[Python-Dev] Re: Stability and change

[Guido van Rossum]

> I don't know if I understand what you're getting at here.  I think
> that 2.x.a -> 2.x.b should be relatively stable, certainly if x is
> odd.  Less so if x is even, but most of the time not dramatically
> so.

Ehm, haven't you got that backwards?  I did "uname -a" and my kernel
version is 2.4.9, which would suggest that even minor numbers are
stable for Linux.  And you just agreed that we should do the same for
Python.

> For this to work, a number of things have to happen.  First, the
> effort required to actually cut a release have to drop dramatically.

Yes, I think that our current process is a bit too heavy.  I guess we
should stop having a new webpage for each release, and the Doc, Mac
and Win releases could be completely from the source releases
(proceeding at their own, usually slower, pace).

> Even all the editing of files to replace 2.1.2 with 2.1.3 needs to
> be automated.

At least the LICENSE file should stop referring to a specific micro
version.  Lawyers be damned.

> (One way to accomplish this would be to have a standard patch file
> whose version numbers are twiddled, probably by a script, and which
> is then applied from the top of the source tree.)

You'd still have to watch it though.

> Getting from "let's cut a release tomorrow" to "2.1.4 is released"
> should not be much more labor than running "make dist" and sticking
> it on SF, at least on the Unix side of things.

Let's also forget about releasing via SF (at least for experimental
releases).  It's slow and cumbersome, and most people download from
python.org anyway.

> I don't know what's involved in making a Windows installer, but
> somebody besides Tim should be able to do that too.

I can do it in 5 minutes, but I don't bother to test it much.  Again,
for an experimental release that shouldn't be a big deal.

> I presume that over time, the Mac will look more and more like Unix
> for distribution purposes as fewer and fewer people use Mac OS <= 9.

Certainly they might not be interested in experimental releases much
(you have to conclude that people still running Mac OS <= 9 are not
early adopters ;-).

--Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)