Re: ConTeXt versioning model critique

[Hans Hagen <pragma@wxs.nl>]

fdu.xiaojf@gmail.com wrote:
> Vyatcheslav Yatskovsky wrote:
>   
>> Dear Patrtic,
>>
>>   
>>     
>>> ... ConTeXt would probably stabilize, which IMHO is not a good thing.
>>> One thing I really love ConTeXt for is the speed new techniques are
>>> adopted (pdf features, luatex,...) One day we might have a ConTeXt
>>> MKII book for those who are afraid of swithing to pdftex2.
>>>     
>>>       
>> ConTeXt should be eventually stabilized so that someone can make some use of it. But, there is a way for rapid adopting of new techniques too.
>>
>> 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. 
>>     
in addition to taco's answer:

i seldom do big chances in the distributed version; actually, i always 
use the alpha/beta/whatever in production here;
>> 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.
>>     
you can consider the tex live versions the formal stable versions -)

fyi: the real experimental stuff is in mkiv code and only a few have 
this on their machines; it's not in alpha/beta releases at all

keep in mind that a more complex versioning model will put my/taco's 
time for 'paid' work even more under pressure
>> Moodle follows this model and I always wandered how smooth it was to migrate between releases. Everything is completely predictable.
>> Please, look at http://download.moodle.org/ to get the idea of their versioning.
>>
>> 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.
>>
>>   
>>     
>   I strongly agree that ConTeXt needs an improved versioning model.
>   
in principle you can take any version you want from the svn repos 
(nicely packages in zips btw)

Hans 

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