On 2026-04-03 09:17, Michael Van Canneyt via fpc-devel wrote:
I consider it by no means "normal".
But verifying takes time and we're dramatically short on manpower.
That does seem like an awful lot of changes (improvements and fixes)
just sitting there in limbo.
If it's burnout, I fully understand that too. I went through that, along
with a career change, and took a six-year break from the fpGUI project.
Recently I returned, and I felt so motivated to complete my outstanding
to-do list. I managed to do more in these last six months than I did in
the previous six years!
I must say, I was also very surprised after I returned to see no FPC
releases in five years—not even a fixes release!
When you say "short on manpower," are you referring to those developers
who have commit access but aren't doing code reviews? Or are you
suggesting that the community is not helping?
If the latter, how can I (we) help? I'm more than happy to help with
reviewing, but I don't want to do that if FPC developers will simply
ignore such 1st-pass reviews regardless.
On a side note:
---------------
One thing I've realised with fpGUI and PasBuild is that I used to go 1–2
years between releases (in the case of fpGUI) because I wanted
everything perfect. But I suffered from feature creep—"just this one
more feature," then that, then another. The reality is that hardly
anyone tests "in-development" branches, so the feedback cycle was near
zero. I always had to create "maint" releases too, which was even more
work for me.
I've since switched to time-based releases. Think of it as a "train
schedule" release cycle. Freeze a release branch one or two months
before the release is due. Whatever features didn't make it in before
the freeze will just have to wait for the next train—say, in six months
when the next release happens.
This also means more people will use the releases, leading to wider
testing and better feedback. (Lean on the community!) If feedback isn't
great, improvements will come in the next six-month cycle. If a critical
issue pops up—which should be rare, assuming the test suite caught the
big ones—then make a hot-fix release just to patch that specific issue.
We are all developers here, so releases don't even need installers or
anything fancy. Simply a source archive or a Git release tag with a
README explaining how to build it yourself.
Regards,
- Graeme -
_______________________________________________
fpc-devel maillist - [email protected]
https://lists.freepascal.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fpc-devel
