From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: main.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: storm@cua.dk (Kim F. Storm) Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: [jerome.marant@free.fr: Re: Possible help with stable Emacs releases.] Date: Tue, 05 Oct 2004 10:34:23 +0200 Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Message-ID: References: <1096291271.415813c757a26@imp6-q.free.fr> <20040927134714.GA20012@fencepost> <87hdphx91c.fsf@trouble.defaultvalue.org> <87655wswkv.fsf@trouble.defaultvalue.org> <871xgejdk7.fsf@trouble.defaultvalue.org> NNTP-Posting-Host: deer.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: sea.gmane.org 1096965325 31499 80.91.229.6 (5 Oct 2004 08:35:25 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@sea.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 5 Oct 2004 08:35:25 +0000 (UTC) Cc: Francesco Potorti` , Jerome Marant , emacs-devel@gnu.org Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Tue Oct 05 10:35:10 2004 Return-path: Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by deer.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 3.35 #1 (Debian)) id 1CEkms-0007vM-00 for ; Tue, 05 Oct 2004 10:35:10 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.33) id 1CEktV-0006uN-IJ for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Tue, 05 Oct 2004 04:42:01 -0400 Original-Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.33) id 1CEktF-0006uI-Si for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 05 Oct 2004 04:41:46 -0400 Original-Received: from exim by lists.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.33) id 1CEktE-0006u6-JQ for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 05 Oct 2004 04:41:44 -0400 Original-Received: from [199.232.76.173] (helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.33) id 1CEktE-0006u3-9P for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 05 Oct 2004 04:41:44 -0400 Original-Received: from [212.88.64.25] (helo=mail-relay.sonofon.dk) by monty-python.gnu.org with smtp (Exim 4.34) id 1CEkm8-0002jQ-DG for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 05 Oct 2004 04:34:24 -0400 Original-Received: (qmail 33784 invoked from network); 5 Oct 2004 08:34:18 -0000 Original-Received: from unknown (HELO kfs-l.imdomain.dk.cua.dk) (213.83.150.2) by 0 with SMTP; 5 Oct 2004 08:34:18 -0000 Original-To: Rob Browning In-Reply-To: <871xgejdk7.fsf@trouble.defaultvalue.org> (Rob Browning's message of "Mon, 04 Oct 2004 17:58:32 -0500") User-Agent: Gnus/5.11 (Gnus v5.11) Emacs/21.3.50 (gnu/linux) X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 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 Xref: main.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:27923 X-Report-Spam: http://spam.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.devel:27923 Rob Browning writes: > Francesco Potorti` writes: > >> While I want to make clear once again that this is a separate issue, >> which is completely independent from the previous one, yes, I agree >> that clearly indicating which releases are bugfix-only and which are >> not would be valuable. > > Actually now that I think about it, at least for those packaging > Emacs, it's somewhat critical. Right now Debian pacakges Emacs as > emacsXY where XY is the major number (i.e. emacs19, emacs21, etc.). > This is done under the assumption that only a change in XY signals the > potential for major breakage. > > The Debian Emacs Policy is set up based on that assumption so that we > can have multiple major versions of Emacs installed without breakage. > This was very important back during the transition from emacs19 to > emacs20 because there were many users who had code that they couldn't > afford to port immediately. It can also be important because it may > take a while for all of Debian's Emacs sub-packages (calc, bbdb, gnus, > psgml, ...) to be updated to work with the new major version of Emacs. IIRC, 20.6 -> 20.7 was a pretty major update. > > (In part, the Debian policy arranges things so that a given add-on > package can tell which Emacs "flavor" it's being installed for, and > can make decisions based on that if necessary.) > > If Emacs ever had a nominal minor release that was really a major > release (which was significantly incompatible in some way), it could > cause a painful transition. I know for sure that there are things in CVS emacs that breaks code which run ok on 21.3. Specifically this change has caused problems: ** `split-string' now includes null substrings in the returned list if the optional argument SEPARATORS is non-nil and there are matches for SEPARATORS at the beginning or end of the string. If SEPARATORS is nil, or if the new optional third argument OMIT-NULLS is non-nil, all empty matches are omitted from the returned list. This could be another argument for using 22.1 for the next release. Another example is the version of cua-mode that I distribute from my own web-site. It works fine with 21.3, but it does not run on CVS emacs due to changes in key parsing. Instead a cua-mode specifically developed for CVS emacs is included with CVS emacs, and the user _must_ remove the old cua-mode installation from the load path before using the one included with CVS emacs. I suppose there may be other cases like that, as CVS emacs include quite a number of new packages. -- Kim F. Storm http://www.cua.dk