[Python-Dev] Python 3.7.0 updated schedule: beta 5 cutoff in 24 hours

[Ned Deily]

Here's an update on the 3.7.0 endgame. As announced several days ago, we
made the difficult decision to hold back on 3.7.0rc1 due primarily to some
unexpected difficulties being seen downstream due to changes in how
docstrings were handled in 3.7.0 (details below). After some discussions
about various approaches, we agreed on a solution that should minimize
downstream impact without losing all the benefits of the existing 3.7
changes. Thanks to a lot of work over the long weekend by a number of
people that solution is now merged in the 3.7 branch. In parallel with
that, a number of people spent a lot of time looking at CI and buildbot
test failures, mostly intermittent ones. As a result, a number of actual
bugs were fixed and also problems with a number of tests were fixed which
should make the test suite more robust.

All this is good news. Primarily because of the important user-facing
changes made with the AST docstring API, I feel we need to do one more beta
release before we are ready for the release candidate. About 24 hours from
now, approximately 2018-05-30 18:00UTC, I plan to tag and start
manufacturing 3.7.0b5. This will be a short beta cycle, aimed mainly at
users of the AST API so they can recheck that their packages with 3.7.0.
Assuming all goes well, we will then plan to tag 3.7.0rc1 on 2018-06-11 and
3.7.0 final on 2017-06-27. I am also rescheduling 3.6.6rc1 and 3.6.6 final
to match the new 3.7.0 dates.

All fixes that have been merged into the 3.7 branch as of cutoff tomorrow
will be in 3.7.0b5 and fixes merged afterwards will be in 3.7.0rc1 up to
its cutoff point. After 3.7.0rc1 cutoff, 3.7 merges will appear in 3.7.1.
Please continue to exercise diligence when deciding whether a change is
appropriate for 3.7; as a rule of thumb, treat the 3.7 branch as if it were
already released and in maintenance mode. Please also pay attention to CI
test failures and buildbot test failures and see if you can help resolve
them.

I want to thank everyone who has been involved so far in helping us through
this endgame and who have given up their personal time to work on making
Python better. I, for one, am deeply grateful.

2018-05-30 3.7.0b5
2018-06-11 3.7.0rc1 & 3.6.6rc1
2018-06-27 3.7.0final & 3.6.6final

--Ned

On May 25, 2018, at 01:33, Ned Deily <nad at python.org> wrote:
> On May 24, 2018, at 03:23, Ned Deily <nad at python.org> wrote:
>> On May 23, 2018, at 09:13, Ned Deily <nad at python.org> wrote:
>>> On May 23, 2018, at 07:45, Serhiy Storchaka <storchaka at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> Is it possible to add yet one beta instead?
>>>> CI was broken for few latest days, tests are not passed on my computer still (and fail on some buildbots), updating What's New exposed new features which need additional testing (and maybe fixing or reverting), and I'm not comfortable about some changes which would be harder to fix after the release.
>>> it is possible but there's no point in doing either another beta or a release candidate until we understand and address the current blocking issues, like the major buildbot failures.  We have another 24 hours until rc1 was planned to be tagged.  Let's keep working on the known issues and we will make a decision then.
>> An update: thanks to a lot of effort over the past day by a number of
>> people (including Victor, Serhiy, Christian, Zach, and others I'm sure
>> I'm forgetting - my apologies), we have addressed all of the "release
>> blocker" issues and all but one of the persistent failures on the 3.7
>> stable buildbots. We should have the couple of remaining "deferred
>> blockers" including the remaining stable buildbots in green status by
>> later today. At that point, we will be ready to tag 3.7.0rc1 and begin
>> producing the release candidate artifacts.
> Further update: some good news and some changes.
> 
> The good news is that we have resolutions for all of the previous release and deferred blockers.  Thanks to a number of people for continuing to help get the remaining stable buildbot issues taken care of along with some lingering bugs. 
> 
> The not-quite-as-good news is that we have had more discussions about some unexpected incompatibilities that have shown up with downstream user testing with the AST docstrings changes in place (see bpo-32911).  We have had some previous discussions about the expected user impact and, earlier in the beta phase, I encouraged us to stay the course with the feature as implemented.  But I am now persuaded that we owe it to our users to take one more look at this to make sure we do not force them to make changes for 3.7 and then once again for 3.8.  More details are in the bug tracker issue; I strongly encourage those of us who have been involved with this to "vote" there on the proposal to either (A) proceed with the release of the current implementation in 3.7.0 or (B) revert the feature in 3.7.0 and retarget for 3.8.  Should the consensus be to revert (B), we will plan to have one more fast-track beta release (b5) prior to the release candidate, in order to allow downstream users to tes
> t their projects with the removal.  PLEASE, keep the discussion about this on the bug tracker (and not here!) and keep it brief so we can move forward quickly.  Because of the upcoming 3-day holiday weekend in some countries, I have set Tue 2018-05-29 18:00 UTC as a cutoff for "voting" but, if a clear consensus emerges earlier, we will likely cut the discussion short.  So chime in now on the bug tracker if you have a stake in this issue.
> 
> https://bugs.python.org/issue32911
> 
> This does mean that yesterday's "last chance" has been extended a bit, at most a few days.  I will let you know as soon as we have made a decision about the feature and will provide updated 3.7.0 schedule info at that time.


--
  Ned Deily
  nad at python.org -- []