome newer blood to roll
> the pretests.

Sean Sieger has volunteered to roll the pretests, and I thank him for that.

So now we only need a dozen volunteers to update the manuals.  Any takers?


        Stefan

Re: The next releases

[Bastien]

Stefan Monnier <monnier@IRO.UMontreal.CA> writes:

> So now we only need a dozen volunteers to update the manuals.  Any
> takers?

I'm in.  Are there specific bugs related to that?
Or is there any direction somewhere?

Thanks!

-- 
 Bastien

Re: The next releases

[Stefan Monnier]

>> So now we only need a dozen volunteers to update the manuals.  Any
>> takers?
> I'm in.  Are there specific bugs related to that?
> Or is there any direction somewhere?

Read the etc/NEWS file.   All entries for "24.4" correspond to changes
which should be reflected in the manuals.  Those for which the manual
has been updated are (or should be) marked with a "+++" or a "---" as
explained at the beginning of the NEWS file.  All others need work
(sometimes, there's nothing to change in the manual, but someone needs
to check, and after checking, she should add the +++ or ---).


        Stefan

Re: The next releases

[Chong Yidong]

Stefan Monnier <monnier@IRO.UMontreal.CA> writes:

>> I would have been happy to do it again.  But I see Chong Yidong is
>> back (yay!), so if he wants to do it; or if someone else wants to have
>> a go, it's fine by me.
>
> Not sure if Yidong is volunteering, but in any case I'm very happy to
> see him back as well.

Thanks.  I am back in the capacity of an ordinary contributor.
Unfortunately, I will not have time to roll the pretests or help with
other aspects of the release management process.  But I will help work
on the manuals.

Re: The next releases

[Xue Fuqiao]

On Fri, Dec 20, 2013 at 5:22 AM, Stefan Monnier
<monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> wrote:
>> But to tell you the truth, I'd welcome newer blood to roll
>> the pretests.
>
> Sean Sieger has volunteered to roll the pretests, and I thank him for that.
>
> So now we only need a dozen volunteers to update the manuals.  Any takers?

I'm in.

-- 
http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/

Re: The next releases

[Glenn Morris]

Great to see people helping out with the docs.
If you want people to check what you've done, not adding the +++ marks
to the NEWS file should ensure that someone else looks at it too.

Re: The next releases

[Ted Zlatanov]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 360 bytes --]

On Sun, 22 Dec 2013 19:57:55 -0500 Glenn Morris <rgm@gnu.org> wrote: 

GM> Great to see people helping out with the docs.
GM> If you want people to check what you've done, not adding the +++ marks
GM> to the NEWS file should ensure that someone else looks at it too.

I'm not good with NEWS formatting and content; can you review the patch
below?

Thanks
Ted


[-- Warning: decoded text below may be mangled, UTF-8 assumed --]
[-- Attachment #2: tzz-news-24.4.patch --]
[-- Type: text/x-diff, Size: 2333 bytes --]

=== modified file 'etc/NEWS'
--- etc/NEWS	2013-12-22 23:19:42 +0000
+++ etc/NEWS	2013-12-23 01:36:17 +0000
@@ -23,6 +23,9 @@
 \f
 * Installation Changes in Emacs 24.4
 
+---
+** Emacs now detects and uses GnuTLS v3 features
+
 ** Emacs can now be compiled with ACL support.
 This happens by default if a suitable support library is found at
 build time, like libacl on GNU/Linux.  To prevent this, use the
@@ -91,6 +94,12 @@
 * Changes in Emacs 24.4
 
 +++
+** Emacs can now reject invalid SSL/TLS certificates, as determined by
+GnuTLS The new variable `gnutls-verify-error' can be customized.  It
+is off for now, but will be turned to reject invalid certificates by
+default in the future.
+
++++
 ** Emacs now supports menus on text-mode terminals.
 If the terminal supports a mouse, clicking on the menu bar, or on
 sensitive portions of the mode line or header line, will drop down the
@@ -393,6 +402,14 @@
 
 *** CUA's rectangles can now be used via `cua-rectangle-mark-mode'.
 
+** CFEngine mode
+
+*** CFEngine mode has completion and ElDoc support
+
+*** CFEngine mode can parse the current syntax from cf-promises
+
+*** CFEngine mode has Flycheck support for on-the-fly syntax checking
+
 ** Delete Selection mode can now be used without `transient-mark-mode'.
 
 ** Desktop
@@ -561,6 +578,17 @@
 *** `describe-package' buffer uses the `:url' extra property to
 display a `Homepage' header, if it's present.
 
++++
+*** `describe-package' buffer uses the `:keywords extra property to
+display keyword buttons.  Clicking them shows the list of packages
+that have that keyword.
+
++++
+*** the list of packages now shows the archive
+
++++
+*** the list of packages can now be filtered by a keyword
+
 ** Prolog mode
 
 *** `prolog-use-smie' has been removed, along with the non-SMIE

=== modified file 'lisp/progmodes/cfengine.el'
--- lisp/progmodes/cfengine.el	2013-12-16 15:49:25 +0000
+++ lisp/progmodes/cfengine.el	2013-12-23 01:01:31 +0000
@@ -1322,9 +1322,6 @@
           nil nil nil beginning-of-defun))
   (setq-local prettify-symbols-alist cfengine3--prettify-symbols-alist)
 
-  ;; `compile-command' is almost never a `make' call with CFEngine so
-  ;; we override it
-  (when cfengine-cf-promises
     (set (make-local-variable 'compile-command)
          (concat cfengine-cf-promises
                  " -f "

Re: The next releases

[Glenn Morris]

My general comment is: never hesitate to make a NEWS entry.
Not giving it any +++/--- markup means someone will check it.

Ted Zlatanov wrote:

> +---
> +** Emacs now detects and uses GnuTLS v3 features

Quibbling about language, but I'd say something like:

  ** Emacs now uses GnuTLS v3 features where available.

But as a user, this tells me nothing, so I'm not sure I see the point of
this entry as it stands.

>  +++
> +** Emacs can now reject invalid SSL/TLS certificates, as determined by
> +GnuTLS The new variable `gnutls-verify-error' can be customized.  It
> +is off for now, but will be turned to reject invalid certificates by
> +default in the future.

[If this is a new option, it should have a :version tag.]

** New option `gnutls-verify-error', if non-nil, means that Emacs
should reject SSL/TLS certificates that GnuTLS determines as invalid.  
(This option defaults to nil at present, but this is expected to change
in a future release.)

> +
> ++++
>  ** Emacs now supports menus on text-mode terminals.

Did you mean to add that markup? It seems an unrelated change.

> +** CFEngine mode

It seems redundant to say "CFEngine mode..." in all the following, given
that the whole section is about CFEngine mode.

> +
> +*** CFEngine mode has completion and ElDoc support
[...]
> +*** CFEngine mode has Flycheck support for on-the-fly syntax checking

*** Support for completion, ElDoc, and Flycheck has been added.

> +*** CFEngine mode can parse the current syntax from cf-promises

I have no idea what that means, but I'm not a CFEngine user, so that may
be expected.

> ++++
> +*** `describe-package' buffer uses the `:keywords extra property to
> +display keyword buttons.  Clicking them shows the list of packages
> +that have that keyword.

*** In the buffer produced by `describe-package', there are now buttons
listing the keywords related to that package.  You can click on them
to see other packages related to any given keyword.

> ++++
> +*** the list of packages now shows the archive

*** The output of `list-packages' now includes the archive providing
each package.

[Though this will be self-evident, so I'm not sure it is worth
mentioning.]

> ++++
> +*** the list of packages can now be filtered by a keyword

I don't understand what this really means. The wording makes me think
it's somehow related to the list-packages command, but it does not seem
to be.


Second general comment is that NEWS entries should be grammatical: start
with a capital, end with a full-stop.

Re: The next releases

[Glenn Morris]

Glenn Morris wrote:

>> ++++
>>  ** Emacs now supports menus on text-mode terminals.
>
> Did you mean to add that markup? It seems an unrelated change.

That was just me misreading the diff.

Although, that means you're saying gnutls-verify-error is documented,
and I can't see that it is.

Re: The next releases

[Ted Zlatanov]

On Sun, 22 Dec 2013 22:11:43 -0500 Glenn Morris <rgm@gnu.org> wrote: 

GM> Quibbling about language, but I'd say something like:

GM>   ** Emacs now uses GnuTLS v3 features where available.

GM> But as a user, this tells me nothing, so I'm not sure I see the point of
GM> this entry as it stands.

OK; removed.

>> +++
>> +** Emacs can now reject invalid SSL/TLS certificates, as determined by
>> +GnuTLS The new variable `gnutls-verify-error' can be customized.  It
>> +is off for now, but will be turned to reject invalid certificates by
>> +default in the future.

GM> [If this is a new option, it should have a :version tag.]

GM> ** New option `gnutls-verify-error', if non-nil, means that Emacs
GM> should reject SSL/TLS certificates that GnuTLS determines as invalid.  
GM> (This option defaults to nil at present, but this is expected to change
GM> in a future release.)

Thanks, used this.

GM> Although, that means you're saying gnutls-verify-error is documented,
GM> and I can't see that it is.

Right, fixed.

>> +** CFEngine mode

GM> It seems redundant to say "CFEngine mode..." in all the following, given
GM> that the whole section is about CFEngine mode.

I was following the pattern above:

#+begin_src text
** CUA mode

*** CUA mode was changed to make use of delete-selection-mode and
#+end_src

I fixed up the CFEngine-related and package.el things.

>> ++++
>> +*** the list of packages now shows the archive

GM> *** The output of `list-packages' now includes the archive providing
GM> each package.

GM> [Though this will be self-evident, so I'm not sure it is worth
GM> mentioning.]

OK, omitted.

>> +*** the list of packages can now be filtered by a keyword

GM> I don't understand what this really means. The wording makes me think
GM> it's somehow related to the list-packages command, but it does not seem
GM> to be.

OK, fixed.

GM> Second general comment is that NEWS entries should be grammatical: start
GM> with a capital, end with a full-stop.

Thanks for the review!  I pushed my changes as you suggested and hope
they are OK.

Ted