On Tue, 31 Jul 2012 22:46:52 +0200
"David Nadlinger" <see@klickverbot.at> wrote:

> On Tuesday, 31 July 2012 at 15:54:18 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
> > I thought a good thing to do is use branching for releases, and that we can start doing that without much difficulty. No?
> 
> I think doing that would be a good idea. Some people might prefer fancier branching schemes, given that handling them is much more painless with Git than with SVN, but this doesn't prevent us from implementing release branches as a first step.
> 
> What's also important from a »million users« point of view is that the origins of every release artifact is traceable, both internally and for users, both in terms of source code and tools/commands to prepare the archives. This also applies to beta releases: Please, PLEASE let's start to properly name them (dmd-2.060-beta1.zip) along with tagging the respective revisions in Git and keeping the old versions around, instead of just overwriting a single archive with unknown (and routinely broken) contents. Otherwise things are bound to become chaotic once more than us 15-ish people actually test the betas.
> 
> Which reminds me: We really need to announce the beta releases more publicly, i.e. in the forums, on the website, on Twitter, IRC, etc. Once a release is out, we can't take it back, but I'm sure there are many enthusiastic D users who wouldn't mind running their projects/test suites against the compiler once before the official release if they were only asked to. It's easy to forget if you are subscribed to all the mailing lists, but the visibility of an upcoming release is almost zero until it is out of the door. Yes, we have [dmd-beta], but it takes extra effort to subscribe to it – more people are subscribed to digitalmars.D.announce via the mail gateway then to the low-volume beta list!
> 

+1 ALL

Along those lines, I really think dmd-beta should me moved to the newsgroups. Granted, I am biased since I hate mailing lists. But moving it to NG means:

- Consistency with the rest of the D traffic.
- Easier to find/discover/subscribe.
- Easier to follow the branches of discussion: Not everyone's email
  client does threading, but it's standard on NG readers.
- We get forum.dlang.org integration and the associated visibility and
  google/bing-ability basically for free.

On Tuesday, July 31, 2012 18:55:33 Nick Sabalausky wrote:
> Along those lines, I really think dmd-beta should me moved to the newsgroups. Granted, I am biased since I hate mailing lists. But moving it to NG means:
> 
> - Consistency with the rest of the D traffic.
> - Easier to find/discover/subscribe.
> - Easier to follow the branches of discussion: Not everyone's email
> client does threading, but it's standard on NG readers.
> - We get forum.dlang.org integration and the associated visibility and
> google/bing-ability basically for free.

I didn't realize that beta was any different from the rest (I always use the mailing list). It _is_ part of forum.dlang.org already though.

- Jonathan M Davis

On 01-08-2012 01:05, Jonathan M Davis wrote:
> On Tuesday, July 31, 2012 18:55:33 Nick Sabalausky wrote:
>> Along those lines, I really think dmd-beta should me moved to the
>> newsgroups. Granted, I am biased since I hate mailing lists. But moving
>> it to NG means:
>>
>> - Consistency with the rest of the D traffic.
>> - Easier to find/discover/subscribe.
>> - Easier to follow the branches of discussion: Not everyone's email
>> client does threading, but it's standard on NG readers.
>> - We get forum.dlang.org integration and the associated visibility and
>> google/bing-ability basically for free.
>
> I didn't realize that beta was any different from the rest (I always use the
> mailing list). It _is_ part of forum.dlang.org already though.
>
> - Jonathan M Davis
>

Yeah, but in e.g. Thunderbird you get a nifty overview of lists on the NG in a side bar which makes for super easy navigation.

-- 
Alex Rønne Petersen
alex@lycus.org
http://lycus.org

On Tuesday, 31 July 2012 at 23:06:00 UTC, Jonathan M Davis wrote:
> On Tuesday, July 31, 2012 18:55:33 Nick Sabalausky wrote:
>> Along those lines, I really think dmd-beta should me moved to the
>> newsgroups. Granted, I am biased since I hate mailing lists. But moving
>> it to NG means:
>> 
>> - Consistency with the rest of the D traffic.
>> - Easier to find/discover/subscribe.
>> - Easier to follow the branches of discussion: Not everyone's email
>> client does threading, but it's standard on NG readers.
>> - We get forum.dlang.org integration and the associated visibility and
>> google/bing-ability basically for free.
>
> I didn't realize that beta was any different from the rest (I always use the
> mailing list). It _is_ part of forum.dlang.org already though.
>
> - Jonathan M Davis

But you can't make replies, just like to the phobos/druntime/internals lists. I'd say that likely prevents people from giving feedback about the beta; it has a high barrier to entry.

On Wednesday, August 01, 2012 03:00:51 Kapps wrote:
> But you can't make replies, just like to the phobos/druntime/internals lists.

Really? That should definitely be fixed then.

- Jonathan M Davis

On 2012-08-01 04:39, Jonathan M Davis wrote:

> Really? That should definitely be fixed then.

Yeah, you can't post via the newsgroup interface either (news.gmane.org).

-- 
/Jacob Carlborg

On 2012-08-01 00:55, Nick Sabalausky wrote:

> +1 ALL
>
> Along those lines, I really think dmd-beta should me moved to the
> newsgroups. Granted, I am biased since I hate mailing lists. But moving
> it to NG means:
>
> - Consistency with the rest of the D traffic.
> - Easier to find/discover/subscribe.
> - Easier to follow the branches of discussion: Not everyone's email
>    client does threading, but it's standard on NG readers.
> - We get forum.dlang.org integration and the associated visibility and
>    google/bing-ability basically for free.

I completely agree. I think Walter once said it was a mailing list to keep it more hidden.

-- 
/Jacob Carlborg

On Tue, 2012-07-31 at 01:10 -0700, Walter Bright wrote: […]
> 
> We're already using Git.

I will be "robust".

You may be making use of Git commands but you are still using Subversion, you are not using Git.

> > To be honest there is never a reason to freeze a repository, even with Subversion, and definitely not with Git, Mercurial and Bazaar. With these latter DVCSs, branching and cherry-picking, means that you just branch from master to create the branch for the release. Whether this becomes a full-blown maintenance branch or just a temporary release branch that merges back post release is a fundamental question of process on which there are opinions. Go has a "there will only ever be the default branch" model,
> 
> Which is what we currently have with dmd on Git.

I don't see how you can be doing a freeze-free process if you declare a freeze. There are fundamental and crucial differences between master HEAD in Git and trunk in Subversion. This whole thread is about not using Subversion trunk thinking when using Git master HEAD.

To say more would be to repeat what has already been repeated.

-- 
Russel. ============================================================================= Dr Russel Winder      t: +44 20 7585 2200   voip: sip:russel.winder@ekiga.net 41 Buckmaster Road    m: +44 7770 465 077   xmpp: russel@winder.org.uk London SW11 1EN, UK   w: www.russel.org.uk  skype: russel_winder

On Tue, 2012-07-31 at 21:45 +0200, David Nadlinger wrote: […]
> No. The Go guys also use a separate Mercurial branch for preparing releases, while development continues on the main branch.

Just to note that Mercurial and Git differ crucially in how to work with branches. The Go process is a Mercurial one that does not transfer well to Git.

-- 
Russel. ============================================================================= Dr Russel Winder      t: +44 20 7585 2200   voip: sip:russel.winder@ekiga.net 41 Buckmaster Road    m: +44 7770 465 077   xmpp: russel@winder.org.uk London SW11 1EN, UK   w: www.russel.org.uk  skype: russel_winder

On Tue, 2012-07-31 at 11:38 -0400, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote: […]
> You can't suggest a revolution - only carry it through. But I'm a bit confused. We already use git, and the idea is to use it better. What's the thing with subversion etc? Where's the revolution?

As has been noted many time now I'm afraid, Git is currently being used as though it were Subversion. Subversion mind set is being applied when using Git commands.  In changing from Subversion to Git all mindsets as well as processes need to be changed. The revolution started with the actual repository move, but sadly it was not carried through by amending the processes.

[…]
> Agreed. But that means we'd need to use branching and tagging better, not to "revolutionize" things.

Well actually there is an element of using branching and tagging at all. Branching and tagging in Subversion is cheap in the database and very expensive for clients. Worse merging still remains a problem for Subversion hence branching is a tool of last resort. Branching, tagging and merging are cheap for Git, but there needs to be a move from CVCS thinking to DVCS thinking on the part of those people with write permission to the mainline.

[…]
> To be honest I think we've reaped a lot of low-hanging fruit so far. Improving the process will bring some marginal efficiency improvements, but adding more good committers and contributors would be much more impactful. As far as I can tell there's not (there used to be) a hoard of disgruntled contributors unable to push things forward.

This paragraph appears (apologies if I have it wrong) to highlight part of the problem. The way you speak of committers and contributors indicates Subversion hangover.  DVCS is about having reviewers of changesets, and gatekeepers who make the merges into the mainline. The D process has much of this already but at the core the approach to the mainline is CVCS not DVCS mindset.

> > If there isn't a new process in place immediately 2.060 is released and master tagged, this I think this would have to be considered a "red flag". The corollary is, I guess, to delay releasing 2.060 till you have a new process as well as the release being ready to ship.
> 
> Why do you think that would be a good decision? There's a lot of value added right now and a lot of pent-up demand for the many bug fixes and improvements.

If the road to 2.061 starts without the new process mostly in place, the danger is there will a mainline freeze to put out 2.061.

> > Of course none of this stops people preparing evolutions of the mainline now even during a mainline repository freeze, this is DVCS / Git and so Subversion trunk rules just do not apply!
> 
> Sure. I agree that should (and can easily) change. But I fail to get the overarching theme of your post - I just see agitation, agitation, agitation, but no coherence.

Sorry but if you haven't got the points already, then my points are more than valid.

Anyway, it is clear you are asking me to shut up on this topic so this will be my last post on it.

Back to Java :-((

-- 
Russel. ============================================================================= Dr Russel Winder      t: +44 20 7585 2200   voip: sip:russel.winder@ekiga.net 41 Buckmaster Road    m: +44 7770 465 077   xmpp: russel@winder.org.uk London SW11 1EN, UK   w: www.russel.org.uk  skype: russel_winder