From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Richard Stallman Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Move to a cadence release model? Date: Thu, 12 Nov 2015 17:35:15 -0500 Message-ID: References: Reply-To: rms@gnu.org NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Content-Type: text/plain; charset=Utf-8 X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1447367868 12269 80.91.229.3 (12 Nov 2015 22:37:48 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 12 Nov 2015 22:37:48 +0000 (UTC) Cc: xfq.free@gmail.com, john@yates-sheets.org, emacs-devel@gnu.org To: John Yates Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Thu Nov 12 23:37:40 2015 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([208.118.235.17]) by plane.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1Zx0Ut-0007tN-Jq for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Thu, 12 Nov 2015 23:37:39 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:50080 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Zx0Ut-0005ss-1k for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Thu, 12 Nov 2015 17:37:39 -0500 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:55629) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Zx0Up-0005sg-Qb for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 12 Nov 2015 17:37:36 -0500 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Zx0Uo-0003Oc-TR for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 12 Nov 2015 17:37:35 -0500 Original-Received: from fencepost.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::e]:60075) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Zx0SZ-0002mx-Og; Thu, 12 Nov 2015 17:35:15 -0500 Original-Received: from rms by fencepost.gnu.org with local (Exim 4.82) (envelope-from ) id 1Zx0SZ-0007wp-0C; Thu, 12 Nov 2015 17:35:15 -0500 In-reply-to: (message from John Yates on Tue, 10 Nov 2015 20:55:59 -0500) X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: Error: Malformed IPv6 address (bad octet value). X-Received-From: 2001:4830:134:3::e X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 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.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:194301 Archived-At: [[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider ]]] [[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies, ]]] [[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]] > The important part of all of these review cultures is that work > _must_ be presented in reviewable units. I am not quite sure what that would mean, concretely, for Emacs. Currently, we install a new feature as a whole. That can be large; perhaps not a "reviewable unit". If so, what would we do instead? Install small parts of the code one by one? The problem is, they won't actually do anything by themselves. And we won't be able to see their interactions with the rest of Emacs features and usage patterns, until the whole thing is installed. > Re current pattern of 6 month code freeze: This seems to be a manifestation > of that fact that once a sufficient collection of new features have been > accumulated we recognize in our heart of hearts that our code is not ready > for release. And some of the new features or changes won't work in combination with various other existing features. There are so many features in Emacs, so many use cases and interactions, that we don't know how to test that a new feature works the way users would like in all cases. It may not even be clear what behavior users would like in all of them. It comes down to a question of what "reviewable unit" means. That we can study the code of the feature for bugs? That's what we do now for the whole new feature. That we can determine whether it interacts badly with anything else? I don't see how we can do that, no small the parts are. Have I missed the point somehow? -- Dr Richard Stallman President, Free Software Foundation (gnu.org, fsf.org) Internet Hall-of-Famer (internethalloffame.org) Skype: No way! See stallman.org/skype.html.