From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Carsten Mattner Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Periodical releases Date: Mon, 2 Jan 2012 11:40:20 +0100 Message-ID: References: NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 X-Trace: dough.gmane.org 1325500832 12746 80.91.229.12 (2 Jan 2012 10:40:32 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@dough.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 2 Jan 2012 10:40:32 +0000 (UTC) Cc: Emacs developers To: Stefan Monnier Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Mon Jan 02 11:40:26 2012 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([140.186.70.17]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1RhfJa-0001Em-B3 for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Mon, 02 Jan 2012 11:40:26 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:42694 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1RhfJZ-0001lZ-Ir for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Mon, 02 Jan 2012 05:40:25 -0500 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([140.186.70.92]:44296) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1RhfJX-0001lU-9f for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 02 Jan 2012 05:40:24 -0500 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1RhfJW-0000LF-6A for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 02 Jan 2012 05:40:23 -0500 Original-Received: from mail-iy0-f169.google.com ([209.85.210.169]:53131) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1RhfJW-0000LB-22 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 02 Jan 2012 05:40:22 -0500 Original-Received: by iacb35 with SMTP id b35so31811535iac.0 for ; Mon, 02 Jan 2012 02:40:20 -0800 (PST) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=googlemail.com; s=gamma; h=mime-version:in-reply-to:references:date:message-id:subject:from:to :cc:content-type; bh=nPi2LIatGix46M1SNjHgmEw8bJxdC/gxumkt442DqEg=; b=Net+iupot8ERNpdNZMrJVcJWxA8OcY3s5EmApptVCUHXdidUSq+jCzB2xvwnKie/tX fEuicJrAmtGd4zky6vdFaw6z9rXVeYQ9AmUX52X1G/B1KDK2Ox6zxwOsKkkw3fNeOxiz pqlITEIY0M1bap2n/nLcVqkJVwUgcpMSFP7VU= Original-Received: by 10.50.195.129 with SMTP id ie1mr56385633igc.29.1325500820601; Mon, 02 Jan 2012 02:40:20 -0800 (PST) Original-Received: by 10.50.106.132 with HTTP; Mon, 2 Jan 2012 02:40:20 -0800 (PST) In-Reply-To: X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.6 (newer, 2) X-Received-From: 209.85.210.169 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:147161 Archived-At: On Sun, Jan 1, 2012 at 11:41 PM, Stefan Monnier wrote: >> Maybe 2 or 4 releases as a minimum per year with less major >> changes in each? > > For Emacs-21, the main time constraint was to get the new redisplay > engine stable (with support for proportional fonts and such). > Can't remember any such large change for Emacs-22, off hand. > But for Emacs-23, there was a similar issue with the change to a utf-8 > based internal representation and the new font handling. > For Emacs-24, it was the bidi support mostly. > > These are fairly significant structural changes which are difficult to > perform piecemeal and tend to introduce significant breakage which takes > months if not years to test&debug (maybe partly for lack of a good > regression test suite, but also because of very complex semantics, most > of which is the result of accidental interferences between > "independent" features). The solution for that is to let it evolve in a branch for longer than one release cycle while merging finished changes to the release branch and deliver those features sooner. That way finished features like say package support, built-in colour theme support, cc-mode and other mode updates, etc., which are less invasive, are delivered in a stable release faster.