[Python-Dev] PEP 407: New release cycle and introducing long-term support versions

[Stephen J. Turnbull]

Antoine Pitrou writes:

 > You claim people won't use stable releases because of not enough
 > alphas?  That sounds completely unrelated.

Surely testing is related to user perceptions of stability.  More
testing helps reduce bugs in released software, which improves user
perception of stability, encouraging them to use the software in
production.  Less testing, then, will have the opposite effect.  But
you understand that theory, I'm sure.  So what do you mean to say?

 > (you can produce flimsy software with many alphas, too)

The problem is the converse: can you produce Python-release-quality
software with much less pre-release testing than current feature
releases get?

 > Sure, and we think it is [possible to do that] :)

Given the relative risk of rejecting PEP 407 and me being wrong (the
status quo really isn't all that bad AFAICS), vs. accepting PEP 407
and you being wrong, I don't find a smiley very convincing.  In fact,
I don't find the PEP itself convincing -- and I'm not the only one.

We'll see what Barry and Georg have to say.