[Ohrrpgce] Quarterly Stable Releases?

[James Paige]

I agree that potential backcompat problems also belongs in the category of
reaons-to-delay-a-release

Lets work for a 3-month release schedule. i won't fix it to specific
months, I'll just set up reminders for the next one 3 months after each
time we actually do a release.

I would like to still aim for an RC in the first week of August, if
possible.

I am not worried about finishing the hero mouse controls before
Dwimmercrafty. I don't expect them to be ready to move out of the spam menu
by then, but I don't feel the need to disable them any further either.

I actually feel pretty good about NPC pathfinding right now. Good enough to
remove the "EXPERIMENTAL" from the menu caption in the NPC editor. Are
there any other aspects of it you would like to see me clean up before
dwimmercrafty, especially in the avoiding-backcompat-problems department?

I know vehicle pathfinding and pushing-npcs still need work, but those are
both hero-pathfinding issues, not NPC pathfinding issues.

On Wed, Jul 12, 2017 at 10:35 PM, Ralph Versteegen <teeemcee at gmail.com>
wrote:

> I trust you saw my reply on SS already.
> My two comments were that first, I'm not sure about a strict schedule, and
> second that we should also hold up releases for anything that could cause
> backcompat problems. Although as you say, we're generally good about
> keeping unfinished features disabled or out of sight. For example right now
> I would refuse a release until pathfinding is better nailed down.
>
> Also, doing release candidates is a good. So the actual release date is
> whenever the RC is ready.
>
> Although we've been really active the last 7 months or so, we have
> sometimes gone couple month without doing any substantial work on the
> engine. Sometimes no commits for over a month. At our current activity
> level a 3 month release cycle could even be too long, while other times
> there wouldn't anything to release.
> Lets take a look..
> http://tmc.castleparadox.com/ohr/gitstats/activity.html
>
> And what if we want to release in less than 3 months after the last
> release? Sometimes we might want to release while things are stable, before
> starting on something destabilising.
>
> I was hoping that we would release Dwimmercrafty this month, but actually
> with only two weeks left even a RC at the end of the month may be unlikely.
>
> I don't remember if we've ever set a schedule for a release "X months from
> now" rather than just near-term ones like "2 weeks from now". I think being
> able to see from months away when we want the next release to occur will be
> very helpful, and that we can manage to stick to it.
>
> On 13 July 2017 at 06:40, James Paige <Bob at hamsterrepublic.com> wrote:
>
>> I mentioned this once already in a thread on on slimesalad, but I thought
>> this might be a better place to discuss the idea.
>>
>> I was thinking we should switch to a quarterly stable release schedule,
>> rather than a whenever-we-feel-everything-im
>> portant-that-we-wanted-to-add-has-been-finished schedule.
>>
>> We could do an August/November/February/May rotation, where I would
>> branch and upload the stable release some day on the first full week of
>> each of those months.
>>
>> I can set up a calendar alert that goes to this mailing list to warn us
>> when the next release is 1 and 2 weeks away, so we have time to wrap up
>> last minute stuff.
>>
>> The only things that would block a release would be critical or datalossy
>> bugs, or other substantial problems that would make a new stable release
>> measurably less stable than the previous one.
>>
>> Half finished features would not be an excuse to delay a release, because
>> honestly, this whole program is a big beautiful muddy wad of half-finished
>> features, and it always has been and it always will be, and I wouldn't have
>> it any other way ;)
>>
>> I think we have actually been doing a pretty good job of keeping the
>> nightly wip versions safe and stable, keeping the unfinished stuff more or
>> less comfined to the "spam" menu, so I think this change is pretty low-risk.
>>
>> Thoughts?
>>
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>>
>
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