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: On Contributing To Emacs Date: Thu, 30 Dec 2021 08:16:10 +0200 Message-ID: <83zgoiipn9.fsf@gnu.org> References: <87lf033qyv.fsf@gmail.com> Injection-Info: ciao.gmane.io; posting-host="blaine.gmane.org:116.202.254.214"; logging-data="11996"; mail-complaints-to="usenet@ciao.gmane.io" Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org To: Tim Cross Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane-mx.org@gnu.org Thu Dec 30 07:17:23 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 1n2okd-0002tf-HQ for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane-mx.org; Thu, 30 Dec 2021 07:17:23 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:52760 helo=lists1p.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1n2okb-0000Xc-PW for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane-mx.org; Thu, 30 Dec 2021 01:17:21 -0500 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([209.51.188.92]:41142) by lists.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1n2ojO-0008CZ-Au for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 30 Dec 2021 01:16:06 -0500 Original-Received: from [2001:470:142:3::e] (port=35268 helo=fencepost.gnu.org) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1n2ojO-0001ST-0h; Thu, 30 Dec 2021 01:16:06 -0500 DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; q=dns/txt; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gnu.org; s=fencepost-gnu-org; h=References:Subject:In-Reply-To:To:From:Date: mime-version; bh=USh520pnv8LV7z3Dws33sXMS+DjaKB6cQq7eH9CLO44=; b=gxj9YhQCGInK Adsj5lUXkSOcWi1nu1k/rOAZitvN6f6zYEAtrN/aGVdNV4QseVXXpnlLLE8RH2JfVixzSsQOTBsOz 0dz8/OSQLyvG2YXmRyRZyC8OpLFfCJ8kUpXkYMeqtTwD5CLERHclFADV5C0xGrcL5OG86VeuuL1jj H7y6va+ZaC2uLZFeBcSyrd/Gi2XS8srfVXwY+bQ8N1gqkqz4AkROjxbA06kvG8I/NUrQ+jZyBX1ul j+ooyu/xHK6TjTtzBM063mhtgh/WBbOg/LLHyHw9/vyWj+PeYlz+eGnA8J/2pURo2xIEFTsiWFvR3 uESccVddvu8PbmvCZ7CKVA==; Original-Received: from [87.69.77.57] (port=3031 helo=home-c4e4a596f7) by fencepost.gnu.org with esmtpsa (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1n2ojN-0005aF-VV; Thu, 30 Dec 2021 01:16:06 -0500 In-Reply-To: <87lf033qyv.fsf@gmail.com> (message from Tim Cross on Thu, 30 Dec 2021 10:52:12 +1100) X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.29 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:283616 Archived-At: > From: Tim Cross > Date: Thu, 30 Dec 2021 10:52:12 +1100 > > Releasing once every 12 months would be OK if we have the resources > to achieve that, but I think for the core Emacs release, every 24 > months is quite reasonable (though, I also remember a time when new > Emacs versions took multiple years, so current release cycles seem > pretty speedy compared to pre-20). Yes, we've sped up the release cycle to some extent by enforcing the rule that minor releases have no new features much more stringently than it was before Emacs 26, and by using release branches in more orderly fashion. As for the relatively long release cycle in general, I said in the past that many people don't realize the difficulty of releasing a large, versatile, and stable package such as Emacs. It is not enough to make sure that just the new features are working, we also need to make sure that everything that worked before is still working, and that is a huge job that takes time, due to disparate use patterns. It doesn't help that Emacs is an interactive program, which means a test suite can only go that far in helping with discovering regressions. So the experience people have in releasing much smaller and/or less versatile and/or less interactive packages doesn't scale well when applied to Emacs.