Re: Release Plans

[Rik]

On 09/25/2013 06:01 PM, address@hidden wrote:
> Message: 5
> Date: Wed, 25 Sep 2013 17:09:04 -0400
> From: "Michael D. Godfrey" <address@hidden>
> To: "John W. Eaton" <address@hidden>
> Cc: address@hidden
> Subject: Re: Release Plans
> Message-ID: <address@hidden>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
>
> On 09/25/2013 04:35 PM, John W. Eaton wrote:
>> > I'm leaning toward the first option but I'd like to know what other
>> > people think.
> John,
>
> I have been biting my tongue over the fact that the next release
> has been slipping away.  This is not apparently due to lack of work.
> Rather, the reverse: so many important changes have been going
> on that "tomorrow has always looked, and proved to be, better
> than today."
>
> So, without any qualification, I vote for a release as soon as
> possible.  I routinely use the current devel system for "real" work
> and have not found any significant problems lately.
> I am quite sure that the current 3.6.4 release would even compile
> some of my code.
>
> I would even advocate making FLTK the default graphics system.
> This should be made clear to users, with the comment that if
> necessary they can switch back to gnuplot, or modify their code
> a bit to get what they want with FLTK.  And, since users can choose
> whether or not to use the GUI, the way it is now is just fine.  The
> fact that it can (will) be made better tomorrow is not relevant.
9/26/13

I'm rather old-fashioned in that I think software should be tested and
working before it is released.  The modern paradigm, a la Chrome/Firefox,
is to release stuff, broken or not, and any broken bits can be fixed soon
because the next release is only 6 weeks away.

My feeling is that the GUI introduction should really be a splash which
means switching over to OpenGL as the default plotting engine and having Qt
handles to match the rest of the GUI.  If we do a "soft open" then I don't
think we get the publicity bump and I think it will make fundraising more
difficult as we will be asking them to donate for something which only half
works and only partially meets their needs.

That said, we have an enormous backlog of good features which need to get
out.  I always thought that we were going to do an intermediate 3.8 release
anyways so I will put that forward again.  Why not do a quick release now,
which still treats the GUI as experimental, and a 4.0 release whenever
JHandles have been incorporated?

--Rik