[Distutils] Release mechanics and other bureaucracy

[Greg Ward]

Hi all --

those of you who were at IPC8 (or follow python-dev) are probably aware
of the suddenly accelerated release schedule for Python 1.6.  The major
consequence of this for me (and this SIG) is that Distutils must be in
full working order *very* soon now, or I will have a big Dutch guy named
Guido out for my code (yipes!).  Consequently, I have to spend as much
time as possible writing a) code, b) developer documentation, c) user
documentation, and d) test suites.

You'll note that doing releases doesn't fall anywhere on that list.
This means that no matter how many bugs are fixed, or however many new
features are added, there probably won't be another official Distutils
release until 1.0, which will be the run-up to inclusion in Python 1.6.
(Paul Dubois tried to convince me -- if I understood properly -- that I
should call that version Distutils 1.6 instead of 0.2.  It strikes me
that both are equally silly, so I've decided to split the difference and
call it Distutils 1.0.)  I expect that Python 1.6 will ship with
Distutils 1.0.x, where x is the number of tries it takes before we get
it right.

Now, I do have a very simple release mechanism that I've been using
since before Distutil 0.1 was released: code snapshots.  This is done
with a little P**l script that throws all the current code into a
tarball and puts it on the Distutils-SIG web page.  No documentation is
included, no files are cvs-tagged, I don't even ensure that everything
is checked in.  This was mainly intended as a convenience for people who 
don't have CVS but want to stay on top of things.

So, two questions for the audience: would you like to see versions 0.2,
0.3 etc. that gradually incorporate the new features.  (It is *very*
unlikely that any amount of howling will sway me on this; it took me one
full day to release 0.1.3, what with checkins and doc updates and all,
and I'm not eager to throw away many more days to do that.  I'm just
curious to hear how many people will be put off by this.)  And, more
importantly, would you like to see periodic code snapshots -- or are
those of you who actually have the code and work on it just as happy
using CVS?

Please reply to me personally (gward@python.net); no need to clutter the 
sig with meta-issues.

        Greg
-- 
Greg Ward - all-purpose geek                            gward@python.net
http://starship.python.net/~gward/
Know thyself.  If you need help, call the CIA.