From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Msuck: nntp://news.gmane.io/gmane.comp.tex.context/34261 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Ulf Martin Newsgroups: gmane.comp.tex.context Subject: Re: ConTeXt versioning model critique Date: Sat, 14 Apr 2007 17:03:56 +0200 Message-ID: <4620ED5C.2000003@web.de> References: <823522955.20070414142904@gmail.com> Reply-To: ulfmartin@web.de, mailing list for ConTeXt users NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: sea.gmane.org 1176563061 13849 80.91.229.12 (14 Apr 2007 15:04:21 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@sea.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 14 Apr 2007 15:04:21 +0000 (UTC) To: mailing list for ConTeXt users Original-X-From: ntg-context-bounces@ntg.nl Sat Apr 14 17:04:14 2007 Return-path: Envelope-to: gctc-ntg-context-518@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from ronja.vet.uu.nl ([131.211.172.88] helo=ronja.ntg.nl) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.50) id 1HcjnQ-0007GR-6s for gctc-ntg-context-518@m.gmane.org; Sat, 14 Apr 2007 17:04:12 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by ronja.ntg.nl (Postfix) with ESMTP id 0EE3220015; Sat, 14 Apr 2007 17:04:11 +0200 (CEST) Original-Received: from ronja.ntg.nl ([127.0.0.1]) by localhost (smtp.ntg.nl [127.0.0.1]) (amavisd-new, port 10024) with LMTP id 20222-03; Sat, 14 Apr 2007 17:04:05 +0200 (CEST) Original-Received: from ronja.vet.uu.nl (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by ronja.ntg.nl (Postfix) with ESMTP id F2C341FFF3; Sat, 14 Apr 2007 17:04:03 +0200 (CEST) Original-Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by ronja.ntg.nl (Postfix) with ESMTP id 3FF021FFF3 for ; Sat, 14 Apr 2007 17:04:02 +0200 (CEST) Original-Received: from ronja.ntg.nl ([127.0.0.1]) by localhost (smtp.ntg.nl [127.0.0.1]) (amavisd-new, port 10024) with LMTP id 20540-02 for ; Sat, 14 Apr 2007 17:03:57 +0200 (CEST) Original-Received: from fmmailgate03.web.de (fmmailgate03.web.de [217.72.192.234]) by ronja.ntg.nl (Postfix) with ESMTP id 905831FFF1 for ; Sat, 14 Apr 2007 17:03:57 +0200 (CEST) Original-Received: from smtp07.web.de (fmsmtp07.dlan.cinetic.de [172.20.5.215]) by fmmailgate03.web.de (Postfix) with ESMTP id 5BFFD73857F7 for ; Sat, 14 Apr 2007 17:03:57 +0200 (CEST) Original-Received: from [212.202.210.43] (helo=[192.168.1.2]) by smtp07.web.de with asmtp (TLSv1:AES256-SHA:256) (WEB.DE 4.108 #197) id 1HcjnB-0002tm-00 for ntg-context@ntg.nl; Sat, 14 Apr 2007 17:03:57 +0200 User-Agent: Thunderbird 1.5.0.10 (Macintosh/20070221) In-Reply-To: <823522955.20070414142904@gmail.com> X-Enigmail-Version: 0.94.2.0 X-Sender: ulfmartin@web.de X-Provags-ID: V01U2FsdGVkX1+Rcto8PQuR/MRKPgA/TTPjlQpbRUU01t8J5MS3 zKSwzXEr+l2pcnucdNiKiXIFsFjslhzqQNpdAXsMZBZNjQQmI9 GCOt9m/Og= X-Virus-Scanned: amavisd-new at ntg.nl X-BeenThere: ntg-context@ntg.nl X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.9 Precedence: list List-Id: mailing list for ConTeXt users List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: ntg-context-bounces@ntg.nl Errors-To: ntg-context-bounces@ntg.nl X-Virus-Scanned: amavisd-new at ntg.nl Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.comp.tex.context:34261 Archived-At: Vyatcheslav Yatskovsky schrieb: [...] > My experience of using open-source products (I'm best familiar with > Moodle) suggest that there should be overlapping cycles in > development: 1. Allocate new version number and start implementing > new features. Many things are broken at the moment and the version > becomes unusable for production purposes. 2. Stabilize this version > and make definite release (number x.x.). Now it can be used for > production. 3. Continue resolve bugs in this version AND perform Step > 1 IN PARALLEL. [...] > I think ConTeXt needs similar versioning model badly. Now it has > rather naive model (release dates) that doesn't help in deciding > about stability at all. > There is another reason for adopting a versioning model: legacy documents. I wonder how people (esp. at Pragma) currently deal with this. What happens if you have a ConTeXt doc from say 1997 that compiles into the resp. PDF with some ConTeXt version from that time but not today anymore? Which ConTeXt versions does one have to keep in order to be able to use such a document? (A good example for this kind of trouble seem to be the current issues with XeTeX, but I haven't followed this in detail -- but it kept me away from updating my ConTeXt installation since December...). Also remember that Knuth originally intended TeX to be an "eternal" formatting system (thus we have at least the option to expand all macros into plain TeX and keep that as the source file). This raises another question: is ConTeXt developed in an test driven way? I.e. are there test documents (including e.g. XML documents, bibligraphic references etc.) that have to pass comilation in order for changes to be published? If so, they would probably define a standard set of commands that could go into The ConTeXt Companion. Cheers Ulf