Next pretest, and branching plans

Next pretest, and branching plans

[Chong Yidong]

I will roll the next pretest, 23.1.93, next week, Friday the 26th of
February.

Shortly afterwards, around Monday 1 March, we will make the release
branch, which will be used for all subsequent 23.1.xx pretests, as well
as the final 23.2 release.  Once this branch is made, the feature freeze
will be made "harder".  Except for documentation improvements and
special exceptions (which must first be discussed on emacs-devel, or
with Stefan or myself), the only allowed bugfixes are for regressions
with respect to Emacs 22.

(At a still later date, we will only allow bugfixes for regressions with
respect to Emacs 23.1.)

Once the branch is made, Stefan or myself will announce on emacs-devel
that the trunk is open for Emacs 24 development.  At this point, we can
merge the projects from the pending branch into the trunk, and so forth.
We'll give more details about commit policy for the trunk, and our
general goals for Emacs 24, later.  (Opinions are welcome.)

Once the branch is made, some bugfixes will need to be applied both to
the trunk and to the branch.  This is important, so anyone who has
commit access should take note.

RE: Next pretest, and branching plans

[Drew Adams]

> I will roll the next pretest, 23.1.93, next week, Friday the 26th of
> February.

Never got a Windows binary for the last one, 23.1.92.

Spent a lot of time fiddling with stuff, trying to help test bugs and bug fixes
(e.g. #5478) without the latest binary. Certainly couldn't file any new,
pretest-related bugs.

If pretest feedback from Windows users is at all useful or important to you,
then you might consider this a loss. If not, just keep on rolling...

Emacs Manuals

[Richard Stallman]

How is progress on updating the Emacs manuals?

Re: Emacs Manuals

[smc]

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2010/2/18 Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org>

> How is progress on updating the Emacs manuals?
>
>
>
At least, the Spanish versions of the Emacs manuals are very advanced.

I want to do a request when updating the original English Emacs manuals:
If you change very small pieces of text only for stylistic reasons, don't
forget
that this means some troubles for us the translators to compare the
versions,
since many of theses differences are not relevant in our languages.
Please, do it only if really really necessary.



-- 
Suso
http://gnu.manticore.es

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Re: Next pretest, and branching plans

[Leo]

On 2010-02-18 15:29 +0000, Drew Adams wrote:
>> I will roll the next pretest, 23.1.93, next week, Friday the 26th of
>> February.
>
> Never got a Windows binary for the last one, 23.1.92.
>
> Spent a lot of time fiddling with stuff, trying to help test bugs and bug fixes
> (e.g. #5478) without the latest binary. Certainly couldn't file any new,
> pretest-related bugs.
>
> If pretest feedback from Windows users is at all useful or important to you,
> then you might consider this a loss. If not, just keep on rolling...

Is a policy to provide a binary for windows? There's no binary for
GNU/Linux, OSX and many others.

But when I was using Windows, I have found the following two sources
that provide excellent binary for windows.

http://code.google.com/p/emacs-for-windows/
http://www.ourcomments.org/Emacs/DL/EmacsW32/EmacsCVS/unptch/emacs-from-cvs-091015.zip

Cheers,
Leo

Re: Next pretest, and branching plans

[Sean Sieger]

    http://code.google.com/p/emacs-for-windows/

I'll have try this one, thank you.

    http://www.ourcomments.org/Emacs/DL/EmacsW32/EmacsCVS/unptch/emacs-from-cvs-091015.zip

Huh?  Look at the date stamp.  This used to be a good resource.

RE: Next pretest, and branching plans

[Drew Adams]

> > If pretest feedback from Windows users is at all useful or 
> > important to you, then you might consider this a loss.
> > If not, just keep on rolling...
> 
> Is a policy to provide a binary for windows? There's no binary for
> GNU/Linux, OSX and many others.

I cannot speak to what the "policy" is, or whether there even is a policy. I
make no claim about policy.

GNU Emacs does publish this, FWIW:
http://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/emacs/pretest/windows/.
The README there (from 2010/01/03) says, "This directory contains precompiled
distributions for GNU Emacs on Windows".

That is, GNU Emacs publishes a directory that has _only_ Windows binaries.

No, the README does not claim that the directory includes a binary of the latest
pretest. And it did not include a binary for the previous pretest (23.1.91)
either, until we reminded about it a few times and Jason found time to create
and post it (thank you).

But prior to that, AFAIK, it generally _has_ included pretest binaries.

I repeat: *IF* such feedback from Windows users is important to Emacs
development, then you might consider that not posting a binary will reduce
useful feedback.

Speaking for myself only, that will be the case. As an example, I recently spent
some time with Michael A. trying to debug and fix bug #5478, and we were forced
to test using the previous Windows pretest because the latest was not available.

With no pretest binaries at all, next time perhaps we will need to wait for a
binary of the next release. Or the bug might find someone who wants to not only
fix the bug but also build Emacs on Windows.

Perhaps more importantly, there will be fewer (far fewer, IMO) new bug reports
from Windows users for the latest code. Instead of a pretest, you will, in
effect, just wait until after the release to get such bug reports. The purpose
of the pretest will thus be defeated, except for those Windows pretesters who
are willing to build Emacs.

Speaking for myself again, I have submitted many bug reports for Emacs pretests,
including for the last one (23.1.91). I submitted none for 23.1.92, since there
was no binary. IF you think that bug reports during pretest can be helpful in
general, then this is a loss.

> But when I was using Windows, I have found the following two sources
> that provide excellent binary for windows.
> http://code.google.com/p/emacs-for-windows/
> http://www.ourcomments.org/Emacs/DL/EmacsW32/EmacsCVS/unptch/e
> macs-from-cvs-091015.zip

Yes, and there are other sites that also have, or have had, old Windows
binaries. And people appreciate this. But that is all beside the point.

Those you cite are from 2010/02/02 and 2009/10/15, respectively.
Neither represents the latest pretest. That's the point: the pretest.

If you, Lennart or anyone else builds a pretest binary and posts it, that will
be helpful and appreciated.

RE: Next pretest, and branching plans

[Drew Adams]

>     http://code.google.com/p/emacs-for-windows/
> 
> I'll have try this one, thank you.
>     
>     http://www.ourcomments.org/Emacs/DL/EmacsW32/EmacsCVS/unptch/e
>     macs-from-cvs-091015.zip
> 
> Huh?  Look at the date stamp.  This used to be a good resource.

Neither represents the 23.1.92 pretest, AFAIK. The former says:

  GNU Emacs 23.1.91.1 (i386-mingw-nt5.1.2600)
   of 2010-01-02 on PRETEST

Yidong announced the 23.1.92 pretest on 2010/01/29.

RE: Next pretest, and branching plans

[Drew Adams]

Related to this is the fact that bug #5299, a regression, is still outstanding.
It prevents Windows users from using `M-x report-emacs-bug' to file bugs.

Do you really want bug reports from Windows users?

Re: Next pretest, and branching plans

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: "Drew Adams" <drew.adams@oracle.com>
> Date: Sat, 20 Feb 2010 08:52:50 -0800
> Cc: 
> 
> Perhaps more importantly, there will be fewer (far fewer, IMO) new bug reports
> from Windows users for the latest code. Instead of a pretest, you will, in
> effect, just wait until after the release to get such bug reports. The purpose
> of the pretest will thus be defeated, except for those Windows pretesters who
> are willing to build Emacs.

It's not clear what statistics you have to back this up.  I know for a
fact that several users of the Windows port build Emacs themselves;
what percentage that is of the overall number of people who use the
pretest on Windows should be a subject of survey, not guesswork.

FWIW, tools for such a build are readily available, and help for
setting them up is offered here.  So I could never understand why
people who want to contribute refuse to install the necessary
development environment.  It's not that setting up such a development
environment is hard or needs many hours.

RE: Next pretest, and branching plans

[Drew Adams]

> > Perhaps more importantly, there will be fewer (far fewer, 
> > IMO) new bug reports from Windows users for the latest code.
> >
> > Instead of a pretest, you will, in effect, just wait until
> > after the release to get such bug reports. The purpose
> > of the pretest will thus be defeated, except for those 
> > Windows pretesters who are willing to build Emacs.
> 
> It's not clear what statistics you have to back this up.

To back what up? I cited _myself_ as an example. And I have reported a _lot_ of
bugs, many of which have been fixed. There will therefore be absolutely fewer
(IMO far fewer) bug reports, just counting my own. QED.

> I know for a fact that several users of the Windows port
> build Emacs themselves;

I know that for a fact also. So what?

> what percentage that is of the overall number of people who use the
> pretest on Windows should be a subject of survey, not guesswork.

So go ahead, make such a survey.

But check the overall number of Windows pretest _bug reports_ (and the number of
such bugs that get fixed, and the number of such bugs that you deem important),
not just the number of people who _use_ the Windows pretest.

If you limit your check to those who use the Windows pretest, and if no Windows
binary is posted, then you've obviously limited your check to those who build
Emacs themselves. You will not notice a diminution in _their_ bug reports,
obviously. 'Round and 'round you go...

[French govt official in the 90s: "Since we stopped listening to the New
Caledonian independentists, we no longer hear anything from them."]

But even if you do an accurate survey, and you fairly survey the bugs
_reported_, not just the number of Windows _users_ of a pretest, and you
consider both the number of bug reports and the importance of the bugs reported,
a percentage will only give you part of the story.

That will indicate a relative loss but not the absolute loss of user feedback.
Taking only myself as an example: Even if my bug reports represent a negligible
percentage of the total number of Windows bug reports (which I doubt, but which
might be the case), they nevertheless represent info that could be useful to
Emacs development (that has proven to be the case, in the past). The question
is, do you want that info or not?

The question still is, "Do you really want bug reports from Windows users?"

> FWIW, tools for such a build are readily available, and help for
> setting them up is offered here.  So I could never understand why
> people who want to contribute refuse to install the necessary
> development environment.  It's not that setting up such a development
> environment is hard or needs many hours.

There can be many reasons why someone cannot or does not wish to build Emacs.

And if building it is so simple, and you have already built the pretest, then
why not post your binary of it? Certainly it is at least as easy to post it as
to build it, no? What holds you back? "Tools for such a posting are readily
available".

The purpose of the pretest is only partly to test whether Emacs builds with no
problem. And typically you don't need a zillion build reports for the same
platform to identify bugs affecting building. You don't need every Emacs pretest
tester to build Emacs.

The greater purpose of the pretest is to test _Emacs_ itself, after it is built,
to see what problems might have been introduced by the latest development
changes, 99% of which do not affect building. (No, I don't have statistical
evidence for claiming 99%. Sue me.)

For that, there is no reason to limit the pretest to those who build Emacs
themselves. Especially if you already have a binary available that you can post
(which you apparently do have).

Re: Next pretest, and branching plans

[Chong Yidong]

Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:

> It's not clear what statistics you have to back this up.  I know for a
> fact that several users of the Windows port build Emacs themselves;
> what percentage that is of the overall number of people who use the
> pretest on Windows should be a subject of survey, not guesswork.
>
> FWIW, tools for such a build are readily available, and help for
> setting them up is offered here.  So I could never understand why
> people who want to contribute refuse to install the necessary
> development environment.  It's not that setting up such a development
> environment is hard or needs many hours.

Anyhow, if anyone would like to volunteer to make binaries for the
pretests, please step forward.

RE: Next pretest, and branching plans

[Drew Adams]

> > It's not clear what statistics you have to back this up.  I 
> > know for a fact that several users of the Windows port build
> > Emacs themselves; what percentage that is of the overall
> > number of people who use the pretest on Windows should be a
> > subject of survey, not guesswork.
> >
> > FWIW, tools for such a build are readily available, and help for
> > setting them up is offered here.  So I could never understand why
> > people who want to contribute refuse to install the necessary
> > development environment.  It's not that setting up such a 
> > development environment is hard or needs many hours.
> 
> Anyhow, if anyone would like to volunteer to make binaries for the
> pretests, please step forward.

It sounds like you already have lots of people making Windows pretest binaries -
Eli knows it for a fact, and I don't doubt it.

So what's needed is not a volunteer to make a binary, but a volunteer to post a
binary that s?he has already made.

Re: Next pretest, and branching plans

[Lennart Borgman]

On Sat, Feb 20, 2010 at 7:36 PM, Chong Yidong <cyd@stupidchicken.com> wrote:
> Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:
>
>> It's not clear what statistics you have to back this up.  I know for a
>> fact that several users of the Windows port build Emacs themselves;
>> what percentage that is of the overall number of people who use the
>> pretest on Windows should be a subject of survey, not guesswork.
>>
>> FWIW, tools for such a build are readily available, and help for
>> setting them up is offered here.  So I could never understand why
>> people who want to contribute refuse to install the necessary
>> development environment.  It's not that setting up such a development
>> environment is hard or needs many hours.
>
> Anyhow, if anyone would like to volunteer to make binaries for the
> pretests, please step forward.

I have not made binaries for the pretest, but since I noticed the
request for newer (unpatched) binaries I have uploaded this today to

  http://ourcomments.org/cgi-bin/emacsw32-dl-latest.pl

Re: Next pretest, and branching plans

[Lennart Borgman]

On Sat, Feb 20, 2010 at 6:51 PM, Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> wrote:
>
> It's not clear what statistics you have to back this up.  I know for a
> fact that several users of the Windows port build Emacs themselves;
> what percentage that is of the overall number of people who use the
> pretest on Windows should be a subject of survey, not guesswork.


There actually use to be many people downloading prebuilt binaries
from my site (most people prefer my patched version then). But I have
not checked how many downloads there are for a very long time.

RE: Next pretest, and branching plans

[Drew Adams]

> I have not made binaries for the pretest, but since I noticed the
> request for newer (unpatched) binaries I have uploaded this today to
> 
>   http://ourcomments.org/cgi-bin/emacsw32-dl-latest.pl

Thank you, Lennart.

Re: Next pretest, and branching plans

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: "Drew Adams" <drew.adams@oracle.com>
> Date: Sat, 20 Feb 2010 09:35:24 -0800
> 
> Related to this is the fact that bug #5299, a regression, is still outstanding.
> It prevents Windows users from using `M-x report-emacs-bug' to file bugs.

I don't know what to fix there.  Email never worked for me on Windows
without some setup.  I use smtpmail, but it will not work without
setting it up for your ISP's mail server.

So, for me, there's no regression: it never worked in previous
versions of Emacs, and it does not work now.

Lennart seems to know what kind of solution worked for you in the
past, so perhaps Lennart could try fixing that, or at least describing
what changed in Emacs that broke that solution, whatever it is.  I
don't have Outlook set up to even try what you describe.

> Do you really want bug reports from Windows users?

Yes, and you know that.

Re: Next pretest, and branching plans

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: "Drew Adams" <drew.adams@oracle.com>
> Cc: <sdl.web@gmail.com>, <emacs-devel@gnu.org>
> Date: Sat, 20 Feb 2010 10:35:02 -0800
> 
> > > Perhaps more importantly, there will be fewer (far fewer, 
> > > IMO) new bug reports from Windows users for the latest code.
> > >
> > > Instead of a pretest, you will, in effect, just wait until
> > > after the release to get such bug reports. The purpose
> > > of the pretest will thus be defeated, except for those 
> > > Windows pretesters who are willing to build Emacs.
> > 
> > It's not clear what statistics you have to back this up.
> 
> To back what up?

The claim that the purpose of the pretest will be defeated.

> There can be many reasons why someone cannot or does not wish to build Emacs.

We are here to help overcome whatever difficulties you have.

> And if building it is so simple, and you have already built the pretest, then
> why not post your binary of it?

Building is simple, but packaging and uploading is not.

RE: Next pretest, and branching plans

[Drew Adams]

> > Related to this is the fact that bug #5299, a regression, 
> > is still outstanding. It prevents Windows users from
> > using `M-x report-emacs-bug' to file bugs.
> 
> I don't know what to fix there.  Email never worked for me on Windows
> without some setup.  I use smtpmail, but it will not work without
> setting it up for your ISP's mail server.
> 
> So, for me, there's no regression: it never worked in previous
> versions of Emacs, and it does not work now.
> 
> Lennart seems to know what kind of solution worked for you in the
> past, so perhaps Lennart could try fixing that, or at least describing
> what changed in Emacs that broke that solution, whatever it is.  I
> don't have Outlook set up to even try what you describe.

(Perhaps this really belongs in the bug #5299 thread?)

I have no idea what problems you had previously, or what caused the recent
problem.

But I can (and do) use `M-x report-emacs-bug' fine with Emacs releases 22 and 23
(and with pretests, before I reported the bug). It works fine in those releases
(still).

My mail client is Outlook, but I don't know if your mail client has anything to
do with your problems using `M-x report-emacs-bug'.

Something was changed since the Emacs 23.1 release, so that this became broken.
It _is_ a regression, at least for my use case with an external mail client
(Outlook). If it never worked for you, that's unfortunate, but that does not
mean that it never worked.

I don't think (but I don't know) that whatever enabled `report-emacs-bug' to
work previously was Outlook-specific. It might have been something
Windows-specific (dunno). It might have been something specific for use with an
external mail client (any external client) - dunno. But I doubt that it was
something Outlook-specific.

Re: Next pretest, and branching plans

[Lennart Borgman]

On Sat, Feb 20, 2010 at 9:39 PM, Drew Adams <drew.adams@oracle.com> wrote:
>>
>> Lennart seems to know what kind of solution worked for you in the
>> past, so perhaps Lennart could try fixing that, or at least describing
>> what changed in Emacs that broke that solution, whatever it is.  I
>> don't have Outlook set up to even try what you describe.
>
> (Perhaps this really belongs in the bug #5299 thread?)
>
> I have no idea what problems you had previously, or what caused the recent
> problem.
>
> But I can (and do) use `M-x report-emacs-bug' fine with Emacs releases 22 and 23
> (and with pretests, before I reported the bug). It works fine in those releases
> (still).
>
> My mail client is Outlook, but I don't know if your mail client has anything to
> do with your problems using `M-x report-emacs-bug'.
>
> Something was changed since the Emacs 23.1 release, so that this became broken.
> It _is_ a regression, at least for my use case with an external mail client
> (Outlook). If it never worked for you, that's unfortunate, but that does not
> mean that it never worked.


Yes, it is a regression. I spent quite a lot of time finding a simple
useful solution before (the one that is broken now).

It was a w32 only solution so I guess it has been broken by someone
who does not understand the general nature of the OS interface.


> I don't think (but I don't know) that whatever enabled `report-emacs-bug' to
> work previously was Outlook-specific. It might have been something
> Windows-specific (dunno). It might have been something specific for use with an
> external mail client (any external client) - dunno. But I doubt that it was
> something Outlook-specific.


No, the mail client has nothing to do with it. The solution was
general enough to use any mail client on w32.

Re: Next pretest, and branching plans

[Lennart Borgman]

On Sat, Feb 20, 2010 at 8:45 PM, Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> wrote:
>
>> Do you really want bug reports from Windows users?
>
> Yes, and you know that.


I just uploaded new unpatched binaries as I told. However I wonder if
I was uploading the right thing from a pretest point of view.

If I already have Emacs sources checked out (which I have of course)
is there a way to build pretest binaries from what I have? I have no
idea about how the branches and bazaar works for this.

Re: Next pretest, and branching plans

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Lennart Borgman <lennart.borgman@gmail.com>
> Date: Sun, 21 Feb 2010 01:11:22 +0100
> Cc: Drew Adams <drew.adams@oracle.com>, emacs-devel@gnu.org
> 
> I just uploaded new unpatched binaries as I told. However I wonder if
> I was uploading the right thing from a pretest point of view.
> 
> If I already have Emacs sources checked out (which I have of course)
> is there a way to build pretest binaries from what I have? I have no
> idea about how the branches and bazaar works for this.

The easiest way is to build the pretest sources downloaded from
alpha.gnu.org.

It is also possible to find out the revision number of the tree from
which the pretest tarball was tarred, then "bzr revert" to that
revert, and build it.  But I don't see how this is easier.

Re: Next pretest, and branching plans

[Sean Sieger]

Sean Sieger <sean.sieger@gmail.com> writes:

        http://www.ourcomments.org/Emacs/DL/EmacsW32/EmacsCVS/unptch/emacs-from-cvs-091015.zip

    Huh?  Look at the date stamp.  This used to be a good resource.

I'm sorry for this comment, Lennart.  It didn't come out right.

Re: Next pretest, and branching plans

[Lennart Borgman]

On Sun, Feb 28, 2010 at 1:36 PM, Sean Sieger <sean.sieger@gmail.com> wrote:
> Sean Sieger <sean.sieger@gmail.com> writes:
>
>        http://www.ourcomments.org/Emacs/DL/EmacsW32/EmacsCVS/unptch/emacs-from-cvs-091015.zip
>
>    Huh?  Look at the date stamp.  This used to be a good resource.
>
> I'm sorry for this comment, Lennart.  It didn't come out right.


No problem. I have just been caught in too much things to get the
uploads working without problem again. It will work again in a while.